Keywords: Three Word Slogans
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AUSTRALIA
- Kerry Murphy
- 17 July 2015
7 Comments
How we name someone makes a big difference. Criminals are subject to the criminal justice system. They can access legal aid and the prosecution must prove its case. Whereas terrorists can have their citizenship cancelled under the proposed changes to the Citizenship Act if they are a dual national, even without a conviction.
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AUSTRALIA
- Kerry Murphy
- 12 September 2014
12 Comments
There may not be simple solutions to complex issues such as how to reduce the risk of travel by boat without punishing the refugees. However, the High Court's latest decision reminds us there are people involved and they are not ‘outlaws’.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Brian Matthews
- 18 July 2014
20 Comments
Life in Orwell's Airstrip One is graceless, demeaning and inhumane for all but those entitled to preferment. Surveillance is increasing, ruling-party secrecy and monopoly on information is rigid, refugees are demonised and language is reduced to sound bites and slogans. The leadership is disjoined from and cynical about the natural world. Just as well it's fiction because it sounds awful doesn't it?
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AUSTRALIA
- John Falzon
- 16 January 2014
1 Comment
Kevin Rudd says we need a 'new politics' or a 'new way'. Tony Abbott says we'll only get a new way by electing a new government. What is missing in both statements is the recognition that what we actually need is a new kind of economic democracy: a reconfiguration of our economic prioritising away from individualism towards the common good, and towards the participation of all rather than the exclusion of many.
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EDUCATION
- Dean Ashenden
- 15 January 2014
The backsliding began before Gonski even got started: his riding instructions were to ensure that 'no school will be worse off'. Since then one backward step has followed another. What the prime minister wants now from the state premiers when they meet on 19 April is not Gonski but the appearance of Gonski. She may not get even that.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 08 November 2013
1 Comment
'Many Catholics wonder how we can maintain our Christian faith at this time in the wake of the sexual abuse crisis and the many judgmental utterances about sexuality and reproduction. The Church that has spoken longest and loudest about sex in all its modalities seems to be one of the social institutions most needing to get its own house in order.' Frank Brennan's address to the Yarra Institute for Religion and Social Policy, 8 November 2013.
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AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 02 November 2013
7 Comments
'There have been innumerable post-mortems and words of advice as to how the party with new structures, election rules, and policies can pick itself up, dust off, and win the next election. Sadly some of those post-mortems have come with more coatings of spite and loathing. It is no part of my role in the public square as a Catholic priest to offer such advice.' Frank Brennan's address to the Bathurst Panthers Club, 2 November 2013.
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AUSTRALIA
- John Falzon
- 19 August 2013
24 Comments
Kevin Rudd says we need a 'new politics' or a 'new way'. Tony Abbott says we'll only get a new way by electing a new government. What is missing in both statements is the recognition that what we actually need is a new kind of economic democracy: a reconfiguration of our economic prioritising away from individualism towards the common good, and towards the participation of all rather than the exclusion of many.
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AUSTRALIA
- Kerry Murphy
- 19 June 2013
6 Comments
Comparison of these two cases is illuminating. One is the recruit to the Australia A cricket team, Pakistani born Fawad Ahmed. The other is, in Tony Abbott's words, the 'convicted Jihadist terrorist', Egyptian born Sayed Ahmed Abullatif. Ahmed will be the second Pakistani born cricketer in an Australian side that desperately needs a good leg-spinner. Abdullatif has possibly a more difficult road ahead.
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EDUCATION
- Dean Ashenden
- 08 April 2013
9 Comments
The backsliding began before Gonski even got started: his riding instructions were to ensure that 'no school will be worse off'. Since then one backward step has followed another. What the prime minister wants now from the state premiers when they meet on 19 April is not Gonski but the appearance of Gonski. She may not get even that.
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AUSTRALIA
- Kerry Murphy
- 24 August 2011
4 Comments
This week as we mark the 10th anniversary of Tampa, the High Court is hearing a legal challenge to the Malaysian solution and an inquiry into suicide and self-harm in detention is underway. Meanwhile a new report hopes to change the direction of the debate on refugees.
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EUREKA STREET/ READER'S FEAST AWARD
Coming closer, one sees these are paintings of drowning people, headsor bodies suspended in metallic seawater. There are 353 images, mostly children and women, for it was mostly children and women who boarded the boat.
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