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Keywords: Multicultural

  • AUSTRALIA

    Does 'social cohesion' mask religious political influence?

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 16 July 2024

    Senator Fatima Payman's departure from Labor over a pro-Palestine vote and the emergence of 'The Muslim Vote' have reignited debates about faith in Australian politics. While PM Albanese cautions against religious influence, his stance overlooks the nation's history of faith shaping governance, raising questions about the feasibility of separating belief from policy-making.

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  • RELIGION

    Painful times for Church reformers

    • John Warhurst
    • 29 May 2024

    We are now witnessing a changed dynamic within the movement for church reform. The balance within its component parts has changed towards a more pessimistic view. A minority is still hopeful; a few even remain optimistic, but most are struggling.

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  • RELIGION

    Pope against the machine

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 23 May 2024

    When Pope Francis delivered a message for the World Day of Social Communications, he focused on AI. The pope posed a wide range of questions including how to regulate its development and use in order to avoid the manipulation of truth and the inevitable centralisation of wealth and power.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The constant remaking of a nation

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 17 August 2022
    4 Comments

    Few Australians of Irish descent will now be familiar with this history and the experience that accompanied it. They would see themselves as simply Australian. But the emphasis on social justice, the recognition of the value of community, and the concern for people who are marginal that are communicated through Catholic schools and the sympathy with the underdog owe much to the Irish heritage.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Tear down Australia's racist wallpaper

    • Fatima Measham
    • 15 August 2018
    20 Comments

    Fraser Anning's speech was heavily criticised, though few who did so bear credibility. Turnbull, Dutton and Tudge can hardly be taken seriously when they invoke multiculturalism. This is how racism works: it displaces focus from material problems to imagined threats.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The rewards of reviving languages

    • Sheila Ngoc Pham
    • 27 April 2018
    4 Comments

    As someone who has a language background which will in all likelihood not make it past one more generation in my family here in Australia, I've long understood the way language loss can occur as a result of migration, to say nothing of acts like colonisation. These are great forces that are difficult but, as I've found, not impossible to resist.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Locked out of our mother tongues

    • Sheila Ngoc Pham
    • 27 March 2018
    7 Comments

    On my first day of primary school, I understood very little English and spoke even less. My parents seemed to feel little anxiety and assumed I'd just figure it out at school. Turns out they weren't wrong. However, what they didn't anticipate is what would happen to my Vietnamese.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    The moral relativism of pro-coal conservatives

    • Tim Beshara
    • 20 November 2017
    8 Comments

    The charge of moral relativism has been laid against progressives in debates about everything from marriage to multiculturalism. However when it comes to climate change and coal, it is conservatives who choose to muddy the debate by pointing out that coal can be good depending on the context in which it is used.

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  • RELIGION

    Respecting Australian law is key to religious freedom

    • Rachel Woodlock
    • 21 July 2017
    12 Comments

    Because we are a multicultural and multi-religious society, we do not impose a singular moral or religious code on everyone. Believers can follow their faith’s code of living voluntarily. But if they choose to enter public debate about legislation on questions that affect everybody, they must construct their arguments based on reasoning acceptable to non-believers.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Is bipartisan bigotry the new normal?

    • Tseen Khoo
    • 16 May 2017
    19 Comments

    I have never felt as uneasy in Australia as I do now. It extends through many areas of my life, from listening to the low level of our national debate about migration and refugees, to my long daily commute and the many high-profile incidents of racist incidents on public transport. The fact that 'micro parties' with overtly racist agendas are influencing major party messages, such as in Labor's recent 'Employ Australians First' advertisement, is concerning because it points to these parties' success.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Pauline's peddling the hate again

    • Rachel Woodlock
    • 16 September 2016
    24 Comments

    Invisible to Hanson and her ilk are the hundreds of thousands of Aussies whose understanding of Islam allows them to enjoy and promote the separation of religion and state, live happily and peacefully alongside their non-Muslim neighbours, and have no long-term plans to impose their beliefs on anyone. Why should anyone delegitimise their Islam? Pauline Hanson may do it for the votes, but if we listen to her and follow her suggestions, we run the risk of destroying the very social cohesion she mistakenly thinks is threatened by multiculturalism.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    White Australia is alive and well in our parliament

    • Jarni Blakkarly
    • 21 June 2016
    11 Comments

    Across the political spectrum, Australia's major and minor parties are failing to reflect the multicultural Australia of the 21st century. We have fallen far behind similar nations like Canada, who elected 19 Indian-Canadians alone, and ten indigenous parliamentarians, at their last election. Who we elect to our parliament is not just about the gesture, it is also a reflection of where power lies within our society, and whose voices are given the space to be heard to represent the community.

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