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Keywords: Good Friday

  • AUSTRALIA

    Beyond the Liesel Jones fat spat

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 27 July 2012
    7 Comments

    The brutal media critique of swimmer Liesel Jones on the eve of the Olympics was typical of society's tendency to chew up and spit out its heroes once it deems them to be no longer useful. If it dented her confidence, Jones may have taken strength from Australia's first ever international sports champion.

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  • EDUCATION

    50 years since Australia's 'most poisonous debate'

    • John Warhurst
    • 09 July 2012
    10 Comments

    Labor speechwriter Graham Freudenberg observed that ‘the oldest, deepest, most poisonous debate in Australia has been about government aid to church schools’. The most dramatic episode in the history of church state relations in Australia was the Goulburn schools strike, which took place 50 years ago this month.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Euthanasing the disabled

    • Moira Byrne Garton
    • 29 June 2012
    6 Comments

    Earlier this month a Canadian Supreme Court effectively legalised physician-assisted euthanasia. While there is a general perception that those opposed to euthanasia do so on religious grounds, many people with disabilities oppose euthanasia because they believe it is bad policy that denies their right to live. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    News and entertainment a difficult mix

    • Michael Mullins
    • 25 June 2012
    6 Comments

    Many Fairfax readers will miss the familiarity and romance of print. But more disturbing is the likelihood that the dignified authority of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age mastheads will be lost when the more ephemeral, entertainment-oriented electronic edition is all we have.

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  • EDUCATION

    No easy cure for 'cost disease' in Australian schools

    • Dean Ashenden
    • 07 May 2012
    13 Comments

    The Productivity Commission Schools Workforce report released on Friday does contain evidence of the dire state of productivity in Australian schools, but it is largely neutered. It's as if the Commission was anxious to avoid stating too plainly a disease for which it can suggest only palliatives.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A tale of two refugee movement speeches

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 01 May 2012
    23 Comments

    Tony Abbott did not mention the term 'human rights' in his 3000 word speech to the Institute of Public Affairs on Friday. 'Illegal' appeared 11 times and 'asylum' once. In February, Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees gave a 3000 word speech to the Lowy Institute. A search of that speech finds 'human rights' five times, 'asylum' 21 times and no use of 'illegal'. 

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  • RELIGION

    Easter in detention

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 06 April 2012
    13 Comments

    Over many years I have celebrated Christmas and Easter in places where people are locked up — in refugee camps, prisons and detention centres. To be in these places at such times is hard. It is also a privilege.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Infanticide and the spectre of eugenics

    • Michael Mullins
    • 05 March 2012
    25 Comments

    It's alarming that two Melbourne academics are arguing for the legalisation of infanticide. It is worth recalling that in 1939 academic argument led to the Victorian Parliament legalising eugenics, of which infanticide is a form. Fortunately it was never practised due to embarrassment over the Holocaust.

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  • MEDIA

    Feminism, Greer and Tankard Reist

    • Lyn Bender
    • 08 February 2012
    33 Comments

    Germaine Greer has said she did not want to be a high priestess of feminism. What may have been extracted from her views and the constant evolution of feminism has been diminished by being reduced to a formula such as that used to denounce Melinda Tankard Reist.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Best of 2011: Thousands of men and no groping

    • Trish Madigan
    • 06 January 2012
    3 Comments

    One website proudly proclaimed that Egypt's protests were a safe space for women. In fact women were on the frontline. They were part of a long history of women who have struggled for recognition of their human rights in Egypt. Published 15 February 2011

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  • RELIGION

    Missing Christopher Hitchens

    • Frank Brennan
    • 20 December 2011
    25 Comments

    We'll miss his intellectual rigour, self-deprecating humour, unpredictable political perspectives, unforgiving character evaluations, and iconoclastic appetite for scrutiny and transparency — even those of us appalled by his vicious and discriminatory anti-religious bigotry. 

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  • RELIGION

    A Catholic Social Teaching perspective on the Intervention

    • Frank Brennan
    • 22 November 2011
    1 Comment

    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.

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