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Keywords: Leadership

  • AUSTRALIA

    The Aboriginal Tent Embassy: Then and now

    • John Honner
    • 28 July 2022
    3 Comments

    The ‘Land Rights Now’ banner is hoisted against the wind, and the marchers set off for the Embassy. A young Aboriginal woman walks ahead of the banner. She has dyed her hair red. She turns and leans into the wind to face the marchers, holding a megaphone to her mouth. ‘What do we want?’ she shouts, ‘When do we want it?’ And she keeps going, exhorting the marchers. We reply ‘Land Rights … Now!’ The crowd tires before she does.

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  • RELIGION

    After the Plenary

    • Geraldine Doogue
    • 27 July 2022
    6 Comments

    What did the Plenary mean exactly, and what is next for the church? Secretary to the Council, Fr David Ranson, offers a rich and bracingly realistic set of observations about the Plenary Council. As secretary, Fr David was deeply absorbed in the lead-up, in the events of the week itself and now in assessing what comes next. He might surprise you with his judgements. They're delivered by a man with an acute sense of Church procedures but also with an eye to possibilities. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Reducing flood risk in Lismore starts with better data

    • Jerry Vanclay
    • 19 July 2022

    How is it that Lismore, one of the most flood-prone towns in Australia, can be so ill-prepared and so badly affected by floods this year? What can Lismore do to reduce its flood risk, and what are the implications for others? These are important questions, especially now as the newly constituted Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation assists flooded towns in the region to make pivotal decisions. Flood frequency is critical information, so you might expect that such guidance was based on the best available data – but this does not appear to be so.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Born to rule and crowned in prison

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 14 July 2022
    1 Comment

    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.

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  • RELIGION

    Towards inclusivity: Can the Church learn from the Federal election?

    • Anne Walker, Emma Carolan
    • 30 June 2022
    4 Comments

    Last month’s Federal election has delivered what is being considered as the most progressive parliament that Australia has witnessed for some time. Such a change represents a shift in values, experiences and priorities held by everyday Australians. As the Australian Catholic Church continues its process of self-examination through the Plenary Council, what can it discern from this election result?

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  • RELIGION

    A Vatican-inspired theological revolution

    • Paul Collins
    • 28 June 2022
    4 Comments

    A basic principle was laid down in the pope’s recent Apostolic Constitution entitled Praedicate evangelium that is profoundly important with far-reaching consequences for the whole church. This principle states that any baptised Catholic ‘can preside over a dicastery,’ that is run a Vatican department. Previously only ordained clerics could do this.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The grace of courtesy

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 23 June 2022
    4 Comments

    Since the Federal Election one of the most refreshing features has been the new Prime Minister’s connection with people. Whether it is shown by riding a bamboo bicycle with the Indonesian President, expressing sympathy for the Nadesilingam family for their prolonged ordeal before returning to Biloela or agreeing with Jacinda Ardern, herself a model of public empathy, about the unreasonableness of expelling to New Zealand people who had never lived there, his actions displayed a readiness to listen and to enter the experience of other people.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Can the Class of '22 fix Australian Democracy?

    • Tim Dunlop
    • 22 June 2022
    5 Comments

    Concern about political malfeasance in Australian politics was one of the issues that drove the influx of new members (mainly women) into the Australian Parliament on 21 May, and they are promising a raft of reforms. The astounding thing is that we managed to leverage the change of 21 May 2022 within the confines of a system that inherently favours the status quo, the preferential voting system tending to channel votes back to the major parties.

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  • RELIGION

    What can we expect from the Plenary Council? A Roundtable

    • Geraldine Doogue, Greg Craven, John Warhurst, Julian Butler
    • 17 June 2022
    2 Comments

    After four years, the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia is nearly at a close with the second and final assembly in July. So what has been the significance of the Plenary Council so far, and what can we expect from the final session? In this Roundtable, Geraldine Doogue, John Warhurst, Greg Craven and Julian Butler reveal their hopes and expectations for the process and discuss likely outcomes.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Wit, irony and the Australian vernacular: Remembering Brian Matthews

    • John Schumann
    • 15 June 2022
    4 Comments

    Most of us, when pushed, can name a couple of teachers who had a profound influence on our lives. For me, Brian Matthews was one such teacher. I enrolled in English at Flinders University in 1972. On asking the enrolling officer whether anybody was ‘doing anything about Lawson’, I was directed to the office of Brian Matthews, a recent appointment to the English Department. ‘I hear you know something about Lawson,’ I said, leaning in his doorway.

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  • RELIGION

    East Timor’s cardinal leap forward

    • Pat Walsh
    • 15 June 2022
    2 Comments

    While the church in East Timor has its hands full serving its large membership, a big challenge is to work out what its role should be in post-war Timor. Rather than entrench its comfortable status quo, Cardinal Virgilio, educated in the Philippines and from an order skilled in youth education, must ensure that the church’s new status is used to move it towards the model advocated by Pope Francis.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    'Part of a Pacific family': Australia to re-focus aid budget

    • Joe Zabar
    • 07 June 2022
    1 Comment

    The Asia Pacific region has some of the world’s poorest and most disadvantaged communities. Supporting our regional family through increased aid and development will be important, but so too is the respect we show to the leaders of those nations which surround us. 

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