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Keywords: Australian Of The Year

There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The Dadist manifesto

    • Barry Gittins
    • 25 October 2022

    When Kenneth Hugh Gittins is in the room and crash-tackling the conversation, well, eat your heart out Salvador Dali and Walter Mitty. Conversations turn surreal, fact-checking expeditions run aground. A charming teller of truths and tales (some tallish and some Himalayan), this rustic raconteur has perplexed many an audience or congregation and delighted many a grandkid and great-grandkid with his reminiscences.  

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Three-lie leeway

    • Michele Frankeni
    • 24 October 2022

    How do we go from insisting our children tell the truth, even if it leads to punishment for breaking rules, to casually accepting a lack of veracity from societal ‘leaders’? Why in this age of social media when the mildest of heterodox comments cause a storm of protest do blatant untruths cause not even a ripple? 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Light and darkness

    • Tony London
    • 18 October 2022

    Change of season is upon us, / hot unseasonal days have drained us, / human sponges squeezed by the hands / of humidity, but the nights are becomingcool, a relief for bodies and minds in need / of withdrawal and replenishment of deep sleep, but in all of this there is some wakefulness, and there are some choristers returned, in these dogwatch hours.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Making My Island Home

    • Paul Mitchell
    • 18 October 2022

    ‘My Island Home’ was first recorded 35 years ago, a song that emerged from a journey and conversation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous voices. It’s helped Australians better understand our home and place in it, and points to the value of enshrining Indigenous voices in our constitution so they can continue to speak to us all. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Speaking truth to power: In conversation with Tim Costello

    • Barry Gittins, Tim Costello
    • 07 October 2022
    1 Comment

    Reverend Tim Costello's informal status as a nagging conscience to many Australian governments, including the Howard government in which his brother Peter served as federal treasurer, was formally acknowledged when the National Trust of Australia chose him as a ‘National Living Treasure’. Barry Gittins speaks to Tim Costello about the nature of power, and its place and exercise in public life.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Heartbreak High brings authentic autism onscreen

    • Brenna Dempsey
    • 05 October 2022
    1 Comment

    I only wish when I was growing up there had been examples of autistic characters on television like Heartbreak High’s Quinni (Chloé Hayden), played by actors who are themselves autistic. Chloé Hayden is one of the first autistic actors to play an autistic character in a major TV series, and I feel angry that I didn’t see this sort of representation when I was younger. If I had, I may have realised I was autistic before I was in my 20s, which may have made my journey easier.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Reassessing assessments in an era of anxiety

    • Sarah Klenbort
    • 03 October 2022
    4 Comments

    Assessments serve a valuable purpose: they give us a way to measure what students are learning. The problem is, they don’t seem to be learning. According to the Australian Council for Educational Research, recent results confirm that Australian 15 year-olds continue to show significant declines in math, reading and science when measured against their international counterparts. Australian students are learning less, and at the same time, never have we seen such an emphasis on assessments in schools. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Devaluing freedom

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 29 September 2022
    8 Comments

    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. 

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    The empty echo chamber: A conversation with Dr Axel Bruns

    • David Halliday, Axel Bruns
    • 22 September 2022

    Despite our differing social and cultural beliefs, we can mostly agree that we live in highly polarised times. But what divides us? ARC Laureate Fellow Prof. Axel Bruns studies social polarisation, and in this discussion we explore the drivers of polarisation, examining the role that digital and social media and broader social and political contexts play in intensifying social conflicts, threatening economic prosperity, undermining public trust, and ultimately destabilising societies.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Turning back Australia’s refugee policy

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 21 September 2022
    1 Comment

    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.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Stray thoughts: Remembering times past

    • Michele Frankeni
    • 20 September 2022

    Out of the blue I was sent a photograph that is nearly 40 years old. Why did this photograph trigger a wave of nostalgia? For me, nostalgia is not something to be sneered at as a longing to return to a forgotten past, but rather respected for allowing us to reflect on remembered joys.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Sadness and forgetting: Queen Elizabeth II, monarchy and empire

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 20 September 2022
    7 Comments

    When more nuanced commentary around the passing of Queen Elizabeth II came to the fore, it was hard to avoid the difficult realities of the British monarchy and an institution that has not, through its history, delighted those conquered in its name. With Elizabeth II, it was notable that she let an opportunity to engage the topic of empire in Britain’s collective memory go begging.

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