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Section: Australia

  • AUSTRALIA

    Picture is still bleak for people with disability

    • El Gibbs
    • 15 August 2019
    3 Comments

    Disabled people in Australia are being locked up, dying young and living in poverty, because they are disabled, and particularly if they are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. It's been 11 years since Australia ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, yet disabled people are far from being equal to non-disabled people.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Ovarian transplant pitch demonises menopause

    • Kate Galloway
    • 13 August 2019
    5 Comments

    As a society we have tended to ignore ageing women, and menopause has been read as a signal of our descent into decrepitude. The sales pitch for a procedure to delay menopause buys into this way of thinking. For many women menopause is not a burden, but a gift: no more menstruation, no more pregnancy, new purpose.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The contrasting gospels of Morrison and Shorten

    • Barry Gittins
    • 13 August 2019
    6 Comments

    In Jensen's take, while Shorten expresses honest doubt and cites Christ's golden rule, care of his Jesuit educators, Morrison indulges in a marathon of spiritual self-indulgence. Morrison masterfully works right-wing media outlets, or is worked by them, with Alan Jones leading the PM through a radio interview 'like Simpson led his donkey'.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The tweet smell of APS authoritarianism

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 12 August 2019
    5 Comments

    Should a public service have people with political, disagreeable opinions? No, according to the guidelines of employment in the Australian Public Service. The decision of the Australian High Court in the case of Comcare v Banerji is a salient warning to employees in the APS. Obedience, it seems, must be unquestionable and total.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    To be or not to be PC

    • Alana Schetzer
    • 11 August 2019
    15 Comments

    To accuse someone of being 'politically correct' has become a fast and effective way to shut down attempts to make public spaces safe and welcoming to all people. It means that those whose words and actions are at best thoughtless and at worst discriminatory can continue to avoid having to think about what they said or did.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The politics of domestic labour

    • Nicola Heath
    • 08 August 2019
    2 Comments

    It isn't just mothers and wives who bear the burden. Many households outsource domestic labour to nannies, housekeepers and cleaners. These workers are part of a vast global industry that employs 100 million people around the world. They are usually women from poor backgrounds who are rarely paid well for their labour.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Look to Finland for housing solutions

    • Dustin Halse
    • 07 August 2019
    7 Comments

    Robert Harris' The Gang of One ranges through Harris' five published books and a number of uncollected poems. Early work grows from his occasionally lonely, knockabout life and reveals not only a talent for catching the essence of fleeting memories and perceptions but also a mordant touch that gives edge to memory.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Why are we so soft on wage theft?

    • Nicola Heath
    • 05 August 2019
    14 Comments

    Cook and television presenter Adam Liaw attributed the widespread underpayment of hospitality workers to the complexity of the award system. In my experience, underpayment was simply part of the business model. The mentality was take it or leave it. There was always another uni student ready to take your place.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    US war games test Aus-China relations

    • Bevan Ramsden
    • 29 July 2019
    13 Comments

    Every effort should be made to keep Australia out of yet another US war overseas, especially against China. If such a war resulted, the US Marines in Darwin would draw fire on the Northern Territory. For Australia's peace and security, we need to see an end to the stationing of Marines in Darwin and an end to war rehearsals with the United States.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A migrant living on stolen land

    • Dinali Devasagayam
    • 25 July 2019
    8 Comments

    I wasn't born here. My family migrated to Australia when I was young and so I enjoyed the privilege of growing up without the war and discrimination that has marred my birth land, although there is a different type of discrimination that I have had to face being an Asian in Australia. In being here though I know I am living on stolen land.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    My seasons among the homeless

    • Barry Gittins
    • 19 July 2019
    7 Comments

    The regulations these guys have to abide by — the behavioural hoops they need to navigate — are designed to protect them, the volunteers and the property of the host churches. It is an ethical dilemma, the ceding of normally inviolate personal freedoms for the use of the facilities. I don't know how I would feel about it if I was in their shoes.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Aboriginal women face triple jeopardy

    • Katelyn Jones
    • 19 July 2019
    6 Comments

    Intersectionality describes the experience of overlapping oppression faced by black women. Criminologist Chris Cuneen discusses the double jeopardy faced by Indigenous women in Australia who live under both colonialism and the patriarchy. Throw in capitalism and you get a sometimes-lethal triple threat.

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