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  • australia

    Sports betting is ruining more than our sports

    • Tim Costello
    • 26 June 2024

    Gambling is now so entrenched in the AFL and NFL it is changing the way people, especially young people, follow sport. With former AFL chief Gillon McLachlan set to become CEO at Tabcorp, we should consider the profound impact of gambling on Australian society.

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  • australia

    The problem with CEO pay rises

    • Joe Zabar
    • 25 June 2024

    For decades, unchecked corporate power and policy failures have driven up Australia's cost of living, leaving many Australians struggling. As corporate interests dominate, CEO pay increases dramatically while wages stagnate, and inflation rises. This influence of corporate Australia has eroded economic safeguards, dismantling the guardrails that once protected the common good.

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  • international

    Numbers of war and peace

    • Sergey Maidukov Sr.
    • 20 June 2024

    Unlike the initial days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when thousands eagerly gathered at recruitment centers, the army now faces difficulties in enlisting new soldiers as the troops continue to endure ongoing hardship. 

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  • arts and culture

    Can your favourite authors lose their allure?

    • Michele Frankeni
    • 24 June 2024

    I’m not sure if it’s age, personal experience or the way the world has changed but some favourite authors no longer have the same attraction they did 30 years ago. To the extent where I find that some of my favourite books now belong to a past self.

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  • australia

    Uncle George’s war

    • Juliette Hughes
    • 21 June 2024

    Most soldiers don’t like to talk about what they’ve been through, the things they’ve had to see; the things they’ve had to do. Uncle George was more willing to talk as he got older and more willing to be coaxed by a crowd of adoring nieces. But there were some things he'd never say. And the war never went away from him.

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  • international

    Commemorate or forget: Do we care enough about D-Day?

    • Geraldine Doogue
    • 18 June 2024

    I wonder how many Australians were captivated, as was I, by the 80th anniversary D-Day celebrations? They seemed epochal to me: a reminder of something remarkable and a pointer to something possible, namely new resolve to maintain peace in Europe. Not too many Australians, as it turned out, were similarly mesmerised. 

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  • Joycepoem

    • Peter Steele
    • 16 June 2024

      'From window and doorface painted in carnival, and / your foxing spirit here for a term / becoming again and again the flambeau it carries, / dear dirty Dublin a thing of fire.' A poem recollecting visits to the Jesuit-run Belvedere College, in the north of Dublin, where James Joyce completed most of his secondary schooling. (From 2007)

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  • Autumn's parting prayer

    • Warwick McFadyen
    • 06 June 2024

    The chill of winter is now upon us. It is said that landscape is a defining factor in how a people have developed and how their behaviour is formed and modified. So too it is for the season. So thank you, autumn.

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  • Elegy for Peter Porter

    • John Kinsella
    • 05 June 2024

    An elegy doesn’t need to be written straight after a death... and maybe one’s own death catches up before the obituary we write is published. It might be something like re-arranging modernism into structurally sound lines, or discussing the context of metaphors in poems about London and friendship.

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  • Pandering with pandas: Australia-China relations turn warm and fuzzy

    • Jeremy Clarke
    • 19 June 2024

    In a significant thaw in Sino-Australian relations, Premier Li Qiang's visit to Canberra brought strategic agreements on education, climate change, and trade, and the promise of new pandas for Adelaide Zoo. Prime Minister Albanese emphasised cooperation and dialogue over confrontation, contrasting with the hawkish rhetoric of domestic critics.

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  • Poland and the problem of borders

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 06 June 2024

    The Prime Minister of Poland announced a $2.5 billion plan to fortify borders with Russian Kaliningrad and Belarus,  highlighting the ongoing struggle for stability and security in a continent preparing for a future of conflict.  

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  • The two worlds of Eurovision

    • Michael McVeigh
    • 16 May 2024

    Millions around the world tune in for Eurovision each year, making it one of the world’s most-watched non-sporting events. It’s a mess of all that is funny, camp and bizarre. And yet instead of exploring the boundaries of our collective imagination, it's often overshadowed by regional politics and conflict. 

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  • Comic from detention illustrates lives unseen

    • Danielle Terceiro
    • 18 June 2024

    In Still Alive: Notes from Australia’s Immigration Detention System (2021), artist Safdar Ahmed shares the harrowing stories of asylum seekers through comic art. He vividly depicts their plight by incorporating artwork from a drawing group he started at Villawood Detention Centre. 

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  • Hanging in with refugees

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 17 June 2024

    Like all other persons, refugees  cannot be defined in numbers. Nor can they be defined by their condition as refugees. They are human beings like us who belong to families, their hearts are free, and they long for the freedom to live human lives, to work and follow their dreams.

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  • The fraught search for identity

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 13 June 2024

    The wonder of Khin Myint's Fragile Creature: A Memoir lies in his calm and magnanimous reflection on his experiences and in his attempt to understand those who treated him poorly. It also provides a lens for reflecting on the dynamic at work in public debates that touch identity.

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  • Women deacons: A closed book?

    • Bill Uren
    • 11 June 2024

    In a 60 Minutes interview, Pope Francis was asked whether there would ever be the prospect within the Catholic Church of a woman being ordained as a deacon. The Pope’s reply was a blunt ‘No’. This negative response came as a surprise to many Vatican watchers. 

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  • Painful times for Church reformers

    • John Warhurst
    • 29 May 2024

    We are now witnessing a changed dynamic within the movement for church reform. The balance within its component parts has changed towards a more pessimistic view. A minority is still hopeful; a few even remain optimistic, but most are struggling.

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  • Pope against the machine

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 23 May 2024

    When Pope Francis delivered a message for the World Day of Social Communications, he focused on AI. The pope posed a wide range of questions including how to regulate its development and use in order to avoid the manipulation of truth and the inevitable centralisation of wealth and power.

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