Keywords: Victorian Election
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AUSTRALIA
- Celeste Liddle
- 22 June 2016
8 Comments
For the first time ever, I got the sense that political views on the importance of Indigenous issues had shifted. It was not due to an increase in Indigenous voices in the political discussions nor was it because either of the major parties announced a policy which I found remotely inspiring. Rather it was because, under the glare of the camera, the leaders of the two major parties both attempted to show a greater understanding of the Indigenous political agenda than they have before.
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AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 10 December 2015
I first met this Tony on my regular visits here to Darwin when he was working at the North Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service and then when he set up the mediation services under the auspices of Anglicare. In later years I knew him when he was your Anti-Discrimination Commissioner. He was a quiet, considered, gentle, strong and principled man. On Human Rights Day, it is only fitting that I honour Tony by offering some reflections on the architecture for human rights in Australia, on the contemporary human rights controversies, and on the way forward for better protection of the human rights of Aborigines and asylum seekers, two marginalised groups who had a special claim on Tony's sympathies.
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AUSTRALIA
- John Warhurst
- 05 October 2015
8 Comments
The polls are still evenly balanced and Turnbull has yet to strut his stuff in any meaningful way. So Shorten should still be the subject of the sort of scrutiny that David Marr has just given him. Marr is appalled by Shorten's path to power through the union movement, the Labor Party and the factions for what it reveals about the modus operandi of these organisations. But he is still somewhat taken with Shorten's talents. Nevertheless, he doubts that Shorten is up to the job.
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AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 22 July 2015
7 Comments
Australia is more mature and more complex than it was at the time of the 1967 Aboriginal citizenship referendum. We need to be very attentive to the diversity and (hopefully) emerging consensus of Aboriginal viewpoints. We also need to be attentive to what measures the leaders of our major political parties will be prepared to sponsor during the life of the next parliament, championing those measures in a referendum campaign.
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AUSTRALIA
- Moira Rayner
- 05 June 2015
15 Comments
Joan's outstanding quality was her generosity, which gave her interactions great warmth. She remembered names, faces, and the back-stories of her constituents and supporters as well as her opponents. She stayed politically alert on the issues dearest to her heart, notably public and private respect for the unique perspectives of women and girls. I will miss our great, sometimes squabbling relationship.
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AUSTRALIA
- John Warhurst
- 04 March 2015
6 Comments
The Victorian state election that ushered out the Napthine Coalition government last November was a wake-up call for the Federal government. The amazing Queensland state defeat for Campbell Newman in late January brought on on the Spill against Tony Abbott. But the NSW election at the end of this month is an ambiguous marker.
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AUSTRALIA
- Colin Long
- 09 February 2015
19 Comments
The Coalition Government falsely claims that Medicare co-payments and cuts to welfare and publicly funded institutions such as the CSIRO and the ABC are necessary to 'fix Labor's mess'. There are indeed structural problems with the economy, but essentially the plan is to strip the public sector by cutting universal access to a range of services that also includes tertiary education, to create a dominant free market that marginalises Australians on low incomes.
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AUSTRALIA
- Moira Rayner
- 31 October 2014
11 Comments
Affordable housing ought to be a hot election issue. Sadly it’s not a government priority, with ordinary people being taught to be entitled to look to capital growth in bricks and mortar as the best path to financial security. That is producing a housing price bubble and public housing is being squeezed. As a result, an increasing number of Australians can’t afford to put a roof over their head.
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AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 22 September 2014
5 Comments
Considering my indebtedness to the two Aborigines who met [my family's ship arriving in Hervey Bay from Ireland] 151 years ago, I owe it to all my fellow Australians to agitate these issues of law, morality and politics here in Ireland so that back in Australia, the homeland which, in my religious tradition, was known as the Great South Land of the Holy Spirit.
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AUSTRALIA
- Darrell Cruse
- 19 September 2014
15 Comments
More than forty thousand children are in out of home care in Australia. Yet with a drop in the number of available foster carers, there is a real danger foster care will be non-existent in five years, creating even more problems for already vulnerable children.
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AUSTRALIA
- Catherine Magree
- 29 July 2014
22 Comments
Imagine how the quality of the debate would improve if those who blamed the victims of poverty and illness for their plight were publicly labelled welfare sceptics or denialists, and forced to back up their claims. Social research academics would be thrust into the spotlight. If this issue received the scrutiny it deserves in the media there would be a sea change in attitudes to poverty, unemployment and income support over time.
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AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 24 February 2014
5 Comments
'Three decades on, Queensland once again has a premier who finds some political advantage in skewing the balance between law and order, impugning the integrity and vocation of the legal profession. He has described defence lawyers as hired guns.' Professor Frank Brennan SJ addresses the Queensland Law Society Dinner, 30 years on from his book Too Much Order with Too Little Law.
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