Keywords: Banks Royal Commission
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Andrew Hamilton
- 11 November 2022
3 Comments
In Justice in Kelly Country, author Lachlan Strahan writes on the life of his great-great-grandfather, a policeman whose career stretched over thirty years. When a significant part of that story is intermeshed with such a fiercely contested story as Ned Kelly’s, telling it introduces the further complexities of the writer’s sympathies and judgments.
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AUSTRALIA
Concern about political malfeasance in Australian politics was one of the issues that drove the influx of new members (mainly women) into the Australian Parliament on 21 May, and they are promising a raft of reforms. The astounding thing is that we managed to leverage the change of 21 May 2022 within the confines of a system that inherently favours the status quo, the preferential voting system tending to channel votes back to the major parties.
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RELIGION
- Bruce Duncan
- 21 June 2022
3 Comments
Some 278 Catholic bishops, clergy, religious personnel and lay people will meet as members of an unprecedented Plenary Council during 3-9 July to finalise the resolutions of their first assembly last year. However the May working document ‘Framework for Motions’, despite much worthy content, especially on Indigenous affairs, relies on a narrow notion of mission overly focused on inner-church issues at the expense of the wider social engagement that Francis emphasises.
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AUSTRALIA
- John Warhurst
- 01 December 2020
31 Comments
The Australian community and its government are struggling to come to terms with the extremely serious allegations against members of the SAS for their alleged criminal misconduct during the war in Afghanistan. At the same time, we Catholics are experiencing a bad case of déjà as there are many echoes of how we felt when the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (RC) began in 2013.
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ENVIRONMENT
- Brian Matthews
- 06 February 2020
3 Comments
I’d never heard of McKenzie Funk until I came across his marvellous review essay, 'Smoked Out'. I eagerly read on beyond the genial opening paragraphs and almost immediately, I found myself on familiar, if deadly, ground.
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AUSTRALIA
- Joe Zabar
- 04 December 2019
4 Comments
In light of the banking royal commission and the government's work in developing a plethora of transparency and integrity measures, it beggars belief how Brian Hartzer and Angus Taylor could bring upon themselves and their respective institutions so much unwanted publicity.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Christine Burke
- 04 November 2019
4 Comments
Anyone interested in social justice knows that structures and systems can bolster the worst tendencies of human nature, can incubate 'social sin'. Korean friends, when asked if they live in fear of North Korea, almost always tell me 'we fear America more'. To me that seemed a bit of an overstatement. Now I understand their response.
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AUSTRALIA
- Alana Schetzer
- 14 June 2019
6 Comments
It's obvious — so clearly obvious — when politicians are avoiding being genuine and simply don't want to answer a question. It's tiresome. It's boring. And people are tired of politicians assuming they can't tell the difference between an honest answer and a slogan or 'blame game'.
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ECONOMICS
- Andrew Hamilton
- 10 April 2019
15 Comments
It is in the interests of companies and the people who compose them to see the relationships that constitute work more broadly than the image of transaction allows. In a good enterprise work is a form of self-transcendence through relationships with other workers, with the people whom they serve directly and with the broader society.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 18 February 2019
'We can do this better by breaking down the silos and binding together our concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace.' Opening Keynote Address by Fr Frank Brennan SJ at the Catholic Social Services Australia National Conference, Port Macquarie 19 February 2019.
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ECONOMICS
- R. P. Lim
- 07 February 2019
2 Comments
Hayne's report brings into play ideas surrounding collective humanistic values and goals, and natural law principles based on commonly understood ethics and moral standards. What is striking is how the financial services industry has dehumanised consumers, and those within the industry providing the services at the frontline.
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AUSTRALIA
- Moira Rayner
- 07 February 2019
9 Comments
An academic friend of mine made a dilligent and well-argued case that Hayne had failed in his task to 'tackle bank structure'. With the greatest of respect, this was not the job Hayne had to do. To imagine otherwise is to misunderstand both the law, and what it is 'meant' to do in the hands of those who are judicially trained.
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