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Section: Australia

  • AUSTRALIA

    Refugee hysteria breeding Pacific Solution 2.0

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 15 October 2009
    17 Comments

    A hysterical response to the arrival of boats in Australia could undo the progress we have made away from unjust policy. Most asylum seekers have already experienced serious trauma. To return to a temporary visa regime will separate families for years and cause anxiety.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Why Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize

    • Tony Kevin
    • 14 October 2009
    16 Comments

    The Republican Right's claim that Obama has yet to achieve anything is a smokescreen for their rage, for Obama got this award precisely because he is 'not Bush'. To speak a credible language of moral inspiration and hope to the world is an achievement in itself.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    How to talk to Aboriginal students

    • Myrna Tonkinson
    • 13 October 2009
    14 Comments

    Some Aboriginal languages do not distinguish the unvoiced and voiced consonants 'b' and 'p', 'd' and 't', and 'g' and 'k'. Julia Gillard's push to provide 'English as a second language' training to teachers in remote communities can address such language obstacles and help lift levels of Indigenous education.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The homeless poet

    • John Falzon
    • 12 October 2009
    5 Comments

    A Japanese homeless man was sending the most exquisite poems to a popular newspaper. There is nothing extraordinary about a person experiencing homelessness producing great poetry. Yet the scenario was regarded with astonishment.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Hey hey it's a human rights violation

    • Michael Mullins
    • 12 October 2009
    20 Comments

    A majority of Australians seem to view the Black Faces segment on Hey Hey as benign, at worst. A Human Rights Charter might amplify the voice of the Koori woman who called a talkback radio station to say the segment had undermined her sense of equality.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Big broods and helicopter parenting

    • Sarah Kanowski
    • 08 October 2009
    5 Comments

    Big families are no longer fashionable, but they had their benefits. Vastly outnumbered, there's no chance for adults to practice the kind of helicopter parenting common to my own generation, where we hover over our one or two, soothing and solving.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Deadly tsunami and dangerous pride

    • Michael Mullins
    • 05 October 2009
    3 Comments

    The parochial Australian press reaction to last week's Samoan tsunami shows how editors play on people's sense of pride to sell newspapers. But the misuse and manipulation of information can have adverse consequences for third parties.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Empathy for paedophiles is not sympathy for the devil

    • Michael Mullins
    • 28 September 2009
    22 Comments

    A bill passed hastily by the NSW Parliament last week, specifically to force released paedophile Dennis Ferguson out of his home, effectively enshrined hate in legislation. Like drug addiction, paedophilia is a problem that requires community empathy, rather than ostracism.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Guatemala the grave

    • Colm McNaughton
    • 23 September 2009
    3 Comments

    The exhumation of mass graves in Guatemala, sites of decades-old massacres, rarely leads to convictions. The history of Guatemala's indigenous Mayan communities is marked by slavery, poverty and genocide. Not much has changed.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Indigenous people power challenges mining might

    • Moira Rayner
    • 22 September 2009
    10 Comments

    The Martidja Manyjima people of the Pilbara want a WA mining registrar to hear their challenge to BHP Billiton's claim for more mining leases on 200 square kilometres of their traditional land. The outcome will affect every one of us.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Telstra's price gouging is a sin

    • Michael Mullins
    • 21 September 2009
    7 Comments

    There is nothing wrong with mums and dads buying shares as an exercise in responsible stewardship of family assets. But they need to be ready to face consequences if profiting from their investments involves exploiting other Australians.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Back to the future for international students

    • Hanifa Deen
    • 17 September 2009
    6 Comments

    Visits by our senior politicians offering glib reassurances will not halt the turndown in Indian enrolments in our tertiary institutions. We need to revisit the days when we treated international students as people rather than statistics in an export industry.

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