Vol 34 No 5

11 March 2024

ECONOMICS

Review: The Shortest History of Economics
- David James
- 22 March 2024
Economics may be useless for forecasting, and its assertions can be overly simplistic. But it is a language that should be understood, and here is a good place to start. In simple and clear prose, Leigh spans the history of human economic activity, beginning in prehistoric times and ending with the modern day.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Why is it so hard to make good climate change TV?
- Daniel Simons
- 22 March 2024
Featuring a stellar cast of Hollywood’s finest actors, Apple TV's Extrapolations was a bold attempt to center a TV narrative around the dangers of our future on a warming planet, yet failed to capture audiences. But where Extrapolations failed as an effective cautionary tale for society, it may have succeeded as one for filmmakers.
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INTERNATIONAL

Why do referendums bite the dust?
- Andrew Hamilton
- 21 March 2024
3 Comments
Much like Australia's recent Indigenous Voice Referendum, the recent Irish referendum sought to change constitutional perspectives on family and marriage met with overwhelming defeat. What does this reveal about the relationship between public sentiment and the process of enacting constitutional changes?
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INTERNATIONAL

Myanmar is in a struggle for its life
- Anonymous
- 20 March 2024
3 Comments
The Myanmar civil war has left the country devastated. Three years since a military coup, Myanmar is a humanitarian catastrophe. With over 2.7 million people displaced, the UN reported that 18.6 million people need humanitarian aid, 6 million of whom are children. A report from our correspondent in Myanmar.
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AUSTRALIA

The changing self
- Gillian Bouras
- 20 March 2024
6 Comments
Times are changed and we are changed with them. As societal norms evolve, from fashion to expressions of freedom and political attitudes, how does each of us adapt while preserving our core selves?
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EDUCATION

What should anti-discrimination exemptions look like?
- Michael Furtado
- 20 March 2024
5 Comments
As challenges to anti-discrimination exemptions are likely to persist within Catholic education, how can the government and religious institutions collaborate effectively to balance the freedom of expressing religious beliefs with safeguarding the rights and freedoms of everyone involved?
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AUSTRALIA

40 Days: Reconciliation
- Andrew Hamilton
- 19 March 2024
Recognition is not simply an acceptance of facts. It involves also entering the experience of the people affected. Reconciliation must begin with truth telling, flow into empathy, and be followed by a conversation aimed at building decent relationships.
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AUSTRALIA

We must work so that all can rest
- Andreana Reale
- 18 March 2024
2 Comments
In today's 24/7 Grind Culture, rest has become rare. Rebuilding a healthy culture of rest will involve supporting workers with decent wages, campaigning against companies that exploit employees, and investigating supply chains that use slavery and exploited labour to produce their products.
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AUSTRALIA

Setting a higher price on democracy
- Michael McVeigh
- 18 March 2024
The Federal Government looks set to bring in legislation which would make it more difficult for new candidates to put themselves forward in future elections. In a nation where more than a third of voters opted not to vote for one of the two major parties, this should concern everyone.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Searching for the truth about a wartime massacre
- Juliette Hughes
- 15 March 2024
3 Comments
Two books about a 1942 massacre of Australian nurses were released last year. One is reliable, the other is notable for factual omissions. If we leave something out, are we then guilty of censorship? Alternatively, if our truth-telling offends someone else, what is our justification for so doing?
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MEDIA

Journos as players
- Andrew Hamilton
- 14 March 2024
3 Comments
Journalists have an important place in society, and that place changes as society changes. In recent weeks, two separate legal investigations suggest that journalists understand their role to be actors in the story and not simply reporters of it.
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CARTOON

Fairy godmother
- Glen Le Lievre
- 14 March 2024
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AUSTRALIA

Stepping up for St Pat's
- Sheila Ngoc Pham
- 14 March 2024
1 Comment
Watching your child perform and be judged is a sure way to make you feel ‘all the feels’. Yet this is what happens every month throughout Australia at feis — Irish dancing competitions. Welcome to the world of competitive Irish dancing, which reaches peak visibility around this time of year because of St Patrick’s Day.
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AUSTRALIA

Dressing up, down and all around
- Michele Frankeni
- 14 March 2024
1 Comment
There just doesn’t seem to be anywhere that demands a consistent standard of dress. Even a trip to the theatre, once an occasion to dress up, has become a place of anything goes. Has the casualisation of dress gone too far?
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ARTS AND CULTURE

The Centre of Zero
- Warwick McFadyen
- 13 March 2024
You open the atlas and run your fingers along the edges of continents, climb mountains, trace valleys, pause at coastlines of sand and wave. This is where you have been and this, fingers arched, is where you want to go. Death is too faint to be seen. Though you know it’s there, the undiscovered country.
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AUSTRALIA

40 Days: Commonality
- Andrew Hamilton
- 13 March 2024
In the face of developments where the commons are intruded upon for private profit and economic efficiency, we need to treasure such unfashionable concepts as the commonwealth, the common good and the houses of commons – the places for deliberation and decision where what is in the common interest is given priority over the benefit of the few.
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RELIGION

Australia's rainbow Church
- John Warhurst
- 13 March 2024
7 Comments
The Vatican's decision to let priests bless couples in 'irregular relationships' has sparked diverse reactions within the Australian Church, revealing the complex interplay of faith and cultural diversity within Australia’s Church communities.
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Vol 34 No 5