Keywords: Mental Illness
There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
-
AUSTRALIA
Universal health care is an ostensibly bipartisan prerogative, but what it actually means and how it's achieved is a somewhat moveable feast. Spending, we are told, is unsustainable as the population ages and we move toward ever-more personalised and technologically-advanced treatment paradigms. The objective of this rhetoric is to rationalise the privatisation of our health system by stealth. The latest wages figures are something of an inconvenient truth in this 'unsustainable spending' fiction.
READ MORE 
-
AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 12 May 2017
3 Comments
Public celebrations of family life such as the International Day of Families should be uncontroversial. But they sometimes focus on the definition of the family, with the claims of the stable nuclear family of father, mother and children set against the claims of other kinds of family groupings. These discussions should not distract from such larger questions as: why are families of any description important, and what qualities are needed if they are to be effective?
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Julie Edwards
- 10 May 2017
5 Comments
'Labor-lite' or not, there are many investments contained in the budget which will work towards a more just society, including the securing of funding for the National Disability Insurance Scheme by raising the Medicare levy, and the needs-based approach to school funding, dubbed 'Gonski 2.0'. But among these commitments that seek to create a more equitable Australia, this budget again seeks to vilify welfare recipients, among the most vulnerable members of our community.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Isabella Fels
- 02 May 2017
8 Comments
In my late 20s when I became seriously unwell and diagnosed with schizophrenia, Coca-Cola was like an ever flowing fountain of happiness for me. How I loved sipping it. I would even quickly down it with my meds. I could feel life getting better and speeding up. Having Coke was magic. But lately, with all the publicity surrounding the dangers of drinking fizzy, sugary soft drinks, I am trying to cut down. It is not easy trying to fight an almost lifelong addiction.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 14 December 2016
7 Comments
This year International Migrants Day has called for children to be released from detention. It is appropriate that an event held in the shadow of Christmas should advocate for children. For they lie at the heart of Christmas. The insistence in the Gospel stories on the obligation to respect and nurture children is not exclusive to Christians. It is echoed in the attention to children and concern for their growth into responsible adults shared by other religions and cultures.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Adolfo Aranjuez
- 28 October 2016
10 Comments
After sending me to live in Australia, my father tasked my then brother-in-law (a true-blue 'bloke') with teaching me to 'be a man'. He failed, but here was evidence of hegemonic masculinity's perpetuation. My father and I were born into a masculine culture that, unlike Australia's stoicism, is characterised by braggadocious chest-puffing. Yet underpinning both Australia's and the Philippines' conceptions of masculinity is the masking of vulnerability: emotions hide behind silence and bravado.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Samuel Dariol
- 19 October 2016
9 Comments
A policy that deliberately inflicts harm on one group of people to deter others from coming to Australia is ethically obnoxious. It is now time to bring the people detained offshore to Australia. The Australian Catholic bishops have promised the resources of Catholic organisations to help educate the children, care for the health and meet other needs of the people who are detained. When a significant sector of the community is ready to help care for vulnerable people, it is proper to allow them to do so.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Samuel Dariol
- 21 September 2016
10 Comments
In the last week Turnbull has lauded, as the world's best refugee policy, a system that has resettled no refugees over three years. Dutton has stated that asylum seekers will continue to be processed in Nauru for decades, and described the Australian policy, of which detention on Nauru is part, as compassionate and effective. These comments follow recent reports by NGOs Save the Children and UNICEF, as well as the Australian Human Rights Commission, on offshore detention. Both urge an end to it.
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Andrew Hamilton
- 25 August 2016
11 Comments
Almost all public conversation quickly turns to transgressors. Olympic competitors growled about proven and suspect drug users. Many wanted people found to have used drugs shamed and shunned. This insistence that transgressors should definitively lose their good name and the right to participate is not confined to sport. If inflexibility and exclusion become the rule in dealing with aberrant speech or behaviour we find unacceptable, they will impose heavy burdens on individuals and society.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 04 August 2016
16 Comments
National Homelessness Week comes around each year. And each time it is an embarrassment. We pride ourselves that we are a respectful society, but there is no greater sign of disrespect than to allow people to be homeless. Too many people sleep on the streets; too many families sleep in their cars. What must change in us is our tolerance of an economic and political ideology that assumes it is all right for the vulnerable and ill to be neglected in order to protect the entitlements of the wealthy.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Julie Edwards
- 27 June 2016
9 Comments
Both major parties offer 'one size fits all' approaches to youth unemployment. This ignores the huge difference in experiences - and employability - between different categories of young person. Not all have completed high school and live at home in a supportive environment. For young people at risk of homelessness, those experiencing mental illness or substance abuse problems, or those who have had contact with the criminal justice system, the initiatives of both parties simply won't be effective.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Tim Robertson
- 23 May 2016
8 Comments
I asked John, a tall, articulate man with long hair and well-maintained hipster beard, if he'd had a chance to read the most recently published Herald Sun think-piece arguing that what they are doing is not a demand for help, but a political protest. He smiled wryly, expelled a couple of bursts of laughter and said that that may be their most accurate reporting of the unfolding situation to-date: 'This has always been a political protest ... that's always been our intention.'
READ MORE