Keywords: Michael Mullins
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 13 December 2010
3 Comments
The Federal Government announced the inclusion of nicotine patches in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). Critics argue that smokers should take responsibility for their habit and pay the full cost of giving up. They miss the point of society.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 06 December 2010
43 Comments
The character flaws of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange are being exaggerated in order to shift the burden of shame from embarrassed governments on to Assange himself. We need to be told why it's in the public interest to hide the undermining of the international cluster bombs ban by the British Foreign Office.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 29 November 2010
19 Comments
World AIDS Day, like the Pope's apparent softening of Church attitudes to condom use, prioritises the care of one human being for another. This may be manifest in condom use, sexual abstinence, or acceptance of the others' HIV status.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 22 November 2010
24 Comments
Labor will tear itself apart unless it realises that a 'yes' or 'no' on gay marriage is less important than the process of reaching a position. It can choose to go down the path of political expedience, or it can adopt an approach of moral integrity.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 15 November 2010
7 Comments
The release on Saturday of Burma's democracy hero Aung San Suu Kyi, and last week's Australian high court decisions regarding refugees and bikies, each contain salutary lessons for governments that attempt to rule by popular fear.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 08 November 2010
10 Comments
Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi dismissed Islamic banking as 'incompatible with Australia's Western values'. But Western values that uphold a banking system that treats its customers with disdain – as the Commonwealth Bank did last week – need to be questioned.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 01 November 2010
2 Comments
At the time of the Apology to the Stolen Generations in February 2008, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd committed Labor to halving the gap in employment incomes within a decade. It is now looking like another great moral challenge that Labor has given up on.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 25 October 2010
2 Comments
There is credible speculation new part-owner James Packer will use his influence to kill innovation at Network Ten. The authority should respond by enforcing broadcast licence conditions, to ensure Packer's return to significant media ownership is in the public interest and not his self-interest.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 18 October 2010
7 Comments
Tony Windsor is proving himself to be a politician of integrity and tact, but has his work cut out for him in the case of the Murray-Darling Basin irrigators. Mary MacKillop was a champion of rural and regional Australians. It is worth considering her strategy in the context of the irrigators' struggle for survival.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 11 October 2010
5 Comments
Sexual abuse was part of the mix of challenges facing Mary MacKillop and her sisters, but it was only one of many elements of disfunction within the Church and society of the time. Historian Father Ed Campion has described MacKillop as 'a heroine to modern Australian feminists'.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 20 September 2010
12 Comments
Social commentator Frank Furedi wrote that the Pope's UK visit provided Britain's cultural elite with 'a figure that it is okay to hate'. We might regard the angst as a manifestation of the
growing pains that are to be expected in a world of emerging pluralism.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 13 September 2010
5 Comments
Deals struck between Prime Minister Gillard and Independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott saw hospitals in their electorates receive preferential treatment ahead of regions with greater needs. Pork-barrelling has always been part of politics, but that does not make it any less of a scandal.
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