Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site
Forgot your password?
Subscribe

Section: Australia

  • AUSTRALIA

    The bushfires of the vanities

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 20 November 2019
    10 Comments

    The fact that they so easily turned their attention away from the lives of the people threatened by fire to brawling about their own virtues and lack of them offers little hope that the lives of Australians will count with them when they reflect on the causes and the proper response to the fires.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Conversations with refugees in PNG

    • Joshua Lourensz
    • 19 November 2019
    5 Comments

    'Refugees/not refugees — here it is all the same,' a man tells me with a shrug. There seems to be both recognition of the impossibility of the situation for all who have been left here — but also an attitude that no one should be left behind.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Economic correctness gone mad

    • John Falzon
    • 13 November 2019
    30 Comments

    It's gone too far. The minute you voice even the smallest doubt about the Current Way of Things you get hammered. If, for example, you ask why large multinationals should profit from aged care, the guardians of Economic Correctness look at you funny. Either they don't get it, or they do and they cast you as an enemy of democracy.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Migration hardline is selling Australia short

    • Bree Alexander
    • 12 November 2019
    3 Comments

    Due to this stance, immigration is arguably not being leveraged to actually benefit the country, including its flailing economy. This is despite a government report released last year stating that immigrants increase GDP and helped avoid the 2008 financial crisis.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Labor pain and uncertainty

    • John Warhurst
    • 11 November 2019
    10 Comments

    The Labor Party's dismal performance this year has been bookended by May's election loss and this month's campaign review report. As it reflects publicly on the devastating election loss, discussion has also begun among Labor supporters about whether it has chosen the right leader for the future in Albanese.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    We need better care to relieve birth trauma

    • Nicola Heath
    • 06 November 2019
    2 Comments

    In our foetal-centric antenatal model, the health and wellbeing of the person giving birth are secondary considerations, stemming in part from a belief that suffering is a defining characteristic of childbirth. But what if a 'safe delivery' meant not just a healthy baby, but a healthy mother too?

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Class and climate drive Melbourne Cup hostility

    • Jeff Sparrow
    • 06 November 2019
    27 Comments

    I can't imagine how anyone could look at the Melbourne Cup and see a vision of the 'fair go'. On the contrary, much hostility to horse racing — this year's Cup attracted the smallest crowd since 1993 — stems from a perception that its rituals celebrate grotesque inequalities.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Making safe spaces for reporting harassment

    • Alana Schetzer
    • 01 November 2019
    4 Comments

    The message from these cases is clear: if you report sexual harassment, you will be punished for it. It's not enough that #MeToo has created a space for women to openly discuss the systematic harassment and discrimination they have experienced. We also need to create a safe environment for them to report these behaviours.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Building a dementia tolerant society

    • Jill Sutton
    • 29 October 2019
    10 Comments

    When we are losing our memories, we need more and more people who have learned to love us to help us, not fewer. This means that we need, more than ever, to remain in the community which has known us. How can we learn to accommodate these people whose conversational and independent living skills gradually but surely fade?

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Going carless is still a privilege in Australia

    • Celeste Liddle
    • 28 October 2019
    10 Comments

    A year ago, I made the decision to call a wrecker and get my car crushed into a cube. While realising how much money I was wasting was the tipping point, it was not the sole deciding factor. Firstly, there was the car accident I had nine years ago. Then there was going to Europe and seeing what public transport could be.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Advocacy for people who do bad things

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 28 October 2019
    13 Comments

    If we wish to persuade the public that a group of people is being treated unjustly, we portray them as innocent victims. We represent them as a class and as virtuous in order to change public opinion. Stories of violent behaviour by members of the group, however, reveal the reality that no group is uniformly composed of the virtuous and innocent.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Medevac is about health not migration outcomes

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 23 October 2019
    10 Comments

    The Medevac law was needed because there was no sensible process to arrange for urgent medical treatment for the people we are punishing as a deterrent. The system is working according to the medical practitioners involved in it. It would be a tragedy if the Medevac laws were repealed, just to prove how tough and immovable we are.

    READ MORE