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Text from the 4th Annual Gerald Ward Lecture 'How do we design a dignified welfare safety net without becoming a Nanny State? — Lessons from Catholic Social Teaching', presented by Fr Frank Brennan SJ at the National Library of Australia, 18 November 2011.
I had time to spare, so I grabbed a bite to eat and found a bench in the park opposite the cathedral. I was approached by four young Aboriginal people. I told them I'd come for a funeral: 'You might have known him, Father Mick Hayes?' 'He, that tall grey one? He knew me when I was a little fella.'
Fr Frank Brennan's address to the Melbourne College of Divinity Centenary Conference, Trinity College, University of Melbourne, 6 July 2010.
We are often quick to blame government ministers. In the case of Bill Shorten, Stephen Conroy and Peter Garrett, they may emerge with tarnished reputations. But in rushing to criticise our ministers we often let ourselves off the hook too easily.
In Kafka's 'The Penal Colony', a brutal, archaic killing device is valued more highly than the law it enforces. As members of the Bali 9 continue to languish, we ask whether 'because the law says so' is sufficient reason for them to die.
'Lee and Christine Rush are your average Ozzie couple, except that their teenage son Scott is on death row in Bali having been convicted of being a hapless drug mule. It will not go down well on the streets of Jakarta if Australians are baying for the blood of the Bali bombers one month and then pleading to save our sons and daughters the next month.'
The text is from Professor Frank Brennan's 2008 Institute of Justice Studies Oration from 22 May 2008.
The power of the State can be exercised capriciously and unaccountably when the “Don’t ask; don’t tell” approach to government is immune from parliamentary, judicial or public scrutiny. It is the task of lawyers to make it more difficult for politicians to take this approach.
There are times when we Australians get the balance between national interest and individual liberty wrong, especially when the individual is a member of a powerless minority. One way of improving the balance is including the judiciary in the calculus, as has now happened in the United Kingdom and New Zealand.
Flawed process and flawed substance characterise the Northern Territory emergency response legislation, which has been rushed through Parliament in the past fortnight. It raises major questions about whether our parliamentary processes ensure adequate scrutiny of poposed legislation.
Last week's conscience vote on human embryo cloning exposed Senators to a level of public scrutiny seldom, unparalleled in normal debates. Many felt exposed and vulnerable, weighed down by the decisions before them.
25-36 out of 41 results.