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Keywords: Witnesses

  • RELIGION

    Costello the great Jesuit teacher

    • Frank Brennan
    • 21 October 2013
    1 Comment

    'With Em, we were only one handshake away from the great movers, shakers and events in the Church and the world. Those of us who lived with him were used to history lessons at breakfast when we would be schooled in the shortcomings of the popes, the modest breeding of papal nuncios, and the march of folly of great world leaders.' Frank Brennan's homily for the late Fr Emmet P. Costello SJ, St Mary's North Sydney, 21 October 2013.

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  • RELIGION

    Church-state issues and the Royal Commission

    • Frank Brennan
    • 04 September 2013
    2 Comments

    'The Towards Healing protocol is not a substitute for criminal prosecution of sex abusers. Nor is it a cheap alternative to civil liability for damages. It is a procedure available by choice to victims in addition to criminal prosecution of perpetrators or pursuit of civil damages for negligence by church authorities.' Full text from Frank Brennan's address to the Canon Law Society of Australia and New Zealand 47th Annual Conference, 4 September 2013 at Hotel Grand Chancellor Adelaide on Hindley.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Australia complicit in PNG's Bougainville blight

    • Ellena Savage
    • 02 August 2013
    1 Comment

    Even more disturbing than PNG's poverty and gender-based violence is its military and police human rights record. Evidence of abuses in the form of a military blockade, massacres, rape and torture during the Bougainville Crisis of the 1990s are well-documented. The history of this crisis reveals PNG as incapable of caring for its most vulnerable citizens due to systemic corruption.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Lives broken by false abuse claims

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 23 May 2013

    Whereas The Hunt portrayed a small town gripped by paranoia after a sensitive and imaginative child's confused comments are taken out of context, in Broken the accusations are more sinister, used by a young girl to deflect consequences from herself, in full knowledge of the damage that her claims will cause to the accused.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The everyday courage of carers

    • Helen Sage
    • 03 April 2013
    14 Comments

    In 1999 my 22-year-old daughter sustained a head injury in a motor vehicle accident. She now contends with the use of only one normally functioning limb amid multiple disabilities. The 'support' provided by family carers is said to save the nation billions of dollars annually. But carers give much more than support.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Love and euthanasia

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 21 February 2013
    4 Comments

    There are moments that highlight the misery of Anne's condition, the slights rendered against her dignity. She awakens in a puddle of brown urine; labours excruciatingly over every syllable she speaks, but is misunderstood; howls in pain as she is showered. Her husband can do little but tend dutifully to her needs. Is it enough?

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Vegemite interrogation on the Prague night train

    • Anne M. Carson
    • 19 February 2013

    Cash-strapped, post midnight. Transport police rifle our rucksacks, suspicious of backpackers. One prises open my Kodak canister, sniffs, says 'ach!', fires Czech questions at me. 'Vegemite fur frustuck,' I say, trying to convince Vegemite is not hash resin. I smile the smile of someone who doesn't know how bad it can get.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Asylum seekers stiffed by election year spin

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 11 February 2013
    16 Comments

    The ad hoc nature of arrangements for asylum seekers in Nauru and PNG reveal that priorities are being determined by election dates rather than respect for human dignity and international human rights laws. The latest Coalition idea to interdict boats from Sri Lanka outside our territorial waters and send them back is particularly ill-considered.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Best of 2012: The many sins of Brian Doyle

    • Brian Doyle
    • 07 January 2013
    1 Comment

    I missed my cousin's funeral because I had weekend plans with a girlfriend that I was not man enough to break; and this beloved cousin was a nun. Wednesday 16 May 

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  • RELIGION

    Mabo 20 years on

    • Frank Brennan
    • 29 October 2012

    'Though land rights and self-determination provide no utopia for the contemporary indigenous Australian community, they have belatedly put right an ancient wrong. The cost and inconvenience are unavoidable. Terra nullius is no longer an option.' Full text is from Fr Frank Brennan's keynote speech at the Central Queensland Law Association Conference, Mercure Capricorn Resort, Yeppoon, 27 October 2012.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    International Criminal Court's African bias

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 13 July 2012
    3 Comments

    On Tuesday, the International Criminal Court sentenced Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo for his use of child soldiers. It is the first sentence handed down by an institution regarded by many as a political front. As one Congolese official noted, 'You'll never see an American pass before the ICC. All of the accused are Africans.'

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Divorce, sexuality and the cult of self-improvement

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 12 July 2012
    2 Comments

    The therapist's office is a place where frankness is imperative, and self-examination an artform. Among the current batch of patients are a displaced Indian widower, and a gay teen with a self-destructive streak. The audience is left to ponder whether the doctor or the patient is the more deeply disturbed.

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