Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site
Forgot your password?
Subscribe

Section: Australia

  • AUSTRALIA

    The shadow of responsibility: Australian war crimes allegations in Afghanistan

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 24 November 2020
    21 Comments

    The discussion in Australia as to how such atrocities are to be approached is telling. The call for responsibility has varied by degrees. Most tend to some variant of the rotten apple theory: a few particularly fruits that may be isolated and extruded from the barrel. Culpability can thereby be confined, preserving the integrity of other military personnel and, importantly, political decision makers.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Home-ing from work

    • Tim Robertson
    • 05 November 2020

    Bosses give any number of reasons, often focused on some vaguely defined notion of productivity, why they do or don’t support remote working, but ultimately it comes down to a single, fundamental question: what is the ideal balance between reducing expenditure and surveilling workers?

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    'Hard-hat' focus leaves women behind

    • Leya Reid
    • 29 October 2020

    Despite the heavy focus on 'hard-hat' professions in our political discourse, Australia’s economy is dominated by its service sectors. If this is Australia’s first service sector recession, why is this not reflected in the focus of our recovery and job creation programs?

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Refugees are the canaries in the mine

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 29 October 2020
    8 Comments

    If society were a mine, refugees would be the canaries in it. Their condition reveals whether the currents of public air are pure or toxic. By that standard the present currents in Australia are noxious. They mark a change from the first generous response to the coronavirus to the meaner reconstruction of the economy.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    The continuum of spatial justice in Australia

    • Cristy Clark
    • 22 October 2020
    4 Comments

    It would be really easy to ‘both-sides’ these debates, but that would present a false equivalence. Surely, if we have learned anything from this year’s lockdowns, we should have gained a far greater appreciation of the importance of community access to outdoor space — and, therefore, of spatial justice?

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Rulers in crisis

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 22 October 2020
    11 Comments

    In the choppy waters of public conversation, rulers have recently attracted much attention as they have bobbed along on its surface. This is not unusual, but in these months the attention has been more frenetic and perhaps harder to read. Whether it be Trump, Johnson, Andrews, Ardern, Berejiklian or Pope Francis, there have been unusual eddies about them that merit reflection.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Imagining the Budget

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 15 October 2020
    8 Comments

    The Federal Budget this year coincided with the release of Pope Francis’ Encyclical Fratelli Tutti. Both are preoccupied with the shape that society will take after COVID-19. It is tempting to compare their different approaches.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    No joke: OCD is not a punchline

    • Anonymous
    • 15 October 2020
    7 Comments

    ‘You’ve got a bit OCD about all this handwashing, haven’t you?’ People say things like this all the time, to mock others’ habits and the routines they follow a little too closely. Usually, it’s not meant to be offensive. Just harmless teasing. But when I hear someone say something like this, it hurts. Because I actually have OCD.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Let them pick fruit

    • Vivienne Cowburn
    • 13 October 2020
    19 Comments

    An idea that’s gaining traction, in a pandemic where international travel has stopped and many Australians are losing their jobs, is this notion that the unemployed (aka: everyone on JobSeeker payments) should go out into the regions and help the farmers pick fruit.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Putting a value on a human life

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 01 October 2020
    7 Comments

    The response to COVID has invited reflection about the relative value of one human death (and so of one human life) as compared with another. This is a radical question because it makes us ask whether the value of a human life is defined by economic wellbeing and by potential contribution to the economy, or by deeper qualities.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Actually, my illness does define me

    • Tim Hutton
    • 01 October 2020
    9 Comments

    For many people, illness has a narrative: a clear beginning, middle and end. If we’re lucky, the ending is actually a fresh start where the illness is gone and our hero is returned to normal life, changed but stronger because of their ordeals. In the lives of those with chronic illness, however, those lines are blurred; our descent into illness may have been gradual and there might be no end in sight.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Mobile phone bill threatens dignity and decency

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 24 September 2020
    21 Comments

    The objections to the legislation focus correctly on the infringement of human rights. That phrase, however, is bloodless. It might suggest that rights form a list to be ticked off. Human rights are better conceived as a way of speaking about the conditions necessary for people to live decent human lives. The proper place from which to reflect on them is the actual lives of the people who are affected.

    READ MORE