Keywords: Mental Health Week
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AUSTRALIA
- Bronwyn Lay
- 09 September 2016
17 Comments
When I read this week that Tony Abbott and John Howard will hear no talk of a Treaty with Aboriginal Australia, my first thought was 'Who listens to these blokes from ancient political history?' Abbott conceded that it is important to recognise Indigenous Australians were here first, 'But once it goes beyond that I think you open up all sorts of other things.' That is true, and those other things to be opened up are incredibly legally exciting and relevant to our times.
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AUSTRALIA
- Joan Hume
- 08 September 2016
15 Comments
On 26 July this year of 19 severely disabled residents were massacred as they slept in their beds at a residential care facility in Sagamihara, Japan. A further 26 were wounded. The perpetrator, Satoshi Uematsu, a former employee sacked for his disturbing views about the residents, later boasted of his 'achievements': 'It is better that disabled people disappear.' Isn't there an ever present probability that without an inclusive and accepting community, without believing in our possibilities rather than seeing only our limitations, we will spawn the likes of another Satoshi Uematsu here?
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AUSTRALIA
- Katie Miller and Caitlin Meyer
- 29 June 2016
4 Comments
'I'm doing it for my kids.' This is how some supporters of Brexit explained their position before the referendum. Yet 75 per cent of voters aged 18 to 24 voted to Remain. It seems the message from 'the kids' to older voters was 'thanks, but no thanks'. The same can be seen in domestic politics here in Australia. We often hear politicians and voters talk about the effects of a policy on future generations. Yet the issues of concern to young people themselves simply don't get much attention.
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AUSTRALIA
- Paul Coghlan
- 17 February 2016
6 Comments
Having worked at Victoria Police for 25 years, I have great empathy for Wade Noonan, who stepped down as Victoria's Minister for Police to undergo counselling due to his exposure to traumatic incidents in this work. I have long felt that job advertisements for police should carry a health warning: This position may be dangerous to your mental, physical and spiritual health. Whether it be trawling through crime statistics or investigating crimes directly, police work means filling your soul with dark things.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 11 February 2016
15 Comments
The High Court decision on detention in Nauru came down just before the Christian season of Lent. It left the government free and determined to deport many young mothers and children to Nauru. For the mothers and children deportation will bring new trauma with renewed threat to their already precarious mental health. For the Australian public it again makes us ask what brutality, even to children, we are ready to tolerate. The savagery of this treatment is a suitable subject for Lenten reflection.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 09 December 2015
11 Comments
Although they can be inconvenient, human rights matter. It is important for nations to recognise them and for citizens to defend them. The survivors of the Second World War who had seen the gross violations of human rights under both Nazi and Communist regimes clearly saw this. These states regarded human rights as a privilege that they could give and take away as they chose. History spells out in the alphabet of gas chambers and gulags what that attitude meant for their subjects.
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AUSTRALIA
- Moira Byrne
- 14 October 2015
3 Comments
Mental health disorders among caregivers occur at a rate of up to two times that of the general population, and relationship breakdown for parents of children with special needs is reported to be around 80 per cent. Since becoming a parent of someone with a disability and changing careers, I've been fortunate to have employers who have permitted part-time work, which has been a crucial aspect of my wellbeing. This has not always been the case, nor is it the case for all caregivers all the time.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 23 July 2015
9 Comments
It's like being trapped. Dropping out of school will be magnified if your parents are unemployed and you have come under the juvenile justice system. If you live in particular areas you will find it difficult to overcome the effects of disadvantage. The report Dropping off the Edge 2015 stresses the importance of examining the interlocking of the aspects of disadvantage.
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CONTRIBUTORS
- Barry Gittins
- 15 May 2015
6 Comments
A belated early April referral to the urologist led to an alarming ultrasound and a blunt instruction to head for the nearby emergency triage. My bladder was a water balloon waiting to go splat. When the kids and their Ma picked me up from emergency, Emily stood guard over her Dad while the others got the car. The kids helped Trude with cleaning and chores as school holidays beckoned and my body needed time to reset before surgery was advisable.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 13 April 2015
10 Comments
Francis is always ready to criticise unbridled capitalism, but he makes a point of not shaming particular tax dodgers or profiteers. Targeting individuals has become a thing in the age of social media, but those who are left alone are more likely to come forward and join the public conversation. Warren Buffett, one of the world's richest persons, did this when he declared that he paid less tax than his employees, and that he and his wealthy friends have been 'coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress'.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 30 March 2015
4 Comments
Netflix and the Daily Mail are not concerned about whether people in a local area get safer roads or a new cancer treatment centre. Nor, it seems, are Fairfax and Newscorp. There was a time when nearly all media outlets were independent of each other, and locally owned by proprietors who cared as much about the welfare of their regions and cities as they did their own bottom line.
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AUSTRALIA
- Philip Mendes
- 17 March 2015
2 Comments
There are currently two national inquiries into the experiences of children in out-of-home care. Yet neither is specifically exploring what happens to young people transitioning from care. This is like a football team putting in a good performance in the first half but neglecting the second, which decides the outcome.
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