Keywords: Melbourne Response
There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Binoy Kampmark
- 03 October 2017
11 Comments
Terrorism has its loaded associations, a distinct demonology. To suggest that a US citizen might be a terrorist hardly accords with the project of Making America Great Again. Paddock was not a Muslim, which would have been a useful alibi for the restrictive policy on arrivals from specific Islamic countries.
READ MORE 
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Binoy Kampmark
- 04 September 2017
8 Comments
In Australia, the reactions have been far from mild. Malcolm Turnbull was less than reassuring, suggesting the un-testable notion that the Korean peninsula was closer to conflict than at any time since the Korean War. The converse, if counter-intuitive argument can be made: that the peninsula is being made safe from war through this aggressive pursuit of nuclear arms. This is not a view deemed acceptable to officials in Washington and Canberra but is entirely realistic given Pyongyang's aims.
READ MORE
-
PODCAST
Is there a way to think about terrorism without politics? Do counter-terrorism responses make us safer? What are sensible ways to sift through news reports about acts of terror? Andrew Zammit takes us through these and other questions. He is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne and has worked on terrorism-related research projects at Monash University and Victoria University.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Celeste Liddle
- 28 July 2017
38 Comments
As the news came through that the man who had run down young Elijah Doughty in Kalgoorlie last year had escaped a manslaughter conviction and instead had been sentenced for three years for the charge of reckless driving causing death, I saw Aboriginal community members dissolve. Many expressed grief for Elijah's family and community. Others set about highlighting how there is rarely any justice in this system for Aboriginal people.
READ MORE
-
ENVIRONMENT
- Greg Foyster
- 20 July 2017
11 Comments
After months of very silly debate about clean energy, one thing is abundantly clear: the electricity market is evolving much faster than most politicians and commentators can understand it. The story underneath all the distraction is that wind and solar have already changed the game. As that big Finkel report no one read made clear, 'there is no going back from the massive industrial, technological and economic changes facing our electricity system'.
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Binoy Kampmark
- 10 July 2017
6 Comments
The DPRK's options in terms of defending itself against the US and its allies were always limited, leaving the way open for an assortment of pantomimes. The arsenal of the threat became normal: that, for instance, of incinerating Seoul, the possibility that Tokyo or Alaska might be targets. The show seems to be moving beyond the next boundary of what is deemed acceptable, largely because Trump deemed it impossible Pyongyang would have a viable ICBM option that could reach the US.
READ MORE
-
ENVIRONMENT
- Greg Foyster
- 22 June 2017
6 Comments
If politics is theatre, climate politics is a family drama. For the last decade we've watched two rival households having the same endless argument. Political journos call it the 'climate wars' and mostly focus on the lead actors standing in the spotlight - in the Western narrative tradition, characters drive events. Almost no one has noticed the scenery change. Stagehands dismantled the backdrop years ago, but politicians have carried on as if the same circumstances existed when they started this charade.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Sarah Klenbort
- 15 June 2017
4 Comments
On a recent tour of Vaucluse House in Sydney's east, I couldn't help but notice, in every bedroom, a writing desk. I imagined Sarah Wentworth scribbling away with inkpot and pen 180 years ago. I wonder if the Wentworths went straight to their writing desks first thing in the morning, the way some people check their phones? The desire to receive news from someone somewhere else is century's old. In 1850 Tasmania had 11 newspapers, for a population of 70,000.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 31 May 2017
6 Comments
Indigenous leaders this last week have called for the creation of two new legal entities. They want a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution, and a Makarrata Commission set up by legislation. The Makarrata Commission would supervise agreement making between governments and First Nations and engage in truth telling about history. The envisaged destination is a national Makarrata (or treaty). So the immediate constitutional issue is the creation of the First Nations Voice. There is no point in proceeding with a referendum on a question which fails to win the approval of Indigenous Australia. Neither is there any point in proceeding with a referendum which is unlikely to win the approval of the voting public.
READ MORE
-
RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 08 May 2017
1 Comment
Our Church is presently a strained, outdated social institution with an exclusively male hierarchy and clergy. But it is also the privileged locus for us to be called to the banquet of the Lord sharing theology and sacrament which have sustained the hearts and minds of similar pilgrims for two millennia. Thank God for Pope Francis who is showing us the way, helping us to find meaning in our changing and chaotic world, putting a fresh spring in the step of all those Catholics holding in tension the prophetic and the practical, the theological and the humanist, the tradition and the contemporary reality.
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Binoy Kampmark
- 19 April 2017
6 Comments
A truculent rogue in the White House fumes at an upstart rogue in Pyongyang, both fumbling away in the kindergarten of blunder and realpolitik. How do they measure up in the stakes of rogue behaviour? Even conservative commentators such as Samuel Huntington noted in 1999 that the US is 'in the eyes of many countries ... becoming a rogue superpower'. International law, for the bomb-heavy bully, is a convenient moral reference when needed, but is avoided like a leper when it becomes an impediment.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Julie Edwards
- 15 March 2017
6 Comments
At present the tornado that has raged in youth justice has abated. Disturbing images from Don Dale led to a royal commission in the Northern Territory. In Melbourne, public fears about gang violence, carjackings, robberies and youth detention centre riots were followed by the placing of many young people in an adult facility and a pledge to build a new prison for young offenders. This pause offers time for reflection on the human reality and needs of children who are involved in the justice system.
READ MORE