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Recently many people have expressed disquiet about the trend to authoritarian rule throughout the world. They have good reason for doing so. In the world we are entering, the freedom of citizens in the State depends on the will of Governments that will have no enforceable obstacle to withdrawing such freedoms on suspicion of future misconduct and not just for punishment of past, proven misconduct.
July marked the tenth anniversary since offshore refugee processing was introduced in Australia, a step that marked a change in Australian policy from an uneasy balance between respect for people in need and the pressure to deter further arrivals. The principle of deterrence is deeply corrupting because it is based on the conviction that it is acceptable to punish one group of people in order to deter others.
Those who suggest that gatherings like the Jobs Summit are not worth the time overlook the possibility of long-term solutions being found through people coming together and talking. Much of the talking was done, of course, prior to the Jobs Summit. But the date in the diary focusses the mind; preparatory conversations start to refine a common understanding of what is being sought, and maybe even why.
The policy of the Labor Government can be described as steady as she goes. This does not mean that it will simply follow the policies of the previous government. Its reading is that the ship of state has been becalmed, responding haphazardly to the political winds with no sense of direction or destination. It had become the ship of fools. The new Government then has committed itself to show that there are captain on board and a competent, disciplined crew that can work together.
The absence of trust undermines our ability to meet basic human need, to feel supported, to share resources and to effectively divide responsibilities. Mistrust imposes its own ‘price’ on every ‘transaction’, every engagement with others becomes more costly as we need to account for the perceived insincerity and unreliability of others.
In most circles poetry doesn’t matter. It doesn’t put bread on the table, nor raise people to revolt nor even make news unless a grizzled footballer is outed for secretly writing poems. Even in churches poems and hymns are altered to improve their orthodoxy in matters of faith, gender, race or modernity, but rarely their poetic quality.
Few Australians of Irish descent will now be familiar with this history and the experience that accompanied it. They would see themselves as simply Australian. But the emphasis on social justice, the recognition of the value of community, and the concern for people who are marginal that are communicated through Catholic schools and the sympathy with the underdog owe much to the Irish heritage.
Former detainee, Kurdish-Iranian refugee Mostafa ‘Moz’ Azimitabar, seeks compensation from the Federal Government for what he alleges was unlawful detention. Detained offshore in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and in Australia for almost eight years, Moz is seeking compensation in the Federal Court of Australia for the physical and emotional toll of his detention, particularly from the final 14 months of detention in two Melbourne based hotels.
The leaders of the past are often referred to as a measuring stick for evaluating the present. Australian prime ministers are routinely compared to John Curtin or Robert Menzies. This coming week calls to mind another leader against whom we might measure others. July 18 marks Mandela Day, an annual international day in honour of Nelson Mandela, the first Black President of South Africa. Mandela had the quality, rare today, of being born to rule.
Just over a fortnight ago Google suspended Blake Lemoine, an engineer for Google’s AI organisation, for publicly claiming a computer chatbot he was working on is sentient and thinks and reasons like a human. The publicity surrounding the suspension has raised questions about the development of artificial intelligence (AI), about our shared understanding of what it means to be conscious and sentient.
If NAIDOC and of the Australian Catholic Church are to achieve their goals time and patience will be required. Yet both show signs of justifiable impatience. This year the theme of NAIDOC Week is Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up! Its tone is urgent, expressing frustration at the resistance to change but also the recognition that new possibilities have opened.
As part of the 30th anniversary of Eureka Street, we're running conversations with the team who first started the publication in 1991, alongside various people who have played a part in the Eureka Street story. In this video, Eureka Street editor David Halliday speaks with Eureka Street consulting editor Andrew Hamilton SJ.
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