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Section: Australia

  • 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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  • AUSTRALIA

    A bill of rights for the age of technology

    • Kate Galloway
    • 29 October 2018
    2 Comments

    A robust human rights framework would hold government to account in its own deployment of technology such as 'robodebt'. It would also provide protections against the government's increasing attempts to control data through legislation — where data is collected and deployed using diverse technologies.    

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The worst may already have happened

    • Fatima Measham
    • 24 October 2018
    6 Comments

    Under such conditions, it is hard to get people to concede that what they believe might be incomplete. No one wants to give anything up. This is an attempt to get people to give something up. Here is how to do it: ask what is the worst that can happen. Then accept that it may have already happened. But not to you.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Humanity on show in Wentworth aftermath

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 24 October 2018
    7 Comments

    If that is the world of politics then the cooperative energy and the graciousness seen in the Phelps cavalcade and the Liberal candidate are superfluous to requirements. As with refugees despatched to detention, the light and intelligence newly elected MPs bring to Australia will quickly fade from their eyes.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Royal visit's model for Aboriginal sovereignty

    • Dani Larkin
    • 24 October 2018
    4 Comments

    The system that keeps Aboriginal cultural autonomy oppressed calls itself representative democracy, yet our voices remain unheard. Seeing the royal couple prioritise our own land conservation more than the Australian government does is the ultimate example of how disrespected and politically powerless we are.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Harry and Meghan's Circus Oz

    • Megan Graham
    • 22 October 2018
    28 Comments

    I must admit, the royal family and all news related to them goes straight to the 'irrelevant' folder in my brain. A friend's Facebook post last week sums up my feelings about it. It was about people saying to her 'The royals are doing a wonderful job' and her rather perfect response: 'At what?!'

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Religious freedom is not a zero-sum game

    • Joshua Badge
    • 18 October 2018
    12 Comments

    Religious freedoms extend only so far as they do not contradict the fundamental rights and freedoms of others. While all Australians should enjoy religious freedom, they also bear the right to non-discrimination and to the highest attainable standard of health. It is also unclear how positive discrimination is related to practising a religion.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A parliamentary route through Uluru impasse

    • Frank Brennan
    • 16 October 2018
    16 Comments

    Despite what Turnbull and Morrison have said, I reject the classification of the First Nations Voice as a third chamber. Still, given that the proposal has been rejected by three Coalition prime ministers over the last three years, the question now is: what is the best way to proceed?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The confused politics of freedom of religion

    • John Warhurst
    • 12 October 2018
    24 Comments

    The discussion is widely framed as a conflict between secular and religious Australia, as if such entities existed, with secular Australia defending the rights of the LGBTIQ community and religious Australia wanting to shore up its right to discriminate against others on the basis of their sexuality. But it's not that cut and dried.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The incoherence of MPs' migration mentality

    • Fatima Measham
    • 11 October 2018
    7 Comments

    New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian's call to halve the state's migrant intake, and Federal minister for cities Alan Tudge's proposed a mandatory five-year regional settlement scheme for migrants, have both left policy observers scratching their heads. And with good reason.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Why no compromise on Manus and Nauru? Pt 2

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 04 October 2018
    12 Comments

    This is not a matter of holding the moral high ground but of remaining grounded. Refugee advocates should support campaigns to bring people to Australia from Nauru and Manus, but as part of a more universal and explicit commitment to respect people who seek asylum.

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