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Keywords: Contrition

  • AUSTRALIA

    Corruption and atonement in NSW

    • John Warhurst
    • 26 August 2014
    5 Comments

    Both sides of NSW politics claim to have turned over a new leaf and support tough new lobbying regulations, separating paid lobbyists from party office-holding, and increased transparency surrounding all dealings with ministers. But at the heart of the shambles are not commercial lobbyists but personal and institutional ethical failure, often driven by the lure of self-interest and advantage whether it is in getting elected or in feathering their own nest.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Paul Keating and Sorry Day's indulgence with a purpose

    • Michael Mullins
    • 27 May 2013
    3 Comments

    The most memorable lines of Paul Keating's 1992 Redfern Speech are not about Indigenous Australians at all, but Europeans who stole their land, their children and their dignity. A number of commemorative days focus on the needs and rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but Sorry Day is not one of them.

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  • RELIGION

    Dysfunctional Church stares into the abuse abyss

    • Michael Kelly
    • 27 November 2012
    77 Comments

    Rome is seen to be out of touch with the membership. Local bishops often behave as branch managers of a poorly administered, centralised multinational corporation. Royal Commission notwithstanding, there won't be healing of the community of faith until there is systemic change. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Coalition of the willing targets messenger Assange

    • Michael Mullins
    • 04 June 2012
    14 Comments

    The US pursuit of Assange is being played out with the cooperation of other western democracies. Last week a British court rejected his appeal against extradition to Sweden. The UK government could overrule this, as it did for Chilean dictator Pinochet in 1998. But it looks as if they won't repeat the favour for Assange.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The politics of suicide

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 02 May 2012
    14 Comments

    Albert Camus said suicide was the one serious philosophical problem in that it poses the question as to whether life is worth living. Some suicides are a private solution to anger and despair, but others, such as suicide bombings and the recent suicide of retired pharmacist Dimitris Christoulas, are both public and coercive.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    How to apologise for genocide

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 06 April 2010
    3 Comments

    From Rudd's 'sorry' to the Stolen Generations, to last year's US Senate resolution apologising for slavery, the political apology has assumed freight and relevance. An apology issued in the Serbian Parliament last week is exceptional for its attempt to allow the perpetrator into the moral circle.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Rudd's apology was also our apology

    • Michael Mullins
    • 15 February 2010
    6 Comments

    On the second anniversary of the apology to Indigenous Australians, we look instinctively to the Prime Minister to tell us what he's done. He presented his report card to Parliament on Thursday. But he's not the only one who needs to account.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Bosnian war criminal's strategic repentance

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 30 October 2009
    1 Comment

    The only woman convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has returned to Serbia. Her guilty plea formed part of a bargain, another sign that guilt and punishments are often matters of tactics and basic arithmetic. The victims of that savage war will not be so gracious.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Lying in the confessional

    • Brendan Ryan
    • 01 September 2009
    2 Comments

    inventing sins to keep the peace .. Were the priests cheated too, as I was? .. Or did they come to trust a congregation .. by the stories told in confession?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Redefining the Australian nation

    • David Corlett
    • 20 April 2006

    With the unlinking of the politics of asylum from the debate over national identity, Australia is now within reach of an opportunity to engage in much-needed policy reform.

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