Section: Australia
There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
-
AUSTRALIA
- Peter Stanley
- 26 August 2013
66 Comments
The NSW Parliament recently passed a resolution condemning the Armenian Genocide, conducted by Turkey in 1915. The Turkish Consul-General in Sydney, the foreign ministry in Ankara and even the city council in Gallipoli immediately responded. The resolution disrupts the astoundingly successful charm offensive Turkey has conducted in Australia for years, fostering a positive relationship with Australia through the shared ordeal of Gallipoli.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 26 August 2013
5 Comments
Martin Luther King’s 1963 ‘I have a dream’ speech is remembered for its vision for a future in which his children would ‘not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character’. If King arrived by boat seeking asylum in Australia today, he would hope that his children would be judged not by how they got here but by the content of their character.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Moira Rayner
- 23 August 2013
21 Comments
Abbott successfully damped down his glee in the taunting and negativity which he aimed so cruelly at the first woman prime minister, when she withdrew from the internal stoush she couldn't win. In the first round both he and Rudd offered the most boring, stagey and value-free 'debate' we have witnessed since the days of Billy McMahon. But the blokes got aggro and personal in the second.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 22 August 2013
16 Comments
Reflecting on his participation in an SBS TV marriage equality discussion, Ben felt judged and humiliated by many who responded to him. Must determining what is right and wrong for a society be bound up with judging people? Or can we listen to our conversation partners, reach for a language that is shared and leave room for our opinions to be changed? Pope Francis showed the way when he said: ‘If a person is gay and seeks the Lord and has good will, well who am I to judge them?’
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Dean Ashenden
- 20 August 2013
7 Comments
Official Australia has a history of trying to conquer and develop the north. That long and frequently violent struggle now seems to be reaching a new stage. We like to think that the devastation of one population and culture by another is all in the past, but the apparent failure of Rudd and Abbott to notice that northern Australia is shared country suggests that there might be more to come.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Kerry Murphy
- 20 August 2013
9 Comments
Labor is subcontracting our international obligations to poor neighbours who do not have the resources to resettle refugees who may well have trauma issues. Not to be outdone in the cruelty stakes, the Coalition has four proposals, each of which has serious flaws. Neither party has a policy that respects relevant human rights issues, or an administrative system designed to ensure the correct decisions are reached.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- John Falzon
- 19 August 2013
24 Comments
Kevin Rudd says we need a 'new politics' or a 'new way'. Tony Abbott says we'll only get a new way by electing a new government. What is missing in both statements is the recognition that what we actually need is a new kind of economic democracy: a reconfiguration of our economic prioritising away from individualism towards the common good, and towards the participation of all rather than the exclusion of many.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Fatima Measham
- 16 August 2013
15 Comments
Hot-button topics such as economic management and asylum seekers are best seen from a wide lens, yet we seem determined to keep the rest of the world out of the frame. It is a sea-girt mentality that our politicians don't care to take apart because it is too hard to convince the average voter that there are in fact other people on the planet. Such denialism will inevitably leave us ill-prepared for significant challenges.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Evan Ellis
- 16 August 2013
1 Comment
We might get lucky. Malcolm Turnbull might be right, and the mass of egos, grievances and interests that make up US-Sino relations might 'evolve into a new order, without either side having to make concessions to the other'. But the risks are growing. In this context the framing of asylum seekers as a threat to our sovereignty seems plain silly. War between China and the US would be a disaster to our national interests.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 15 August 2013
10 Comments
Although community organisations are often a burr in the saddle of a managerially minded government, they are important because they represent a humane vision and because they can reflect back to government an intimate experience of what is happening to the people whom they serve. Their advocacy, even when unwanted, keeps governments in touch with human needs.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Brian Matthews
- 14 August 2013
11 Comments
When James Hird, coach of the Essendon Football Club, says his club has a 'right' to play finals despite the ongoing drug scandal, he obviously means that the players have won enough games to qualify. But when you wed his use of the word 'right' to his often proclaimed love for the club and his aspiration to put it back where it 'belonged', 'right' starts to assume the force of due privilege.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 13 August 2013
1 Comment
'Like many Australians, I had hoped that the dastardly plan announced on 19 July would stop the boats in the short term, as a stop-gap measure. It is dismaying to learn that appropriate consultations had not occurred with Indonesia with the result that the very people who were to receive the shock and awe message are yet to receive it. There’s only one thing worse than shock and awe; that’s shock and awe that doesn’t work because you haven’t done your homework.' 43rd Barry Marshall Memorial Lecture, Trinity College Theological School, 14 August 2013.
READ MORE