Keywords: Public Interest
There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
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RELIGION
- John Warhurst
- 11 December 2019
52 Comments
What's going on within the Catholic Church always matters more widely given its size and power. Lay participation in leadership, especially of women, is a major social issue. Observers of social trends should watch this space for its wider public policy implications.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Andrew Hamilton
- 10 December 2019
17 Comments
To nominate Greta Thunberg the most significant person of 2019 is not to canonise her, still less to say that her way of pressing for action to address climate change is the only way. But her intransigence and single-minded focus are needed to mobilise the support necessary to make politicians act responsibly.
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AUSTRALIA
- Joe Zabar
- 04 December 2019
4 Comments
In light of the banking royal commission and the government's work in developing a plethora of transparency and integrity measures, it beggars belief how Brian Hartzer and Angus Taylor could bring upon themselves and their respective institutions so much unwanted publicity.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Andrew Hamilton
- 03 December 2019
5 Comments
If China spies upon Australia, Australia spied on East Timor. If China detains Uighurs in harsh conditions, so has Australia detained people in brutal and demeaning conditions on Manus Island. If China lays out money to nations on our region to secure its national interests, so does Australia, most notably to Nauru and PNG.
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AUSTRALIA
- Kate Galloway
- 02 December 2019
17 Comments
Two Aboriginal men are currently being held in immigration detention under threat of deportation because they are not Australian citizens. The case raises far-reaching implications concerning the status of the relationship between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians and the state.
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MEDIA
- Jane Britt
- 26 November 2019
3 Comments
The media played an important role in getting us to a royal commission. Now, it will play a role in how the RC paves the way for reducing rates of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation experienced by people with disability. It will also play a role in enabling survivors of trauma to share and start healing from their experiences.
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ECONOMICS
- David James
- 22 November 2019
5 Comments
At the next global financial crisis, when questions about what we want our monetary system to do for us become a matter of survival, why not devise a transactional system that is not just geared towards the consumption of goods and services, but involves monetary exchanges for social goods, such as sustainable production, or civic benefit?
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 20 November 2019
10 Comments
The fact that they so easily turned their attention away from the lives of the people threatened by fire to brawling about their own virtues and lack of them offers little hope that the lives of Australians will count with them when they reflect on the causes and the proper response to the fires.
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AUSTRALIA
- Joshua Lourensz
- 19 November 2019
5 Comments
'Refugees/not refugees — here it is all the same,' a man tells me with a shrug. There seems to be both recognition of the impossibility of the situation for all who have been left here — but also an attitude that no one should be left behind.
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ENVIRONMENT
- Kate Galloway
- 04 November 2019
5 Comments
It is up to business to determine what the market wants. And business is being given a very clear message of market sentiment, through people protesting. For government to attempt to regulate this is a burden on freedom of speech and a significant imposition on the market mechanism, the very thing Morrison says he is trying to protect.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Christine Burke
- 04 November 2019
4 Comments
Anyone interested in social justice knows that structures and systems can bolster the worst tendencies of human nature, can incubate 'social sin'. Korean friends, when asked if they live in fear of North Korea, almost always tell me 'we fear America more'. To me that seemed a bit of an overstatement. Now I understand their response.
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RELIGION
- Andrew Hamilton
- 30 October 2019
12 Comments
It may seem paradoxical that one of the most effective ways of imposing silence is by imposing noise. The Romans did it with bread and circuses. More modern totalitarian regimes have done it with military processions and massive rallies. Governments in contemporary democracies do so by controlling what is fed to the media.
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