Keywords: Parliamentary Inquiry
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 29 October 2012
'Though land rights and self-determination provide no utopia for the contemporary indigenous Australian community, they have belatedly put right an ancient wrong. The cost and inconvenience are unavoidable. Terra nullius is no longer an option.' Full text is from Fr Frank Brennan's keynote speech at the Central Queensland Law Association Conference, Mercure Capricorn Resort, Yeppoon, 27 October 2012.
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RELIGION
- ANDREW HAMILTON
- 25 October 2012
66 Comments
Being a Catholic priest during public enquiries into sexual abuse within the Church is a bracing experience. Infinitely less hurtful than being the victim of abuse, of course. But it prompts musing about the ways in which evil actions work out in a group and affect the individual members of the group and its perception by others.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 24 September 2012
10 Comments
'Looking to the future, I want to focus on the role of the laity in the growing absence of priests. And I want to insist on the need for due process, transparency and respectful dealing within the Church.' Full text of Fr Frank Brennan SJ's presentation 'Looking Back and Looking Forward Over Church and Life on the 50th Anniversary of Vatican II' at the Spirituality in the Pub Goulburn Valley Annual Dinner, 21 September 2012.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 18 September 2012
'The common law leaves a gap between the mandates of the law and the conduct that we choose to engage in according to our individual moral standards. We call that gap 'freedom'. The challenge is determining the width of that gap for groups bound by religious faith which differs from the Australian majority.' Frank Brennan launches Carolyn Evans' Legal Protection of Religious Freedom in Australia. Full text
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 07 September 2012
18 Comments
Church groups in Australia have vigorously campaigned to protect themselves from particular equal opportunity laws. While there is agreement about a faith community's right to employ practising believers, there is plenty of room for disagreement as to how most prudently and charitably to exercise that right.
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AUSTRALIA
- Luke Williams
- 28 August 2012
20 Comments
The Federal Workplace Bullying Inquiry has been told Australian workers are getting soft. There may be a fine line between robust performance management and workplace bullying, but international surveys have repeatedly shown Australian managers fail international benchmarks when it comes to the treatment of their people.
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MEDIA
- Fatima Measham
- 16 July 2012
2 Comments
As word of the national security inquiry filtered through Twitter last week, one wit remarked, '1984 is meant to be a cautionary tale, not a manual'. The proposed reforms constitute a disturbing concession that our intelligence sector is not equipped to deal with the increasing sophistication of covert online activity, without resorting to questionable laws.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 26 June 2012
18 Comments
Last week’s tragedy of another mass loss of life at sea between Indonesia and Christmas Island focuses our minds yet again on an intractable public policy problem for Australia – our search for a coherent, workable and moral asylum policy.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 23 April 2012
27 Comments
Victoria's parliamentary committee has much it could learn from Ireland's Murphy Report into clerical sex abuse, which identified the 'don't ask, don't tell' culture under which bishops did not talk about it even among themselves and were unaware of how widespread the problem was.
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MEDIA
- Catherine Marshall
- 11 January 2012
2 Comments
The public was quick to claim ignorance and condemn the theft of private information by News of the World. But ignorance is no longer an excuse, especially in these post-Princess Diana years where the role of the paparazzi, traitorous friends and dodgy journalists is well-known. Published 21 July 2011
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 13 October 2011
13 Comments
No matter how the Government paints the canvas, it can never be in the best interests of an unaccompanied minor who is a refugee to be removed from Australia to Malaysia. And if such kids are irremovable, they will continue to arrive in Australia by boat.
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MEDIA
- Tim Dwyer
- 21 September 2011
1 Comment
In arriving at its negotiated position with the Greens, the Government has shied away from any explicit examination of media concentration, arguably the main reason behind the widespread calls to examine the structure of the Australian media in the first place.
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