Keywords: Survey
There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
-
AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 25 July 2016
7 Comments
Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the amendment to the Constitution which took out the adverse references to Aborigines. Following our recent election, we are assured at least six, and possibly seven, members of our national parliament who proudly claim an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander heritage. They are represented in all parties and none. How good it would be if our elected Aboriginal politicians could come together across party lines and propose an amendment to the Constitution which recognises them.
READ MORE 
-
AUSTRALIA
- Tim Woodruff
- 24 June 2016
6 Comments
My patients who earn $36,000 a year pay $36 for most prescriptions. My patients who earn $360,000 pay the same, and those on $3 billion pay the same. Usually, these prescriptions are for conditions which can't be avoided - it's just bad luck. This government imposed co-payment is a tax on illness. It is not noticed by those on $360,000 but for those struggling on $36,000, it does affect their small disposable incomes. It is a regressive tax, and its effect on patient behaviour is well documented.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Somayra Ismailjee
- 20 May 2016
33 Comments
The irony of trying to negate these stereotypes is that in doing so, we are still cheapening asylum seekers to political tools, stripping them of their humanity and multiplicity. Aiming to counter such rhetoric as Dutton's with stories of high-achieving refugees plays into a toxic game that legitimises the same negative stereotypes by engaging with them. Just as invisibility dehumanises asylum seekers, so does the hypervisibility we attribute to a select few stories.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Barry Gittins
- 13 May 2016
5 Comments
British research presented at the 2013 International Association of Dental Research posited 'a link between missing teeth and a patient's quality of life' and cited other research on observers' 'perception of men and women with straight and crooked teeth'. Furthermore, research by the Salvation Army in Australia records that 66 per cent of the Salvos' welfare clients could not afford dental treatment and two in five could not afford a yearly dental check-up for their children.
READ MORE
-
ENVIRONMENT
It was as if Australian politics had regressed four years overnight. No sooner had Labor released its new climate change plan than the Coalition was resuscitating Tony Abbott's 'carbon tax' line. The Coalition's attempt to revive the defining debate of the 2013 federal election won't work. As other commentators have noted, Labor's plan has been carefully crafted to avoid the carbon tax sledge. More importantly, external factors have changed to make a scare campaign less potent.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Barry Gittins
- 20 April 2016
1 Comment
When you make a meal of body politic you've got to crack the whole thing open, season to taste with bestrewn flakes of policy offal and prejudged bakes ... serve offshore detention? Just add water, salt to taste and erase border. Grind those grubby unions, peel any sign of party donations and extractions from sorbeted cosseted carapaces. Stop the gloats, straighten up and get flyers Right ... Serve pre-heated post May's entree of budget salad.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Brian Matthews
- 10 February 2016
2 Comments
Eslingadene/Isendene/Essendon was its quiet and bucolic self when Richard Green, one of its respectable citizens, farewelled it in the 1850s, migrated to Australia, settled near Melbourne and, honouring his home village, called the area Essendon. Like its northern hemisphere namesake, Essendon does not appear in the Domesday Book, but Macbeth-like vaulting ambition, disjoined from care and humanity, has enrolled it in a modern Doomsday register and stained its name ineradicably.
READ MORE
-
MEDIA
- Jeff Sparrow
- 27 January 2016
13 Comments
Josh Bornstein compared the ABC to the victim in an abusive relationship, desperately trying to ward off the next blow by anticipating the criticism of its enemies. Certainly, enlisting Andrew Bolt to participate in a documentary on Indigenous constitutional recognition seems like a pre-emptive defensive move against the accusations of bias that are routinely levelled against the national broadcaster. For Bolt the arrangement is win-win; for the ABC it's yet another example of self-sabotage.
READ MORE
-
EDUCATION
- Sarah Klenbort
- 20 January 2016
18 Comments
Six years ago my daughter, Kaitlyn, was diagnosed with progressive hearing loss. I was told by an early intervention centre not to sign with her. 'It may interfere with her spoken language development,' they said, though there's no research to support this claim. When she was three, I went against that advice and began studying Auslan. I enrolled my daughter in the bilingual preschool and she learned to sign better than me. She may well be part of the last generation of deaf children to sign in Australia.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Celeste Liddle
- 16 December 2015
5 Comments
At the end of 2014, the scene for Indigenous politics in 2015 was set. While it is rare to see a year where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people don't take to the streets to challenge government policies, Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett's announcement in November 2014 of the proposed closure of remote communities led to a large scale movement. It was one of several events that mobilised Indigenous communities during 2015. Next year is shaping up to be just as action packed.
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Beth Doherty
- 27 November 2015
4 Comments
This week marked three years since the Tazreen Fashions factory fire in Dhaka, Bangladesh, left over 100 garment workers dead. Six months later, Rana Plaza in Dhaka collapsed, and 1134 people were killed. Labels for top brands such as H&M and Benetton were found in the rubble. While steps have been taken by some companies to promote ethical supply chains, it may be that the only way for a more just treatment of garment workers is the proper organisation of the workers themselves.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Gillian Bouras
- 07 October 2015
9 Comments
Well, I know the dehumanising rot began to set in a long time ago. I have a vision of George Orwell sitting on a cloud and wringing his hands in renewed horror, for now the business model and associated language appears to have taken over the world. In short, the changes in aged care could be counterproductive, as the aims of streamlined access and equity may result instead in the development of barriers and more inequity. Growing old clearly means more hard work, and more adjustment.
READ MORE