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Keywords: Kim Beazley

  • AUSTRALIA

    Politicians' Catholic background

    • Ray Cassin
    • 16 October 2013
    31 Comments

    It may be that the press gallery sees no significance in Shorten’s 'Catholic background' because he supports same-sex marriage and perhaps also some other things that bishops don’t like. Is the gallery’s view that his 'background' somehow didn’t 'take'? The truth is that these days even being a practising Catholic, rather than the nebulous 'of Catholic background', conveys nothing about the course a politician will choose on issues of conscience.

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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

    Pragmatic answers to the asylum seeker question

    • Frank Brennan
    • 27 June 2013
    10 Comments

    'I want to outline the contours for a better approach — better than forcibly turning around boats, better than transporting people to Nauru and Manus Island or to Malaysia to join an asylum queue of 100,000 or permitting people to reside in the Australian community but without work rights and with inadequate welfare provision.' Frank Brennan speaks at the Australian Catholic University National Asylum Summit 2013.

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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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  • RELIGION

    There is an ethical way to stop the boats

    • Frank Brennan
    • 23 August 2012
    11 Comments

    Behind all the legal technicalities and political argument about boat people, there is room for deeper ethical reflection and a more principled proposal. But first, to clear away some of the debris.

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  • RELIGION

    Australia takes the low road on asylum seekers

    • Frank Brennan
    • 17 August 2012
    26 Comments

    All major political parties now hope they can confine people in Nauru for years on end without any prospect of court supervision and without any need for Parliament to revisit the matter. We have reached a fork in the road between decency and deterrence. As a nation we have taken the low road, inviting the newest signatory to the Refugees Convention to emulate our indecent behaviour.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Gillard and Obama's mutual exploitation

    • Tony Kevin
    • 18 November 2011
    9 Comments

    Australia is now indelibly associated with Obama's strong messages to China in Canberra. We were used. But our government wanted this, because it will all be popular with the middle ground former Labor voters Gillard is trying to win back from Abbott and the Greens.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Reclaiming Labor's lost soul

    • Fatima Measham
    • 15 June 2011
    18 Comments

    Voters who'd otherwise position themselves between the conservative Liberals and radical Greens are stranded. They are looking for leaders who would rather lose big on matters of principle than win by a margin on compromised policy. History has shown Labor to be the natural home for such leaders.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Hating Canberra

    • Ellena Savage
    • 29 October 2010
    18 Comments

    Canberra's bad weather has its benefits: Brisbane was Australia's capital, we might be living in a banana republic whose despotic ruling family would never want to relinquish their grip on leisure governance. The best thing about hating Canberra is that it discourages nationalism.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Forget Keating-Hawke soapie, give Rudd a hug

    • Michael Mullins
    • 19 July 2010
    14 Comments

    The public stoush between Paul Keating and Bob Hawke seems little more than soap opera for political junkies. Australian Jesuit Fr Frank Brennan longs for a political morality to guide politicians at times of political upheaval, such as Kevin Rudd's emotional departure from the Labor leadership.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The changing face of Kevin 24/7

    • John Warhurst
    • 12 March 2008
    5 Comments

    Kevin 07 ended his campaign with a wooden and self-absorbed election-night speech. Supporters took a deep breath and hoped 2008 would be better. So far it has been.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Plastic Rudd is Labor's safe option

    • Paul Mitchell
    • 21 November 2007

    There has been much vilification of Kevin Rudd's approach. But Labor was bound to produce someone prepared to run a colourless campaign, or it would risk watching Howard from the other side of parliament for four more years.

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