Can men be feminists?
Navigating the post-Medivac ugliness
Is the legal tide turning on climate change?
Good news stories from the age of outrage
Medivac: the unneeded bill we sorely needed
"This sharing of knowledge, experiences, and information challenges the status quo and balance of power, so it should be no surprise that it is met with resistance."
"At Tarbagatay the next morning — a village of Old Believers located southwest of Ulan-Ude — the cold somehow got the better of us."
"Every day is a fight against colonisation, the legacy left by invasion and the ongoing impacts upon our peoples."
"This judgment could well create a hugely positive precedent for the next controversial mining case that comes before the Land and Environment Court."
Next week the presidents of bishops conferences and representatives of religious congregations around the world will meet in Rome to reflect on responses to the sexual abuse of children To understand and evaluate the meeting, we should keep in mind its background and the different groups that have a particular interest in it.
While in many ways this decision was uncontroversial — in that it merely upheld an earlier ministerial decision — Chief Justice Preston's judgment was significant in the Australian context both for its extensive reference to climate change and for his honour's clear acceptance of the science.
There are those who say we live in an era of outrage, but the outrageous and inhumane was always there; it's just that we are finally addressing it. It was demonstrated by the passing of the Medivac Bill, and the safe return of Hakeem Al-Araibi, that the voices of Australia, rather than the powerful few, are finally being heard.
If refugees drown in the Mediterranean, scrutiny is directed towards Europe. If the deaths happen in Libya, the EU is able to manipulate human rights rhetoric alongside the bloc's concerns. Meanwhile, it remains committed to its deals with the Libyan coastguard, which is fuelling its fair share of human trafficking and exploitation.
Any suggestion that Israel is a racist and racial state is often met with outrage and accusations of antisemitism. Yet even supporters of Israel were shocked by the recent legislation of the Nation-State law. The law isn't news, however. Just like the apartheid law in South Africa, it doesn't signify the onset of apartheid; it enshrines it.
As the week progressed and the temperature headed beyond 40 degrees, my vigour flagged like that molten candlestick. I longed to return to the chill of Ulan-Ude, where our eyelashes froze to white feathers and the snowflakes fell in limpid perfection and the cold shook us so viscerally, so expansively, from our spiritual slumber.
Having failed to prevent tinkering to the border protection regime, the Morrison government returned to the well Australian politicians have drawn upon when faced with electoral crisis. Mathias Cormann was no less crude in adopting a mode that speaks wonders to the desperation of a government awaiting its electoral deliverance.
During the debates about the bill regarding the transfer of people from Nauru or Manus to Australia for medical treatment, the Prime Minister stated it was 'unnecessary and superfluous'. Legally this should have been the case.
It is hard to think of a more encouraging action by any government during the last 20 years than the national apology to the stolen generations. Much has been said about that apology. It is worth reflecting more generally on why apologies properly made are so gratifying, and what qualities they must have in order to be proper.
Valentine's Day is built on some fairly shaky historical ground. Rather than honouring a prelate offering bridal trysts, or hoping for a good harvest, I'm inclined to spare a thought for the Greek philosophers and poets who set up shop well before Romulus and Remus; I like to muse over their various efforts to pin down love.
One reason for the importance of Epiphany in Eastern Orthodoxy is the belief that Christmas is a period during which the world is threatened by various wicked spirits, most particularly the kallikantzaroi, the spirits of the dead: at this time they emerge from Hades (via a cave not too far from where I live) and roam the Earth.
When Parliament resumes, one outstanding item of business will be Penny Wong's bill dealing with religious schools' capacity to discriminate against students on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation. I support the bill subject to the proviso that religious schools should remain free to teach their doctrine respectfully and reasonably.
Just as the focus of post-war reconstruction was not merely demobilisation but the maintenance of full employment, developing social security and economic development, decarbonising Australia must involve rebuilding faith that politics can deliver a better Australia. We need to ensure our response leads to a good society.
One of Australia's foundational myths is of white settlers weathering nature's worst. It's actually in our national character — the story we tell about the nation — to dismiss climatic extremes like heatwaves. Maybe one missing part of taking climate change more seriously in Australia is a shift in culture to respect the heat.
A key benefit asserted to justify treating water as an economic good is that the market will encourage 'high-value' water use to be prioritised. But, as the fish of the Darling River and the people of Walgett are experiencing, the problem with commodifying water is its social and environment values are not naturally reflected in the market.
The #metoo movement has seen a rise in men coming forward and proclaiming themselves as feminists. But are they really doing this to encourage and support the women around them? It appears at least some men are voicing their pro-equality opinions in order to avoid suspicion and criticism and stay out of the spotlight.
If I could write you out of my system / I would / siphon every last drop away / drain the bloodstream / flatten memory / and sandpaper flesh / where skin impressed / upon skin / on your audio track / I would press delete ...
It's all very well to remove excess furniture, but furniture is not books. How many chairs does one need? Chairs are not books. To reduce a library as a household expedience is to objectify the books. Their contents are emptied of value, their history relegated to out-of-date. They have no more meaning than books in an Ikea display room.
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