Vol 27 No 23

20 November 2017

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AUSTRALIA

Local councils helping lift the unemployed
- El Gibbs
- 30 November 2017
3 Comments
A group of people living on income support has been working with local councils across Adelaide to ask them to advocate on their behalf. As Newstart payments remain pitifully low, councils are caught up in these issues because they run community services that support the unemployed.
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AUSTRALIA

Ending the toxic ripple effect of prejudice
- Catherine Marshall
- 30 November 2017
17 Comments
Governments can't legislate against hatred and intolerance. A friend stated on Facebook that 'No law can change human biology. No law can make natural what is unnatural.' Such rhetoric is a reminder that the realm of human rights is still a bloody battlefield in which certain groups continue to proclaim superiority over others.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Students learn where power lies
- Tim Kroenert
- 29 November 2017
5 Comments
When misused power remains unchallenged, it is the most vulnerable who suffer most. The truism finds acerbic embodiment in the Slovak-Czech black comedy The Teacher, whose setting in 1983 communist-ruled Czechoslovakia provides a historical backdrop that doubles as an analogy for any socio-political context where power can be a means to personal ends.
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INTERNATIONAL

Australia could be a SE Asia game-changer
- Erin Cook
- 29 November 2017
5 Comments
The bones of the foreign policy white paper, released last week by Julie Bishop, have been picked over by the country's leading international relations thinkers and the consensus is clear - the timing is right and we must act now. But we need a leader who is willing to put the work in.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Johnno vs the bloody banks
- Brian Matthews
- 28 November 2017
7 Comments
As a conversation opener, it wasn't that flash. I could have told Johnno that stories about the 'bloody banks' are so numerous and predictable that they're being used in sleep clinics. Still, one tries to do the right thing and so, steeling myself, I asked the crucial question. 'What's the story?'
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AUSTRALIA

Qld elections: Perhaps we need feral PHON
- Tseen Khoo
- 28 November 2017
6 Comments
It's easy to ridicule Hanson and her party. After all, they are our resident shambolic political show with a line of defecting MPs, racist stunts and statements, and staff arrests. What is not so easy to dismiss is the fact that PHON candidates were steadily clocking 20-30 per cent support in their seats at the Queensland election.
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CARTOON

The care factor
- Fiona Katauskas
- 28 November 2017
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Let love be law
- Talitha Fraser
- 27 November 2017
Did you see the news today? Law failed love. Let love be law.
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AUSTRALIA

With remembrance goes compassion: Manus
- Andrew Hamilton
- 26 November 2017
21 Comments
The refugees on Manus Island are not simply actors in a dramatic poem. They are human beings like us to whom we have a responsibility. They could have enriched us by their ingenuity and bravery had we accepted them. We should continue to listen to their voices and keep them in our hearts.
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ENVIRONMENT

My coal dilemma
- Jennifer Pont
- 24 November 2017
11 Comments
I can't see the issues around the coal industry in black and white terms, even though I'd vote for any ethical replacement plan in a heartbeat. As much as people build places, places substantially build our identities, and people literally lived and died by coal mines where I grew up.
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AUSTRALIA

Australia's original sin
- Fatima Measham
- 23 November 2017
13 Comments
It's entirely possible that reconfiguring our relationship with First Nations peoples, even centralising it, would give us the language and impetus to reconfigure everything else, including the way we resolve conflict, think about the environment, and make decisions about vulnerable members of society.
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AUSTRALIA

Hectic Adsy and the closed friggin gate
- Stephen Sinn
- 23 November 2017
16 Comments
Last Christmas was the first Adam has spent out of jail since the 90s. He hasn't done anything seriously wrong. He belongs to a caste that is as entrenched in Australia as the untouchables in India. One night, a phone message: 'Steve, g'day mate, how are ya, I can't get out of the storage shed.'
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Teaching kids to read between the rhymes
- Gillian Bouras
- 21 November 2017
16 Comments
Nana's favourites were chain-rhymed stories such as 'The Old Woman and her Pig', and 'This is the House that Jack Built', both of which I try to communicate to my grandchildren. My sister and I never realised how we were acquiring tastes for story and rhythm, or that we were exercising our young memories, our capacities for recall, as well.
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AUSTRALIA

Reform constitution to give a voice to all
- Kate Galloway
- 21 November 2017
2 Comments
The common thread through all of these stories is the need to have a mature conversation about the ways in which we can afford a meaningful voice to our communities. If human rights are the benchmark, then rights must be afforded to all. It is not right that those with the least power must continue to compromise.
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CARTOON

Mal-functioning
- Fiona Katauskas
- 21 November 2017
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AUSTRALIA

Aboriginal voices in 'the good country'
- Andrew Hamilton
- 21 November 2017
4 Comments
Turnbull has been widely criticised for refusing a recommendation by the Referendum Council to enshrine a national Indigenous representative council, saying it was 'contrary to the principles of equality and citizenship'. A recent book provides a rich perspective for reflecting on his decision.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

The coal trick
- Tony London
- 20 November 2017
2 Comments
A suited clown took into the House of Discourse a piece of coal, its darkness shimmering, not quite the diamond it might become. It was his talisman, part of his conjuring trick, now you see it, now you don't, and he tricked them ...
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INTERNATIONAL

Undermining NZ: Dutton's refugee ploy
- Binoy Kampmark
- 20 November 2017
9 Comments
These sprinklings of poison through the press, with occasional mentions in New Zealand, serve two purposes: to show Australian refugee policy as sound, and offshore detention and resettlement in an unsuitable third country as appropriate; and to deflect attention from the discharge of obligations under the UN Refugee Convention.
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ENVIRONMENT

The moral relativism of pro-coal conservatives
- Tim Beshara
- 20 November 2017
8 Comments
The charge of moral relativism has been laid against progressives in debates about everything from marriage to multiculturalism. However when it comes to climate change and coal, it is conservatives who choose to muddy the debate by pointing out that coal can be good depending on the context in which it is used.
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AUSTRALIA

Yes-voting Muslims push minority solidarity
- Irfan Yusuf
- 17 November 2017
17 Comments
During the month of Muharram, the No message was being handed out at mosques and spoken from the pulpits. Yet many Muslims voted Yes not because we wanted to reinvent the Islamic idea of marriage, but because the scriptures teach that we should stand up for justice even if it goes against our families and ourselves.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Angel the peaceful fish
- Peta Yowie
- 17 November 2017
6 Comments
When my auntie died, she left behind a little blue samurai fighting fish who lived in a murky tank by himself. He was a loner and a survivor, having gone days without being fed, and being ignored, as he swam in the dark waters of life all by himself.
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Vol 27 No 23