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Keywords: Christmas Story

  • AUSTRALIA

    Three steps back and one step forward: Three decades of asylum seekers in Australia

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 28 July 2023

    How has Australia's asylum seeker policy changed over the past thirty years? The approach of every government has reflected the shifting political landscapes and challenging humanitarian issues that have continually shaped Australia's response to those seeking refuge. 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The disquieting lessons of Ian McEwan

    • Peter Craven
    • 14 June 2023

    Ian McEwan's Lessons marked a sharp twist in a five-decade literary career, and presents an opportunity to reflect on his expansive body of work. The one-time literary rogue and Booker laureate now stands as the unquestioned doyen of modern English fiction, his audacious work perpetually navigating undercurrents of unease.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The beautiful ugliness of Roald Dahl

    • Juliette Hughes
    • 27 February 2023
    13 Comments

    Roald Dahl's beloved children's books have been given a makeover, with 'sensitivity readers' rewording phrases that might offend modern sensibilities. But what has been lost in this sanitisation of Dahl's work? Do we risk losing the very essence of what makes these works so powerful and enduring? 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    In conversation with Helen Garner

    • Paul Mitchell
    • 17 February 2023
    3 Comments

    Arguably Australia’s most celebrated living author, Helen Garner has built a reputation as a fearless and unapologetic writer whose work has remained fresh and relevant for over 45 years. We sat down with Helen to explore the challenges of confessional non-fiction, her fondness for church, and her commitment to unsparing self-analysis. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Sowing the seeds of resistance

    • Andreana Reale
    • 25 January 2023
    3 Comments

    Threatened with the closure of the local nursing home, leaving elderly residents stranded, locals in Dimboola are selling home-grown produce to raise money to save the facility. And at the same time, they're breathing new life into the local sharing economy. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Christmas in the face of uncertainty

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 21 December 2022
    4 Comments

    In 1939, King George VI gave an encouraging Christmas address, speaking after the Declaration of War on the Nazis. The future was uncertain, with no assurance of survival. In Australia we do not face the same immediate threat, but we do share the same uncertainty.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    A merry little Christmas

    • Barry Gittins
    • 20 December 2022
    1 Comment

    There's something to it, the Advent adventure. Its allure transcends and moves us beyond the corny. The sentimental. When we wade our way through the tinsel, the lights and jolly holly, we find there's a deep, sweet magic to the season.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The subtle art of people-watching

    • Barry Gittins
    • 29 November 2022
    2 Comments

    Sometimes it pays to sit still in a central business district, the aorta of any city, and nod in recognition to life as it passes you by. Bypassed from the stream, you watch and learn as the passers-by flow around you. Mystery and revelation. Connection and dissing. Peace and discord. Meaning, transcendence and futile, random pain. It’s all there if you look close enough. Pause long enough to witness the mysteries.  

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The Albanese reset: Stopping boats while treating onshore asylum seekers decently

    • Frank Brennan
    • 28 October 2022
    6 Comments

    In recent years, Australian policies in relation to asylum seekers and refugees have been unnecessarily mean, cruel and disorganised. The election of the Albanese government provides the opportunity for a reset, putting behind us the past mistakes of both Coalition and Labor Governments in the last 20 years.

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  • RELIGION

    Queen Elizabeth, the language of Christianity, and the defence of faith

    • Miles Pattenden
    • 15 September 2022
    4 Comments

    The Queen’s life of overt public religion — which led her to become perhaps the twentieth century’s greatest Christian evangelist — was grounded in her conviction in the Gospels’ truth. And she interpreted Jesus’ story generously and ecumenically, broadening her role from the narrow Anglican identity of Supreme Governor of the Church of England to become an advocate by example for faiths of every kind.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Former detainee seeks compensation for unlawful detention

    • Maeve Elrington
    • 02 August 2022
    3 Comments

    Former detainee, Kurdish-Iranian refugee Mostafa ‘Moz’ Azimitabar, seeks compensation from the Federal Government for what he alleges was unlawful detention. Detained offshore in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and in Australia for almost eight years, Moz is seeking compensation in the Federal Court of Australia for the physical and emotional toll of his detention, particularly from the final 14 months of detention in two Melbourne based hotels.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Wit, irony and the Australian vernacular: Remembering Brian Matthews

    • John Schumann
    • 15 June 2022
    5 Comments

    Most of us, when pushed, can name a couple of teachers who had a profound influence on our lives. For me, Brian Matthews was one such teacher. I enrolled in English at Flinders University in 1972. On asking the enrolling officer whether anybody was ‘doing anything about Lawson’, I was directed to the office of Brian Matthews, a recent appointment to the English Department. ‘I hear you know something about Lawson,’ I said, leaning in his doorway.

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