Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site
Forgot your password?
Subscribe

Section: Australia

  • AUSTRALIA

    A credibly Christian church would respect gay employees

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 30 August 2017
    47 Comments

    A threat reportedly made, and later denied, by some church leaders was to dismiss from employment in Catholic organisations people who contract same-sex marriages. The argument is that Catholic organisations must uphold the teaching of the church, and that upholding church teaching implies living in a way consistent with it. Whatever the abstract merits of this argument and its applicability to dismissal in limit cases, its general use belongs to a past age.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Compulsory drug testing is no silver bullet

    • Frank Brennan
    • 29 August 2017
    10 Comments

    In an age of 'budget repair' when both sides of politics are trying to contain the welfare budget, the search for savings and silver bullets is relentless. If Ministers Porter and Tudge are really seeking 'a way of assisting people to get off drugs and back into work', they should convince their cabinet colleagues of the need to increase the Newstart and Youth Allowance so that it might provide a real start for assisting people to survive with dignity while preparing for and getting back into work.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Countering Graham Richardson's Balgo claims

    • Brian McCoy
    • 28 August 2017
    20 Comments

    Richardson said that during a visit to Balgo, 'The real shock was that the women could not leave the children at home with the men because sexual assault was so common.' Community members find it very difficult to discuss publicly issues of shame involving others with whom they closely live. It takes time to build up trust.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Too many words about same sex marriage

    • Neve Mahoney
    • 24 August 2017
    73 Comments

    Lots of words have already been said and typed about the subject of same sex marriage. Too many, frankly. But it seems that the marriage equality debate will not go away nor be resolved easily, though LGBTI advocates have said that the homophobic anti-same sex marriage campaign will be damaging to the mental health of LGBTI people. Of course, the very idea that civil rights should be put to a public vote is demoralising.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    The beloved countries are still crying

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 23 August 2017
    9 Comments

    Seventy years ago Alan Paton wrote Cry the Beloved Country. His novel opened many Australians’ eyes to the wounded South Africa that lay behind its colonial surface. His elegiac conclusion was prescient of the two generations that followed.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    The twisted priorities of the same-sex marriage vote

    • Rohan Salmond
    • 21 August 2017
    53 Comments

    Same-sex marriage, the government tells us, is not a first-order issue. And yet it has grown to become a controversy so monumental it has overshadowed even the prospect of nuclear war with North Korea.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Why the seal of the confessional will remain

    • Frank Brennan
    • 20 August 2017
    23 Comments

    The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has published a 2000-page three volume Criminal Justice Report. One of its recommendations is that the states and territories 'create a criminal offence of failure to report targeted at child sexual abuse in an institutional context'.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    The lessons learned from charitable work

    • Mariana James-Techera
    • 19 August 2017
    4 Comments

    We students go to school to learn. But one of the best learning experiences for me has happened outside school: helping the less fortunate by serving them food at the Sacred Heart Mission and collecting food necessities for the charity.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    The high political stakes of same sex marriage

    • John Warhurst
    • 16 August 2017
    40 Comments

    The same sex marriage postal plebiscite will be as intense as most referendum and election campaigns. Indeed, the special characteristics of this subject, advanced by the government as the reason for going beyond parliamentary means to resolve the issue, mean that the campaign may be more intense than most referendums have been.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    What Philippines' president Duterte is telling us about China

    • Daniel Kleinsman
    • 16 August 2017
    4 Comments

      Reckless machoism is the trademark of President Rodrigo Duterte. He has vowed to stop at nothing in his bloody war against drugs and dissidents, and is unapologetic about increasing casualities incurred. Meanwhile, he demonstrates a terrifying disregard for anyone who opposes his agenda, and he delights in doing so.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Using ignorance to know if mandatory drug testing laws are sound

    • Daniel Fleming
    • 14 August 2017
    16 Comments

    Sometimes ignorance can be a virtue in political decision-making. The great 20th century political philosopher John Rawls had a thought experiment called the “Veil of Ignorance” which he suggested should be applied to any political decision to test whether or not it is just. 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    What's a little lie between friends?

    • Barry Gittins
    • 11 August 2017
    6 Comments

    ‘Would I lie to you? Would I lie to you honey? Now would I say something that wasn't true?’ The Eurythmics’ hit from 1985 has been played repeatedly in my head of late as I negotiate life as a Dad.

    READ MORE