Keywords: Mandatory Reporting
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 04 April 2024
1 Comment
This week, the Federal Government quickly introduced a new policy in response to a recent High Court decision that prevents them from indefinitely detaining a small number of individuals they wish to remove from Australia.
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AUSTRALIA
- Holly Lawford-Smith
- 02 February 2024
1 Comment
How can we make progress on the question of whether debate can do harm, and if it can, whether that’s a sufficient reason to suppress particular debates? Or should we adopt a ‘no debate!’ approach to particular topics ourselves?
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 31 January 2024
4 Comments
What links the debate about the conduct of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, the detention of children in a crowded and under-resourced Cairns watch house, and British legislation to send asylum seekers to Rwanda?
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 30 November 2023
8 Comments
Any legislation hastily designed to negate the effect of the High Court decisions will be vulnerable again to be struck down on judicial appeal. That haste suggests an initial disregard for human rights and the rule of law by Governments and an ingrained resistance to any limitation of its power. Vindictive laws come at a heavy cost to the integrity and reputation of the lawmakers.
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AUSTRALIA
- Kate Galloway
- 08 October 2019
6 Comments
If government is concerned for citizens' wellbeing, it should properly resource services — drug and alcohol support, parenting support, subsidised childcare, education and so on. Instead, it is generating a system of social credit: rewarding those who toe the line and punishing those whose 'score' falls below that of the 'good citizen'.
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AUSTRALIA
- Rosie Williams
- 12 April 2019
2 Comments
Women's groups were initially cut out of this year's budget lockup with just two representatives admitted after fighting tooth-and-nail for the privilege. With such hostility to our cause it is hardly surprising to find the budget holds little hope for women in resolving the structural inequalities baked into our lives.
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AUSTRALIA
- Kate Galloway
- 01 March 2019
7 Comments
There is one type of family that consistently is omitted from pro-family government rhetoric: that of the single mother. Instead of making life easier for single-mother families, the government has imposed additional requirements as a pre-condition to their receiving the payments they need to support themselves and their children.
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RELIGION
- Kieran Tapsell
- 19 November 2018
14 Comments
It is understandable that canonists would try to find a kinder interpretation for the pontifical secret, given that the cover up caused more children to be abused, but in the canonical system, you cannot get away from the plain meaning of the words and the interpretation placed on them by the Roman Curia.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 20 August 2018
31 Comments
There is no way I would want to defend a seal of the confessional so widely drawn as that defined by Archbishop Anthony Fisher. However, I do think there is a case for respecting the seal of the confessional tightly defined as done by the canonist Fr Ian Waters. But to do that, the Church would need to get its act together.
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RELIGION
- Peter Johnstone
- 18 July 2018
46 Comments
The arguments for exemption ignore or deny the harm to children that can arise from failure to report. They claim the law would be ineffective because few paedophiles go to confession, and might not confess if the seal did not apply. Such conjectural arguments ignore the basic principle that all harm to a child must be forestalled.
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AUSTRALIA
- Daniel Fleming
- 14 August 2017
16 Comments
Sometimes ignorance can be a virtue in political decision-making. The great 20th century political philosopher John Rawls had a thought experiment called the “Veil of Ignorance” which he suggested should be applied to any political decision to test whether or not it is just.
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RELIGION
- Stephen de Weger
- 07 June 2017
69 Comments
The sexual revolution and Vatican II was a release from 'parental control' resulting, for many, in the sudden emergence of full-blown psychological adolescence with its risk taking, experimentation and lack of a fully developed sense of responsibility. Many clergy either slid into adolescent liberalism or, collapsing under new adult demands of freedom, retreated into reactionary conservatism. Others grew up and moved on, into new ways of being 'celibate'. Clergy misconduct is found in all three groups.
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