Vol 34 No 12

17 June 2024

ARTS AND CULTURE

My father's poetry: The unpublished poems of Bruce Dawe
- Jamie Dawe, Bruce Dawe
- 28 June 2024
These unpublished treasures of my father’s are sure to strike a chord amongst those readers whose hearts wander among the more hidden byways, as I have discovered within myself.
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AUSTRALIA

Building constitutional bridges: In conversation with Frank Brennan
- David Halliday
- 28 June 2024
13 Comments
It's been eight months since the Voice referendum, and people are starting to grapple with what its defeat means for Australia. There are few voices in Australia as qualified to conduct a postmortem of the outcome of the Voice referendum campaign as Frank Brennan. We examine what lessons can be learned and crucually, whether there’s reason for hope for Indigenous constitutional recognition.
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AUSTRALIA

What does it mean to be complicit?
- Warwick McFadyen
- 27 June 2024
1 Comment
To be complicit, must you share the same intent? If one says nothing, does nothing, does this signify complicity? Is there then such a thing as an innocent bystander?
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EDUCATION

New schools funding model will likely entrench class divides
- Chris Curtis
- 27 June 2024
5 Comments
In the new schools funding model, schools at the upper and middle parts of the parental income spectrum will find budgets getting tighter each year, and fees will likely increase. The worst affected schools will be those whose parents earn higher incomes but which have kept their fees low so that poorer families may also enrol their children.
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AUSTRALIA

For better laws on family violence, we need better data
- Andrew Hamilton
- 27 June 2024
9 Comments
In addressing family violence, the immediate emphasis must be to protect women and children. But if the only response is harsher penalties in addressing any social problem, it is bound to be ineffective. Regulation depends also on understanding why people are drawn to behave badly and how the culture that supports it can be changed.
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AUSTRALIA

Sports betting is ruining more than our sports
- Tim Costello
- 26 June 2024
2 Comments
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
2 Comments
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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ARTS AND CULTURE

Can your favourite authors lose their allure?
- Michele Frankeni
- 24 June 2024
1 Comment
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

Numbers of war and peace
- Sergey Maidukov Sr.
- 20 June 2024
1 Comment
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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CARTOON

Robodebt cards
- Glen Le Lievre
- 19 June 2024
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INTERNATIONAL

Pandering with pandas: Australia-China relations turn warm and fuzzy
- Jeremy Clarke
- 19 June 2024
3 Comments
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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INTERNATIONAL

Commemorate or forget: Do we care enough about D-Day?
- Geraldine Doogue
- 18 June 2024
1 Comment
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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AUSTRALIA

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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RELIGION

When does news become a distraction?
- Julian Butler
- 17 June 2024
There's a fine line between consuming news as a numbing distraction, and engaging with news that reminds me of human community. Even with the best of intentions to be informed and engaged, too often I find myself if not despairing, then at least lost in the volume.
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AUSTRALIA

Hanging in with refugees
- Andrew Hamilton
- 17 June 2024
2 Comments
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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ARTS AND CULTURE

Joycepoem
- Peter Steele
- 16 June 2024
2 Comments
'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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Vol 34 No 12