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Keywords: Postal Vote

  • RELIGION

    Finding grace amid difference of marriage equality opinion

    • Julie Perrin
    • 25 September 2017
    23 Comments

    Several years into my time as school chaplain, a journalist asked for my opinion in relation to the taboos long held by Christians regarding homosexuality. I knew my views would be regarded as a betrayal by some of the parents and I put a call through to the gentle-fierce man. I did not want to unravel the remarkable friendship we had built, but neither did I want to remain silent on this issue. When I explained the dilemma, he said something I have never forgotten.

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  • RELIGION

    The Catholic option for 'yes' or 'no'

    • Frank Brennan
    • 25 September 2017
    125 Comments

    For many Catholic voters, this has been a difficult issue because for the first time in their lives they have found themselves in the same position which our politicians find themselves every time they have to vote on contested moral and political questions in parliament. They don't find themselves getting all that much help from official church declarations. This is no criticism of our bishops. They are the custodians of a tradition which has been somewhat skewed on this issue for a long time.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Marriage equality postal vote further erodes democracy

    • Hayley Conway
    • 01 September 2017
    20 Comments

    The intended postal plebiscite is profoundly undemocratic. It will be conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in the hope that it will be considered a 'gathering of statistics', not an electoral matter requiring oversight by the Australian Electoral Commission and an appropriation of funds by the parliament. The federal government is circumventing the will of the parliament. This is part of a broader trend to attack, undermine, defund, and erode the democratic institutions we rely on.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Immigration and the baby shortfall

    • Sean Cowan
    • 25 August 2017
    8 Comments

    It seems like immigration hasn’t been seen in a positive light of late. Control over immigration has been a central theme in the successful Brexit bid in the United Kingdom. America elected a president who suggests tougher laws and screening for immigrants. Syrian refugees were welcomed by the thousands into Canada (46,700 in 2016 alone to be exact) not without considerable controversy.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Too many words about same sex marriage

    • Neve Mahoney
    • 24 August 2017
    73 Comments

    Lots of words have already been said and typed about the subject of same sex marriage. Too many, frankly. But it seems that the marriage equality debate will not go away nor be resolved easily, though LGBTI advocates have said that the homophobic anti-same sex marriage campaign will be damaging to the mental health of LGBTI people. Of course, the very idea that civil rights should be put to a public vote is demoralising.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The twisted priorities of the same-sex marriage vote

    • Rohan Salmond
    • 21 August 2017
    53 Comments

    Same-sex marriage, the government tells us, is not a first-order issue. And yet it has grown to become a controversy so monumental it has overshadowed even the prospect of nuclear war with North Korea.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The high political stakes of same sex marriage

    • John Warhurst
    • 16 August 2017
    40 Comments

    The same sex marriage postal plebiscite will be as intense as most referendum and election campaigns. Indeed, the special characteristics of this subject, advanced by the government as the reason for going beyond parliamentary means to resolve the issue, mean that the campaign may be more intense than most referendums have been.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    No equal voting opportunity

    • Moira Byrne Garton
    • 02 September 2010
    9 Comments

    Many of us value our participation in the election and have been excited by the resulting hung parliament. But some adult  citizens cannot be placed on the roll at all, with a significant number of Australians with intellectual disabilities or mental illness disenfranchised.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Future leaders

    • Matthew Albert
    • 11 May 2006

    Kenyan student elections

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