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Keywords: Legal Aid

  • AUSTRALIA

    The public, the Church, and asylum seekers

    • Frank Brennan
    • 13 August 2013
    1 Comment

    'Like many Australians, I had hoped that the dastardly plan announced on 19 July would stop the boats in the short term, as a stop-gap measure. It is dismaying to learn that appropriate consultations had not occurred with Indonesia with the result that the very people who were to receive the shock and awe message are yet to receive it. There’s only one thing worse than shock and awe; that’s shock and awe that doesn’t work because you haven’t done your homework.' 43rd Barry Marshall Memorial Lecture, Trinity College Theological School, 14 August 2013.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Corruption and other stumbling blocks to PNG solution

    • Walter Hamilton
    • 26 July 2013
    11 Comments

    A constitutional challenge in PNG to the resettlement agreement could quickly destroy any disincentive value as far as people smugglers are concerned. Under the country's constitution, foreigners may not be detained unless they have broken the law in entering the country. Since the asylum seekers are being sent there against their will they cannot be held to have entered illegally.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A legal tax rort is still a rort

    • Michael Mullins
    • 22 July 2013
    11 Comments

    The salary packaging and car manufacturing industries resented not being consulted about changes to fringe benefits tax rules. But as treasurer Chris Bowen said when he shrugged off the criticism: 'This is a matter of the integrity of the tax system.' A tax system that makes compromises with sectional interests is by definition corrupt and turning its back on the common good that it has been set up to serve.

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  • RELIGION

    Why I still love the Catholic Church

    • Frank Brennan
    • 15 July 2013
    6 Comments

    Sean Faircloth, a US director of one of the Dawkins Institutes committed to atheism, raised what has already become a hoary old chestnut, the failure of Francis when in Argentina during the Dirty Wars to adequately defend his fellow Jesuits who were detained and tortured by unscrupulous soldiers. Being a Jesuit, I thought I was peculiarly well situated to respond. I confess to having got a little carried away.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Pragmatic answers to the asylum seeker question

    • Frank Brennan
    • 27 June 2013
    10 Comments

    'I want to outline the contours for a better approach — better than forcibly turning around boats, better than transporting people to Nauru and Manus Island or to Malaysia to join an asylum queue of 100,000 or permitting people to reside in the Australian community but without work rights and with inadequate welfare provision.' Frank Brennan speaks at the Australian Catholic University National Asylum Summit 2013.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Sex is to pregnancy what racism is to genocide

    • Ellena Savage
    • 07 June 2013
    10 Comments

    This past fortnight, race has been high on the agenda. Can a 13-year-old be racist? Is what Eddie McGuire said racist? Meanwhile, revelations that police officers in one Melbourne suburb had printed and distributed 50 racist stubby holders hinted at a frightening culture of racialised violence. The reality is that racial violence is inextricable from racist language.

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  • RELIGION

    How can the Catholic Church contribute to a better culture for life?

    • 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

    Remember the Rohingyas

    • 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

    Clarifying the anti-discrimination muddle

    • Frank Brennan
    • 19 February 2013
    34 Comments

    There has been some very confused debate about the Government's proposed consolidation of anti-discrimination laws. David Marr claimed leaders of 'conservative faiths' were free to 'kick poofters, lesbians, single mothers, people in de facto relationships'. He needs to take a cold shower while we clarify these issues. 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Rape and restorative justice

    • Ellena Savage
    • 18 January 2013
    8 Comments

    My friend was raped by a stranger at knife-point. When the police found the perpetrator she learned he had raped other women, and had murdered some of them. While he was being charged, she decided to opt out of the proceedings. She didn't believe prison would rehabilitate him, or aid her own survival.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Climate view from a nation doomed to drown

    • Paul Collins
    • 14 December 2012
    15 Comments

    Kiribati, situated in the central Pacific Ocean and home to 101,998 people — more than half of them Catholic — will be the first country to be drowned by global warming. While we wring our hands and climate sceptics pretend there is no problem, on Kiribati people are already in the midst of a climate change disaster. 

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  • RELIGION

    Six challenges for Indigenous researchers

    • 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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