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Toxic air, dwindling water supplies, extreme heat: it's bleak stuff. And yet, on Sunday, COP25 finished with very little progress. Our planet will warm to +3C or higher, unless we also do something about the vested interests that continue to profit from our demise. And they aren't going to give up their power (or profits) just because we ask nicely.
Outside, a Martian-red haze kisses the windows. An ode to the future perhaps. Most of the people present are already aware of the Medevac repeal decision. The room is heavy with silence, the mood is sombre, but far from resigned. We want change, and are willing to have a crack at demanding it.
While we can only speculate on what it means for the future of funding beyond the current budget, alarm bells are ringing for many of us who recognise the symbolic power of rendering the arts invisible at a federal level. A strong, vibrant arts sector is essential to a thriving democracy.
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.
From strip searches to a needlessly low minumum age of criminal responsibility, Australia continues to be a menacing place for children encountering law enforcement. The need to be seen as 'tough on crime' plagues the major parties and precludes nuances within the criminal justice sphere including the protection of the rights of the child.
It's gone too far. The minute you voice even the smallest doubt about the Current Way of Things you get hammered. If, for example, you ask why large multinationals should profit from aged care, the guardians of Economic Correctness look at you funny. Either they don't get it, or they do and they cast you as an enemy of democracy.
The Medevac law was needed because there was no sensible process to arrange for urgent medical treatment for the people we are punishing as a deterrent. The system is working according to the medical practitioners involved in it. It would be a tragedy if the Medevac laws were repealed, just to prove how tough and immovable we are.
The royal commission concluded that child safety, in all its organisational ramifications, raised questions of culture and governance for the church. If the Plenary Council 2020 doesn't take such issues seriously then it will be one indicator that the momentum around last year's official national apology has slowed.
We're taught to think that aspiration means what you do alone, what sets you apart. As such it is a concept that is both lauded and loaded. Aspiration, neoliberal style, is a secular version of the gospel of prosperity so loved by the prime minister. God, or the Market, smiles on those who aspire to greater things.
I was heartened by the announcement Gordon Legal is pursuing a class action for robodebt victims. I am one of hundreds of thousands of people who has gone through the robodebt process. I too felt the exercise of a reverse burden of proof; guilty until proven innocent.
The students might not have many rights back home, but they do in the western democracies in which they live. The violence against peaceful protestors not just in Hong Kong but in countries where Hong Kong students are exercising their basic rights is unsettling. Yet the response by unis all over Australia has been taciturn at best.
In 1964, sociologist Amitai Etzioni noted the misgivings of the scientific fraternity to the space program. The effort risked losing perspective. An 'extrovert activism' had taken old, obsessed with gadgets, 'rocket-powered jumps' and escapism. In terms of budgetary expenditure, this showed, with NASA spending $28 billion between 1960-73.
61-72 out of 200 results.