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Section: Australia

  • AUSTRALIA

    Deciding to disclose an invisible disability

    • Fiona Murphy
    • 27 November 2018
    6 Comments

    Most people don't realise that I am deaf unless I tell them. My deafness is invisible. I don't wear hearing aids and my voice (though distinct enough to prompt people to ask 'where are you from?') isn't a typical deaf voice. Every day I make small calculations, assessing every interaction to determine if I need to reveal that I have a disability.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The cost of efficiency in Family Court merger

    • Alexandra O'Sullivan
    • 23 November 2018
    1 Comment

    It is imperative that the courts examine all the evidence thoroughly with expert analysis and allow time for perpetrators of violence to show their true colours, before any potentially life-changing decisions are made. Efficiency and cost cutting shouldn’t be the goal.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The Left is not immune to the patriarchy

    • Celeste Liddle
    • 23 November 2018
    10 Comments

    The Victorian state election is on this Saturday and if I’m being honest, I don’t think I could be less inspired about it if I tried. I want readers to understand just how much of a statement this is coming from me. I loathe our political system and most of our politicians but being an Aboriginal woman who works in the union movement and writes opinion, I am deeply invested in it all.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Law works within darkened understanding

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 22 November 2018
    5 Comments

    Debate about the independence and the dignity of the law has always been present. Nevertheless most societies take pains to reinforce trust in those who administer justice. Some elements in our culture, however, put that trust at risk. They deserve reflection.  

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Time to stop punishing the unemployed

    • El Gibbs
    • 21 November 2018
    10 Comments

    Australia’s income support system and employment services have shifted to an ever harsher regime of compliance and penalty, while failing to find work for hundreds of thousands of people. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Still a long way to go, period

    • Yen-Rong Wong
    • 16 November 2018
    2 Comments

    Uteruses, and in particular, periods, have long been used against menstruators — to malign, to marginalise, to make us feel lesser than. In ancient Greece, it was thought that the uterus (hysterika) was able to travel throughout the body, and that a wandering uterus was a sign of mental illness. The word hysteria has been used since then to minimise the severity of women’s mental health issues.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Australian sports need women off-field too

    • Kirby Fenwick
    • 16 November 2018
    2 Comments

    That this attitude persists at the executive level of arguably one of the biggest sporting organisations in the country despite the role women have played in the success of the game is quite damning. That it took a woman, or women, to change it is hardly surprising.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Elegy for Sisto Malaspina

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 15 November 2018
    2 Comments

    What is so urgent here is not a sense of being morbid. Nor, in the main, was there even a vengeful note. This was unalloyed grief, unimpaired by manipulation and political exploitation.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Embracing moral squeamishness

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 15 November 2018
    10 Comments

    What might be effective is to strengthen support within their own and the wider community in order to help vulnerable people understand themselves and the feelings that might drive them to paranoid ideas and violent action if left unattended. If that is moral squeamishness, it at least offers some hope of effectiveness.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Latham and Hanson's marriage of convenience

    • Jeff Sparrow
    • 08 November 2018
    3 Comments

    If we say the man's lost his mind, we must, in fairness, acknowledge that he possessed a mind to lose. Bizarre as the notion now sounds, Latham brought consider intellectual firepower to the Labor leadership. His deep commitment to free market policies meant his hostility to Hanson always came as much from the right as the left.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The politics of asylum-seeking children

    • John Warhurst
    • 08 November 2018
    12 Comments

    The government and the opposition are prevaricating and effectively delaying the positive outcome that many in the Australian public are crying out for. The time is ripe for action, but decisive policy movement is still absent.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Nauru children: Why did we wait so long?

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 03 November 2018
    11 Comments

    To distant observers the hesitation and delay are hard to understand. They ask how it is possible to look on idle and unmoved at children in despair when you are in a position to address the causes of their despair. What is it that enables us to pass by damaged children, untroubled? The answer may lie in the quality of our moral imagination.

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