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Vol 31 No 20

10 October 2021


 

  • ENVIRONMENT

    The right to a healthy environment

    • Cristy Clark
    • 21 October 2021
    7 Comments

    On 8 October, at its 48th session, the United Nations Human Rights Council formally adopted a resolution recognising the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. It emphasises that ‘environmental degradation, climate change and unsustainable development constitute some of the most pressing and serious threats to the ability of present and future generations to enjoy human rights, including the right to life’.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Accepting uncertainty

    • Tim Hutton
    • 21 October 2021
    10 Comments

    The pandemic has been a clear demonstration that science is a method, not an endpoint. It is an ongoing process of hypothesising, testing, and interpreting the results of those tests through public policy. Though the hypothesis may be accepted or rejected, these interpretations are unlikely to be absolutely definitive statements or recommendations and are usually made with varying degrees of certainty.

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  • RELIGION

    In a state of synodality

    • Brian Lucas
    • 21 October 2021
    32 Comments

    One takeaway from the First Assembly of the Plenary Council that might come as no surprise is that the controlling elite in the Church, the bishops, are not dependent on popular support. They are appointed not elected. They are generally irremovable. They come from a culture that is about preserving ‘the tradition’ (which can easily be expanded to include historical novelties that are not really part of the tradition). Moving into the new world of synodality brings obvious challenges.

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  • RELIGION

    Handing on a tradition

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 21 October 2021
    44 Comments

    One of the challenges facing churches today has to do with tradition. Tradition is a sometimes charged word, but it refers to an everyday social need. It has to do with how a community passes on its way of life and its understanding of authoritative writings that shape it. The word itself can refer both to what is passed on and to the process of passing it on. The challenge of passing on a tradition is perennial. Both ways of living and writings reflect the culture of their own time and so need to be translated into the changing languages of later cultures.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    What we talk about when we talk about mental health

    • Paul Mitchell
    • 19 October 2021
    2 Comments

     Millions of Australians are slowly emerging from another lockdown and it’s again reported our mental health has suffered. The Victorian Government recently announced 93,000 hours for mental health clinicians to work across the state, and the delivery of 20 pop-up community mental health sites.

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  • CARTOON

    Missing in opposition

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 19 October 2021
    2 Comments

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Your guide to the federal government’s climate spin — before it’s announced

    • Greg Foyster
    • 18 October 2021
    16 Comments

    In July this year the UN ranked Australia dead last out for climate action out of more than 170 countries surveyed. Yes, our federal government’s climate policies are literally the worst in the world. But while Australia is a global laggard in reducing pollution, we’re something of a leader in covering up this failure and getting away with it.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The sacked professor Ridd's freedom of speech

    • Frank Brennan
    • 18 October 2021
    11 Comments

    The High Court decision has been confusing for many people because it both upheld Ridd’s right to intellectual freedom and the university’s entitlement to sack him for breaches during disciplinary proceedings which had followed upon two wrongly argued censures. Basically, Ridd won on the point of intellectual freedom but he lost on the other aspects of his behaviour which had nothing to do with the exercise of intellectual freedom. 

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Booster bandits and booster jabs

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 14 October 2021
    13 Comments

    With the world clearly divided between those vaccinated against COVID-19 and those who are not, ethicists, public health specialists and politicians have become more preoccupied by the prospect of booster shots. 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Poetry in lockdown: Recent work of Hermina Burns

    • Jennifer Gribble
    • 14 October 2021
    8 Comments

    Well before the pandemic, the future for poetry’s slim volumes was looking far from healthy.  Last November, the threatened closure of UWA Press, one of the largest publishers of poetry in Australia, drew attention to the narrowing opportunities for emerging poets to make their mark. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Falling on one's sword

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 14 October 2021
    16 Comments

    During her last year in office Gladys Berejiklian divided people over her response to the Coronavirus. Even her critics, however, praised her decision to resign from office after the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) announced that it was investigating her conduct. 

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  • CARTOON

    Putting the Scott in Scotland

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 13 October 2021
    1 Comment

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  • ECONOMICS

    A strange financial circus

    • David James
    • 12 October 2021
    4 Comments

    Over the last two years, money printing has created the illusion of strength in savings. But when reality resurfaces, and actual returns are required from actual economic and business activity, the global financial system will come under extreme stress. 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Observing October

    • Barry Gittins
    • 11 October 2021
    4 Comments

    I have decided to observe October as a month to observe other people observing things. For me, there was a sense of self crumbling under the weight of being house arrested for the good of all. Gravitas, like gravity, can be crushing; I knew I needed a break from howling at the Moon (16 October is the ‘international observe the Moon night’). So to the calendar I turned.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Amore mio

    • Ugo Rotellini
    • 11 October 2021
    1 Comment

    The neighbour says, So sorry. And sir, / you are the last paesano on this street. / Maria you promised me. I could go first. / Ti perdono, I forgive you, amore mio. / I sit in our backyard under lemon shade, amongst /  the hens tomato plants and capsicums. I fall into each / wishful memory. We danced, those ad-hoc strolls / and laughter, you hummed our favourite songs.

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