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Section: Australia

  • AUSTRALIA

    Nauru solution a dodgy deal

    • Susan Metcalfe
    • 15 July 2010
    20 Comments

    While many are concerned about returning to processing asylum seekers in poor Pacific countries, Nauru's caretaker president is eager to be involved. Australia should never again be engaged in dodgy deals with this Pacific neighbour. For Nauru, it's all about the money.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Election year mental health test

    • Simon Rice
    • 12 July 2010
    6 Comments

    Advocacy from the likes of esteemed psychiatrist Professor Patrick McGorry continues to highlight Australia's mental health system crisis. If Julia Gillard wants to lead on this issue, she will need to further the Coalition's $1.5 billion electoral commitment to mental health services.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    MySuper's justified paternalism

    • Michael Mullins
    • 12 July 2010
    5 Comments

    Channelling people into a default superannuation fund could be compared with the indignity of income management. But MySuper is geared to protect the human dignity of Australians in retirement against their own indifference, and also commercial exploitation.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Other unsung Indigenous heroes

    • Myrna Tonkinson
    • 07 July 2010
    1 Comment

    Not yet 40, she must live in Perth, hundreds of kilometres from home, to receive dialysis. She is currently in hospital recovering from spinal surgery, and so is separated even from her city-based loved ones. Yet she appears always with a beaming smile.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Remember SIEV X before waging war on boat people

    • Tony Kevin
    • 06 July 2010
    14 Comments

    Julia Gillard has invited people to say what they feel on the issue of how Australia should manage its borders. It's worth recalling what happened when an Australian Government last instructed its defence force to vigorously repel asylum-seeker boats.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Gillard mining deal betrays the common good

    • Michael Mullins
    • 05 July 2010
    17 Comments

    Julia Gillard is expected to exercise moral authority because she was chosen by her party to work for the common good of the nation. Her agreement with major mining companies to take the sting out of the mining tax shows a poor start.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    World Cup bid looks to Australia's self-serving aid program

    • Evan Ellis
    • 05 July 2010
    14 Comments

    We assume aid is 'helping people'. But the 2006 White Paper on Australian Aid specified its purpose to help countries 'reduce poverty and achieve sustainable development, in line with Australia’s national interest'. We'd be mortified if a church agency came out with such a self-serving clause.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Church implicated in Canada's reconciliation project

    • Tom Clark and Ravi de Costa
    • 02 July 2010
    1 Comment

    Survivors of the Indian Residential Schools who testified to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission complained of shocking treatment, violence and sexual abuse. Testimonies left no doubt that Canada's churches were heavily culpable.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Gillard sustains population myth

    • Ruby J. Murray
    • 01 July 2010
    24 Comments

    I don't know about you, but last time I got on an outrageously late, over-crowded train at peak hour full of apparently longstanding Aussies in business suits, the first thing I thought was: I really wish Australia accepted fewer immigrants.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Campaigning to Christians

    • John Warhurst
    • 30 June 2010
    6 Comments

    Christians rarely agree on what they want from government. The Australian Christian Lobby jumped the gun last week with its forum for political leaders to address Christian voters: the elevation of Julia Gillard means it now needs to engage afresh with a new Prime Minister.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Australian Jesuit's gambling defence

    • Michael Mullins
    • 28 June 2010
    13 Comments

    Everybody knows that problem gambling, just like binge drinking and illicit drugs, destroys lives. But should governments be aiming to eliminate gambling altogether? The Australian Jesuit Michael Kelly thinks not.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    It's a girl!

    • Moira Rayner
    • 25 June 2010
    25 Comments

    The importance of a woman getting the highest political post in the land is not in its being a 'first', but that Gillard is her own woman. She has not turned into an 'honorary bloke'. Gillard's singular attribute is her sincerity and the genuineness of her public conversations. And she can laugh.

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