Keywords: National Gallery
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ARTS AND CULTURE
The tweet I sent that afternoon pretty much summed things up: 'Running late for work-life balance seminar. Why? Life, of course.' The irony was not lost on me. While officially I work part-time, I also freelance as a writer, volunteer regularly at my kids' primary school, have increasingly frail elderly parents who I feel terribly responsible for, and try to keep fit and maintain some semblance of a social life. On the day of the seminar on work-life balance, I'd managed to fill my schedule to breaking point.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Maureen O'Brien
- 24 June 2015
4 Comments
What can you do? There's comfort arising from an internal acknowledgement of the fact that, however painful it might be, there are some things beyond our control. But certain role models in our community - including anti domestic violence campaigner Rosie Batty - have demonstrated through their actions that it is possible to move beyond a seemingly all pervasive sense of resignation.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
Maria's aunt was the subject of one of Austria's most famous artworks, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, by the painter Gustav Klimt, which was stolen from Maria's family by the Nazis during the Second World War. Maria's story raises questions about the means and consequences of individuals and nations coming to terms with difficult histories, and of what constitutes 'ownership' of cultural artefacts with a high level of national significance.
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MARGARET DOOLEY AWARD
- Andy Lynch
- 27 August 2014
9 Comments
The kind of Australia we live in today can be directly attributed to the kinds of institutions built 150 years ago - schools, universities, libraries, museums, and more. But in 2014 is it even possible to carve out new public institutions or give new life to those that have waned in relevance?
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AUSTRALIA
- Fatima Measham
- 19 May 2014
16 Comments
Notwithstanding Kevin Rudd's merit as a candidate, there is no doubt that the unions-led campaign against WorkChoices was pivotal to handing government to Labor. What Bill Shorten has been handed this week in the Federal Budget is several WorkChoices with which to galvanise people. He needed it. His Budget reply offered a glimpse of the sort of Opposition Leader that Australians deserve.
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AUSTRALIA
How ironic that, even as Attorney General Brandis ensures the rights of 'bigots', the rest of us find our own rights under threat. Liberal state governments continue to roll out laws that affect the more marginalised and less privileged among us. Victoria's new 'anti-protest' laws and Queensland's 'anti-bikie' laws threaten public protest and assembly, which for most of us is how we exercise our freedom of expression.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Benedict Coleridge
- 09 August 2013
7 Comments
Monet, in a period of deep grief and loss, made what was in his career a rare decision: to paint other people. The artist forgot himself in contemplating the faces of his wife and his son, in depicting the faces of death and of incomprehension. We need icons like this — icons of incomprehension, reminders of the fragile self that, behind its virtual armour, is beset by doubt and demons.
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AUSTRALIA
You don't build someone up by putting them down. You don't help someone into employment by pushing them into poverty. By keeping the unemployment benefit low, successive governments have deliberately humiliated people rather than improving their chances.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 22 March 2013
1 Comment
'Transformation and empowerment will come through the exercise of kindness and tenderness, accompanied by the practical abilities inculcated by a rounded Catholic education.' Frank Brennan's address at the Transformation and Empowerment Symposium marking 50 years of the Signadou campus of ACU, 22 March 2013.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 22 March 2013
40 Comments
Some lamented that Rudd had abandoned his own supporters to their fate. But what political morality would dictate that he break his word simply because Crean had decided an immediate challenge was the only available circuit breaker for the woes of a dysfunctional divided Labor Party?
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 21 March 2013
1 Comment
Frank Brennan's address 'Recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People in the Constitution' presented at the 18th National Schools Constitutional Convention, The Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House, 21 March 2013.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 27 February 2013
15 Comments
Let's not underestimate the significance of John Howard's successor giving credit to Paul Keating for his Redfern speech, before invoking New Zealand's Treaty of Waitangi and calling for atonement. Still there is plenty of work to be done to attain proper constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians.
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