Author, Researcher, Historian
I wish we didn’t need so many kids to be placed in the care of foster families. But, with more than 40,000 Australian kids unable to be looked after by their parents because of poverty, family breakdown, drug and alcohol issues and violence – and lack of support in a crisis – things are in a very bad […]
After a long period of ambivalent rulings, the Australian High Court on Thursday (11 December 2014) finally defined the limits of mandatory detention of asylum seekers. In recent years, many of us in Australia have been disturbed by what seemed to be a routinised indefinite detention of thousands of refugees, including children. “Since September 2013, the average time spent in […]
Sometimes we can take nationalism too seriously. There comes a time when it might be fun to poke the ribs of the doctrinaire. This is from Susan Butler’s new book, The Aitch Factor (Pan Macmillan, 2014)
Australians commemorate Anzac Day (25 April) or Remembrance Day (11 November) with mixed emotions. Some still see it as a time to venerate brave soldiers and remember ‘the fallen’. Others take the opportunity to point again to the futility of war. Remembering wars brings out all sorts of emotions: mawkish sentimentality, strident nationalism, grief for young lives lost […]
The wheel turns on media spin. In June this year, Fairfax media reported that the number of ‘spin doctors’ and communications staff employed by the Australian Immigration Department had risen to 95 – up from 13 under the previous government in 2011. This in a time when the Government is telling us there’s a budget crisis […]
“Is the line broken?” asked the Royal Commissioner, Peter McClellan, as the television hook-up to Rome failed. “The cardinal is unmoving on the screen which suggests it has,” replied counsel assisting Gail Furness SC, with Judge McClelland observing mournfully: “The line has failed in Rome.” It sure had, in more ways than one when Cardinal […]
The decision by the City Council of Ballarat to refuse a cashed-up developer permission to demolish the old school on the Ballarat Orphanage site is a victory for those former residents who fought a long and energy-sapping campaign against the odds. These old institutions have long-since closed – thankfully. These places shaped the lives of so many Australians. […]
Mining billionaire Clive Palmer sides with Triumphal Tony Abbott (“Climate change is crap!”) to axe Australia’s so-called carbon tax. There is no meaningful plan to put in place an alternative policy on climate change. Already conflicting stories are coming from the political parties that voted to axe the tax about an agreement to work towards an alternative. A tragic […]
In a report of an interview, the Pope acknowledged that paedophilia was common and widespread in the Catholic Church – even at the level of bishop and cardinal – and called the requirement for celibacy among priests ‘a problem’ for which he is ‘finding the solution’. The Vatican denied that he said this. Cardinal George Pell made reference to celibacy […]