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Vol 31 No 3

15 February 2021


 

  • FAITH DOING JUSTICE

    The value of the worker

    • Ursula Stephens
    • 25 February 2021
    13 Comments

    'It's the value of the work, not the worker.' So said a government backbencher to me last week while I was speaking to him about the omnibus industrial relations (IR) Bill that has just passed the House of Representatives.

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  • RELIGION

    The Plenary Council must address structural inertia and church decline

    • John Warhurst
    • 25 February 2021
    56 Comments

    Two documents from and about the church in Australia issued in December last year should be compulsory reading for all Plenary Council (PC) delegates. They offer crucial insights into the state of the church in Australia, and taken together they paint a picture of church inertia and decline.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Fear of sexual violence pervades from our government to our homes

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 25 February 2021
    22 Comments

    The two most incisive statements relating to the allegations of sexual assault currently miring the Liberal party have come from opposite ends of its hierarchy: the junior employee allegedly raped in a defence ministry office two years ago, and the head of government who denies any prior knowledge of her ordeal.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Property has a social license, too

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 25 February 2021
    16 Comments

    Discussion of housing usually focuses exclusively on its relationship to the economy. Housing is seen as property, and the most important questions are seen as having to do with buying and selling. This transactional aspect is important. It needs, however, to be seen in the light of the larger human good. From that perspective housing in all the various forms it takes in different cultures is not a possession but a human need.

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  • MEDIA

    Unfriending Australia: Facebook takes action

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 23 February 2021
    2 Comments

    Instead of retaining its control of a fruit market, or preserving an oil monopoly, Facebook harnesses another resource: data. Any regulator or sovereign state keen to challenge the way the Silicon Valley giant gathers, monetises and uses that data will face their ire.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The digital divide in a new normal

    • Nicola Heath
    • 23 February 2021
    3 Comments

    For those of us who already regularly shopped, banked, studied and worked via the Internet, it was easy to adapt to telehealth appointments with doctors and video calls with friends and family. Of course, these activities require access to the Internet — something 2.5 million Australians are without. A further 4 million access the Internet solely using a mobile connection. For these citizens, the pandemic exacerbated the existing digital divide.

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  • CARTOON

    When your heart's not in it

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 23 February 2021
    1 Comment

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  • FAITH DOING JUSTICE

    Keeping the common good after COVID

    • Anthony Albanese
    • 23 February 2021
    17 Comments

    What we have is a rare opportunity — in all likelihood a once-in-a-lifetime chance — to shape the future and emerge from the pandemic as a better, fairer nation.

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  • MEDIA

    Facebook news ban: independent media hardest hit

    • Monika Lancucki
    • 22 February 2021

    Last Thursday, Facebook blocked news content in Australia. Many of us had been expecting this in response to the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code. But the breadth and severity of what occurred was brutal. The content blocked was not only that of large media companies. Public interest, not-for-profit, and religious media — many of whom rely heavily on Facebook to share messages with their readers — were blocked as well.  

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  • FAITH DOING JUSTICE

    Affirming human dignity for all

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 18 February 2021
    37 Comments

    We live in a time when around the world so many lives seem not to matter. Whether they be Uighur lives, women’s lives, Black lives, Yemeni lives or refugee lives. So widely disregarded in practice, the large claim that every life has value, however, oftentimes has to be justified. The ultimate reason is that each human being is precious and has an inalienable dignity. No person may be used as a means to another’s end.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Halki Summit highlights care for creation amid pandemic

    • Stephen Minas
    • 18 February 2021
    2 Comments

    The COVID-19 pandemic has provoked difficult questions about the links between the simultaneous health and ecological crises. These questions were examined in late January at the virtual Halki Summit, the latest in a long series of environment-focused events convened by the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarchate.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Living with lockdown

    • Julian Butler
    • 18 February 2021
    7 Comments

    Each of us has our own experience of the first COVID year. We do all share some of the best results in supressing the virus anywhere in the world. Talk, though, of social cohesion and government competency is loaded here in Melbourne.

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  • CARTOON

    Safe as houses

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 16 February 2021
    5 Comments

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  • INFORMATION

    Jescom announces new Editor of Eureka Street

    • Eureka Street
    • 16 February 2021
    8 Comments

    Jesuit Communications Australia (Jescom) is pleased to announce the appointment of David Halliday as the Editor of Eureka Street.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Democracy in shadow: Myanmar coup escalates

    • Anonymous
    • 16 February 2021
    6 Comments

    Now, for a few days it seems something new is happening. Can we name it? Thousands, even millions of people have come to the streets in almost a hundred townships and cities across Myanmar. They reject the coup. The young have glimpsed a new light.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Crossing borders in a Kombi van

    • Brian Matthews
    • 16 February 2021
    6 Comments

    The border-obsessed times we live in reminded me of some really tough borders I encountered in years past. It is October 1961, the place: rural Turkey. Where you would have expected to roll on down the deserted dusty road, there is a boom gate and four sentries. This can’t be a border, however.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Long conversations over low fences

    • Jamie Dawe
    • 16 February 2021
    2 Comments

    In a stilted, modest Queenslander in Cumming Street we lived. Pets, organic alimentation and perishable bartering. Egg producing Cackling Rhode Island Reds, Leghorns and Bantams. Freedom to explore the countryside without fear or anxiety. Long conversations over low fences.

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