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Keywords: Conversation

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

  • RELIGION

    Catholics and freedom of religion

    • John Warhurst
    • 13 October 2022
    13 Comments

    Freedom of religion, a matter of national interest still to be resolved successfully in the Federal Parliament, has yet again become a focus for the nation’s football codes. The Essendon controversy has demonstrated how it is issues with a religious-cultural component, not economic issues, which most polarize our society and are the most difficult for politics to resolve harmoniously. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Civil disagreement on a hill

    • David Halliday
    • 10 October 2022

    Last week, in a pluralistic and diverse, multi-ethnic, multi-faith society, a person was considered ill-fitting for employment, not because of their track record, but because of their outward association with a mainstream religion.

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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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  • 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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  • 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

    Democracy – Fraternity = Catastrophe

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 15 September 2022
    3 Comments

    To say that democracy is under threat is now a truism. And to sustain democracy is a complex task. People need to believe in it and experience its benefits. This demands a deep grounding, founded on our shared human dignity and on our shared responsibility to shape our own lives within the community on which we depend.

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  • RELIGION

    Praying for convergence?

    • Tracey Edstein
    • 14 September 2022
    6 Comments

    There is no doubt that the institutional Catholic church has lost ground in the last few decades. But unlike the institutional Catholic church, the parallel church is thriving. As people seek to engage with their beliefs and live their lives of faith more deeply, many have come to embrace a spirituality which, framed by authentic Catholic tradition, encompasses an expanded array of practices.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Conferences, summits, talkfests

    • Julian Butler
    • 13 September 2022
    1 Comment

    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.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    A moral compass at the centre of J.K. Rowling's Ink Black Heart

    • Juliette Hughes
    • 07 September 2022
    4 Comments

    So far it hasn’t been easy to find a review in Australia from someone who has actually read the sixth and latest book in Rowling/Galbraith’s Cormoran Strike crime series, The Ink Black Heart. l wonder if it is too much to ask for people to simply read books (any books) before holding opinions about them.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Navigating the Ship of State

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 06 September 2022
    3 Comments

    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.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Why does poetry matter?

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 25 August 2022
    11 Comments

    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.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Reflections on the Voice to Parliament: Vicki Clark and Frank Brennan

    • Frank Brennan, Vicki Clark
    • 18 August 2022
    3 Comments

    How can individuals and organisations engage with and support progress on reconciliation? In this conversation, Fr Frank Brennan SJ (Rector, Newman College) and Vicki Clark touch on progress of reconciliation in Australia in light of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, Constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, the Yoorrook Justice Commission and the Victorian Treaty process.

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