Keywords: Emergency Assistance
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AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 24 February 2014
5 Comments
'Three decades on, Queensland once again has a premier who finds some political advantage in skewing the balance between law and order, impugning the integrity and vocation of the legal profession. He has described defence lawyers as hired guns.' Professor Frank Brennan SJ addresses the Queensland Law Society Dinner, 30 years on from his book Too Much Order with Too Little Law.
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AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 02 November 2013
7 Comments
'There have been innumerable post-mortems and words of advice as to how the party with new structures, election rules, and policies can pick itself up, dust off, and win the next election. Sadly some of those post-mortems have come with more coatings of spite and loathing. It is no part of my role in the public square as a Catholic priest to offer such advice.' Frank Brennan's address to the Bathurst Panthers Club, 2 November 2013.
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AUSTRALIA
The WA Coroner's inquest into the sinking of SIEV 358 is shaping up to be the most thorough public examination ever of Australian rescue-at-sea protocols and practice in respect of assisting people on Suspected Irregular Entry Vessels. The Counsel Assisting the Coroner suggested that Australian Maritime Safety Authority's major focus for the first 11 hours of the incident had been to transfer the operation to Indonesia.
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AUSTRALIA
The sinking of the asylum seeker vessel SIEV 358 encapsulates key questions as to why these tragedies too often happen at interfaces between Australia's border protection system and maritime search and rescue system, and the under-resourced Indonesian maritime search and rescue system. Hopefully next week's public inquest by the WA Coroner comes up with some answers.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 18 March 2013
3 Comments
Change is upon the Church. Just recall the scene when the new pope emerged on the Vatican balcony. He appeared with none of the papal trimmings of office, and did not once did he refer to the papacy. Could something of this new papal style help Catholics engage more creatively with their fellow citizens? Text from Frank Brennan's lecture 'How Can the Catholic Church Contribute to a Better Culture for Life?'
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AUSTRALIA
- Susan Metcalfe
- 01 March 2013
8 Comments
The deaths at sea of nearly 100 Rohingya asylum seekers is a stark reminder that Australia needs to step up its efforts to improve regional protection for asylum seekers. If we are genuinely committed to saving lives at sea, we must bring more to the table than words and Pacific island diversion policies.
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AUSTRALIA
- Evan Ellis
- 28 November 2012
9 Comments
The pack mentality that led military personnel to ingore instances of rape seemed also to be at play on the Melbourne bus where a French woman suffered a tirade of abuse while most passengers sat silently by. An American journalist has argued that a peer group's creation of a social norm of human kindness could be the most effective way to encourage defiance to an immoral order.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 17 October 2012
1 Comment
Full text from Fr Frank Brennan SJ's address 'Advancing human rights in Australia — lessons from the National Human Rights Consultation' at the 'Human Rights Matters!' conference marking Anti-Poverty Week 2012. 17 October 2012, Cardinal Knox Centre, St Patricks Cathedral, Melbourne.
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AUSTRALIA
- Tony Kevin
- 05 September 2012
14 Comments
Australian maritime safety and border protection authorities could have saved the lives of most of the people on the boat that made two distress calls by telephone to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority early last Wednesday. Instead they passed the responsibility to Indonesia, which has none of the sophisticated resources and technologies that Australia uses - when it wants to - to locate and intercept incoming unauthorised boats.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 21 August 2012
Text is from Fr Frank Brennan SJ's opening keynote address at the Higher Degree Research Retreat, Rydges Eaglehawk, Canberra, 4 August 2012.
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AUSTRALIA
- Tony Kevin
- 16 August 2012
8 Comments
A boat disappeared on 28 June, the 67 people on board presumed dead. The usual dysfunctional patterns of official behaviour followed: tardy response to families, insensitive language, political exploitation. Hopefully the Houston report's quiet hints that all is not well might lead to a more compassionate and timely response in future.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 26 June 2012
18 Comments
Last week’s tragedy of another mass loss of life at sea between Indonesia and Christmas Island focuses our minds yet again on an intractable public policy problem for Australia – our search for a coherent, workable and moral asylum policy.
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