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Keywords: Bullying

  • AUSTRALIA

    In praise of local councils

    • Fatima Measham
    • 27 October 2016
    7 Comments

    Unless you have lived elsewhere, where taxes and rates rarely manifest as a tangible and permanent benefit, it is easy to take councils for granted. I grew up in a town where potholes are forever, healthcare is ad hoc and libraries are private. The things that I see my local council do as a matter of routine are wild luxuries in other places around the world. Such competencies arguably measure the health of a democracy - it means that most of the money has not been lost to corruption and fraud.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Stand with heroic Gillian Triggs

    • Moira Rayner
    • 25 October 2016
    55 Comments

    This damnable pursuit of Gillian Triggs must stop at once. Triggs is an outstanding independent statutory office holder, one of the many appointed by governments over decades to remind them of Australia's international human rights obligations and to oversee the functions of laws to mitigate social wrongs such as age, race, disability and sex discrimination in public arenas. But no government likes watchdogs on the moral and legal limits on its power.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Bobbling their way from innocence to experience

    • Barry Gittins
    • 13 October 2016
    1 Comment

    I attempted at one stage to lodge snippets of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience into the minds of our children. Emily complained that 'symmetry' didn't really rhyme with 'hand or eye'; Ben was and is more into dragons than tigers. The question later pondered of Blake's tiger 'Did He smile His work to see? Did He who made the lamb make thee?' regularly confronts me, as my wife semi-mourns and I embrace the maturing process that is taking our children towards adulthood.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Indecent asylum policy damages us all

    • Samuel Dariol
    • 21 September 2016
    10 Comments

    In the last week Turnbull has lauded, as the world's best refugee policy, a system that has resettled no refugees over three years. Dutton has stated that asylum seekers will continue to be processed in Nauru for decades, and described the Australian policy, of which detention on Nauru is part, as compassionate and effective. These comments follow recent reports by NGOs Save the Children and UNICEF, as well as the Australian Human Rights Commission, on offshore detention. Both urge an end to it.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Queer experience is not limited to trauma

    • Ellena Savage
    • 18 March 2016
    24 Comments

    'Coming out' is a gesture specifically, politically required of queer people but not of straight people. Another statement demanded of queer people is that they are injured and traumatised by the fact of their sexuality or gender. But why call on individuals to testify when the statistics are heartbreaking enough? This demand on queers to continually deliver narratives of oppression limits their social roles, and even invalidates their voices on matters other than their sexualities and genders.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Cultures of accountability for clergy and celebrities

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 10 March 2016
    24 Comments

    If we are to make institutions safe for children, we need not only hold to account people who have presided over unsafe places, but also to address a culture that protects silence at each level of organisations, preventing complaints being made and being reported. Clergy and celebrities must not be treated as different from others, entitled to have their bad behaviour ignored. They must be held accountable to the officers and regulations of the organisation in which they work.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Abuse survivor reflects on Cardinal Pell's 'sad story'

    • Paul Coghlan
    • 07 March 2016
    42 Comments

    'It was a sad story and it wasn't of much interest to me.' Pell's brutal response to a question from the royal commission has provided an important point of organisational, personal and cultural reflection. As a survivor of child sexual abuse I understand the disbelief, shock and outrage that such a comment has provoked. And having conducted many organisational reviews, I know that in trying to find the origins of such responses, our understanding of how the world works expands exponentially.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Cardinal Pell, Safe Schools and the personhood of children

    • Moira Rayner
    • 04 March 2016
    40 Comments

    A feeding frenzy is afoot over the review of Safe Schools program. At the same time poor old George Pell is under attack for failing to observe that his Ballarat colleagues were prolifically enabling Ridsdale and other pedophiles to sexually abuse little boys. The prurient desire to control the sexual interests of others on the one hand, and on the other the gross failures by institutions to protect vulnerable children in their care, are sadly linked to an unwillingness to face the truth about human sexuality.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    2015 in review: Maintaining youthful rage

    • Ellena Savage
    • 15 January 2016
    1 Comment

    A friend recently died at 25. She was heavily involved in our political and literary communities, and I saw in her the very best of rage and rawness in politics. But I also saw how possessing such a sense of obligation to raw, honest, and emotionally-engaged political exploration, is exhausting. Of course it is. Popular wisdom has it that as you age, you get more 'realistic' about political matters. But that's not it.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Building gender equality from the playground up

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 23 October 2015
    15 Comments

    Sissies are on their way out on British playgrounds. Guidelines produced by the Institute of Physics for the Department of Education recommend that teachers strongly discourage sexist language at school. While internet forums are replete with admonitions from members of the public furious at the erosion of so-called free speech, the guidelines are a welcome tool in the long and exhausting fight for female equality, and Australia would do well to consider adopting such procedures too.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Silence won't make abuse go away

    • James Fry
    • 19 August 2015
    6 Comments

    We tell victims of of crimes including bullying, domestic violence and child abuse, that help will come their way if they are prepared to speak up. But on several occasions, I spoke to those responsible for my welfare and safety, only to have such pleas ignored. For others it can be worse, with Child Abuse Royal Commission revealing victims being blamed for the crimes against them, and sometimes being delivered into the hands of other pedophiles.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Maintaining the rage beyond the golden rhythm of youth

    • Ellena Savage
    • 14 August 2015
    7 Comments

    A friend recently died at 25. She was heavily involved in our political and literary communities, and I saw in her the very best of rage and rawness in politics. But I also saw how possessing such a sense of obligation to raw, honest, and emotionally-engaged political exploration, is exhausting. Of course it is. Popular wisdom has it that as you age, you get more 'realistic' about political matters. But that's not it.

    READ MORE