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Keywords: Close The Gap

  • AUSTRALIA

    Closing the Gap won’t work without human reconciliation

    • Michael Mullins
    • 17 February 2014
    14 Comments

    The Prime Minister's Closing the Gap speech to Federal Parliament last Wednesday was a finely crafted piece of work that failed to hit the spot. It seems that 'Closing the Gap' is the Government's Indigenous policy. Yet it can be seen as a justification for getting out the big stick to achieve short term gains that will look good on the Government's own political report card. 

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Spies like us

    • Bill Calcutt
    • 25 November 2013
    6 Comments

    The recent observation by a close Asian ally that 'spying on friends is amoral' belies an apparently growing gap between the illusion of civility and honesty and the reality of our suspicious relations with 'foreigners'. While the justification for the development of ubiquitous electronic surveillance capabilities is counter-terrorism, the greatest beneficiaries may be private business interests gaining a competitive advantage in a global free market.

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  • RELIGION

    Christian social thinking for Australia

    • Frank Brennan
    • 08 November 2013
    1 Comment

    'Many Catholics wonder how we can maintain our Christian faith at this time in the wake of the sexual abuse crisis and the many judgmental utterances about sexuality and reproduction. The Church that has spoken longest and loudest about sex in all its modalities seems to be one of the social institutions most needing to get its own house in order.' Frank Brennan's address to the Yarra Institute for Religion and Social Policy, 8 November 2013. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    My accidental apathy

    • Megan Graham
    • 16 October 2013
    10 Comments

    Christian activist and author Shane Claiborne wrote that the real tragedy of poverty is not that we do not care about the poor, but that we do not know the poor. As my memories of particular brushes with people living in poverty fade, feelings of empathy begin to lose their potency; a natural attrition when their reality, so distant from my own, is so lost among the 'First World Problems' of my inner city life.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The public, the Church, and asylum seekers

    • Frank Brennan
    • 13 August 2013
    1 Comment

    'Like many Australians, I had hoped that the dastardly plan announced on 19 July would stop the boats in the short term, as a stop-gap measure. It is dismaying to learn that appropriate consultations had not occurred with Indonesia with the result that the very people who were to receive the shock and awe message are yet to receive it. There’s only one thing worse than shock and awe; that’s shock and awe that doesn’t work because you haven’t done your homework.' 43rd Barry Marshall Memorial Lecture, Trinity College Theological School, 14 August 2013.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Paul Keating and Sorry Day's indulgence with a purpose

    • Michael Mullins
    • 27 May 2013
    3 Comments

    The most memorable lines of Paul Keating's 1992 Redfern Speech are not about Indigenous Australians at all, but Europeans who stole their land, their children and their dignity. A number of commemorative days focus on the needs and rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but Sorry Day is not one of them.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Gloomy forecast for Aboriginal super

    • David James
    • 12 December 2012
    6 Comments

    Superannuation is not generally available before the age of 55. For most of the population of Australia this is scarcely a problem, as they are likely to live well into their 80s. But the average life span of Aboriginal Australians is much lower. Many will not live long enough to derive financial advantage from their super.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Why the old woman couldn't cross the road

    • Mary Manning
    • 21 November 2012

    What was she to do? Mr J. J. Bullfinch would surely rescue her if he knew of her plight. He would stride out into the traffic and it would stop when he raised his hand. But why should she imagine he'd come? He hardly knew her. She was alone, sitting on the grass shaking from the shock of being nearly hit by a bus. 

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  • RELIGION

    Seeking a more ethical way to stop the boats and deaths at sea

    • Frank Brennan
    • 14 September 2012
    4 Comments

    In the lead up to the election, Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison are sure to continue insisting that the Gillard Government's Pacific Solution Mark II will not work. In all probability this will undermine the efficacy of the Gillard Solution in stopping the boats. Read the full text of Fr Frank Brennan's address to the Migration Institute of Australia, Menzies Hotel, Sydney, 14 September 2012 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Australia's nebulous borders

    • Brian Toohey
    • 04 September 2012
    3 Comments

    Looking at a map of the Australian coastline gives no clue about how far Australia's territorial claims extend. As a result, Australian policy makers aren't eager to embrace suggestions that Asian countries disputing possession of small islands and rocky outcrops should resolve their differences by assigning ownership to the closest country.

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  • RELIGION

    Leadership for justice in health care

    • Frank Brennan
    • 21 August 2012

    Fr Frank Brennan SJ is board director of St Vincent's Health Australia and professor of law and director of strategic research projects (social justice and ethics) at Australian Catholic University. Text is from his address at Leading the Way, the Catholic Health Australia Conference, Perth 21 August 2012, Governance and Mission stream.

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  • RELIGION

    Australia's 20 year search for the right asylum policy

    • Frank Brennan
    • 26 June 2012
    18 Comments

    Last week’s tragedy of another mass loss of life at sea between Indonesia and Christmas Island focuses our minds yet again on an intractable public policy problem for Australia – our search for a coherent, workable and moral asylum policy.

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