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There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
Philip Wilson has been sentenced to 12 months' detention for concealing child sexual abuse. It's very likely that he will appeal his conviction and sentence. An appeal may well succeed, but that's not the end of the matter. This has been a six-year saga relating to events which occurred more than 40 years ago. Emotions are running high.
Over this last week, two remarkably contradictory things happened in Canberra. The Attorney-General shepherded through some of the most significant changes to foreign interference laws in recent times. It was also reported that he signed off on charges laid against Witness K, a former officer of ASIS, and his lawyer.
The story has become the triumph of Mahathir Mohamad, himself part of the political elite as a former prime minister for two decades, and his opposition coalition. This is wrong. The real story is the mass-mobilisation of Malaysia's civil society in the face of anti-democratic moves at suppression.
As the royal commission prepared to resume its hearings into financial services the Vatican released Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones, on the ethics of markets. Although written quite independently, passages of the document could have been mistaken for factual reporting of the royal commission.
The Vatican has launched a stringent critique of abuses in global economies, abuses that are driving astonishing inequality and threatening ecological sustainability. 'Oeconomicae et pecuniariae questiones' reiterates the call for an urgent dialogue between politics and economics to advance human life and wellbeing.
General apologies don't go far enough. Compensation is necessary, but also not enough. The reputation of the church would now be higher if there were more obvious signals of accountability by those in charge. The offer of resignation made as a group to Pope Francis by the entire Chilean hierarchy is a breath of fresh air.
Health spending takes up a significant amount of federal and state government spending. But is this to keep Australians healthy, or to treat us when we get sick? The budget was a missed opportunity to invest in preventative health measures, and to fix health inequalities through policies informed by the social determinants of health.
On the surface budgets are exercises in financial accountability. At a deeper level they are best understood as a yearly ritual; one of the ways in which rulers acknowledge and try to manipulate truths about state power. We should evaluate these less on their stated intentions but with what the show of competence and generosity reveals.
The banking royal commission has already come to resemble the earlier child abuse royal commission. To observers who share a personal and public-spirited interest in the decent functioning of institutions, the similarities invite reflection on why two apparently different forms of institution should behave in such similar ways.
Whether Facebook fails or succeeds beyond the Cambridge Analytica scandal is somewhat beside the point - we are finally starting to have discussions about the desirability of their business model. Because of course, Facebook is not the only company that strip mines data with almost sociopathic disinterest.
The size and complexity of the church has bedevilled the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Church reformers face the same dilemma. The church is big and slippery, with numerous opportunities to engage but equally numerous veto points and dead-ends when it comes to getting action.
This Easter, and Orthodox Easter, and Passover, and at the changing of the seasons, I am prepared to reassert my faith. That whatever evil brings, compassion, courage and passionate commitment to the old values of honesty, accountability and care for others will bring the enormous change that was promised so long ago.
85-96 out of 200 results.