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Keywords: Commons

  • AUSTRALIA

    No place like home – no home at all

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 09 August 2023
    7 Comments

    The crisis of homelessness is no longer distant; it's a grim reality affecting friends, families, and even white-collar workers. As housing costs soar, a report paints a bleak picture with the demand for accommodation skyrocketing. This Homelessness Week, the question is not just how we define homelessness, but how we respond to its profound impact.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    'They think we're rubbish': Life on welfare in Australia

    • John Falzon
    • 06 July 2023
    9 Comments

    Dr. Eve Vincent's book, 'Who Cares? Life on Welfare in Australia', provides an in-depth exploration of the intricate dance between power, control, and social policy, unearthing unsettling truths about our society's inherent power structures. This discourse further underscores the urgent need for a radical reimagining of our socio-economic systems.

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  • RELIGION

    Synodality: 'Why did you doubt?'

    • Bill Uren
    • 29 June 2023
    10 Comments

    I must confess that in the lead-up to the first session in October 2023 of the Synod on Synodality, I more than a little resembled Peter. Embarking on synodal waters, initially I was apprehensive. Would anything substantial come of Pope Francis' initiative? 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Why the threat of AI is invisible

    • David Halliday
    • 13 June 2023
    1 Comment

    As artificial intelligence evolves, warnings of an AI surpassing us in cognitive abilities grow louder. Yet, these threats, which echo sci-fi nightmares, are met with skepticism and complacency, rather than fear. Are our human minds, fine-tuned by evolution to grapple with tangible, immediate threats, ill-equipped to comprehend the abstract risk of a runaway AI?

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Scapegoats of war

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 27 April 2023

    With the prosecution of low-level soldiers like SAS trooper Oliver Schulz for war crimes in Afghanistan, we should consider: what is the scope of accountability for war crimes under international and Australian law, and how does it apply to commanders who should have known about the crimes?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Gratitude needs ambivalence on the costs of war

    • Jim Curtain
    • 24 April 2023
    4 Comments

    Amidst gratitude and remembrance to those who have served, we would do well to look with ambivalence on the toll beyond the battlefield; on families, soldiers' mental health, and questions about government transparency. Anzac day serves as a poignant reminder to acknowledge sacrifices and damages of war.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Roosevelt's freedoms

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 15 March 2023
    6 Comments

    In his 'Four Freedoms' series, iconic artist Norman Rockwell depicted a vision of America where people were free from want and free from fear. But with the threat of nuclear war looming, and arms merchants benefiting from conflict, how far off are we from truly achieving this ideal?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Best of 2022: An Indigenous Voice: Truth, treaty and reconciliation

    • Frank Brennan
    • 05 January 2023

    We have a lot of work to do if there is to be any prospect of a successful referendum on the Voice to Parliament, which Indigenous people have put to us as the mode by which they want to be recognised in the Constitution. They have said they want a Voice. Now, we can debate whether it be a Voice to Parliament or a Voice to Parliament and government, or a Voice just about particular laws.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    An Indigenous Voice: Truth, treaty and reconciliation

    • Frank Brennan
    • 01 December 2022
    15 Comments

    We have a lot of work to do if there is to be any prospect of a successful referendum on the Voice to Parliament, which Indigenous people have put to us as the mode by which they want to be recognised in the Constitution. They have said they want a Voice. Now, we can debate whether it be a Voice to Parliament or a Voice to Parliament and government, or a Voice just about particular laws.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Memory and Austen

    • Juliette Hughes 
    • 14 July 2022
    4 Comments

    History is on my mind at the moment, all because of yet another awful Austen adaptation. The latest cinematic mud-pie thrown at her in the new Persuasion movie may even be the worst one yet, which is something, because there’s a lot of competition. Who can forget Gwyneth Paltrow in the 1995 Emma driving a carriage in a yellow ball gown as though she were doing the time trial in Top Gear?

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  • RELIGION

    Stray thoughts: On pronouns

    • Michele Frankeni
    • 14 June 2022
    2 Comments

    On social media, business cards and the bottom of emails nowadays you will often find a bracket with people’s preferred pronouns (he/him or she/her or they/them). Without fanfare, gender neutrality has slipped into our 21st century speech and our unconscious, and it is only when we are confronted with the gender specific language that we realise how we’ve changed. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Insights from Cardinal Newman on Religious Discrimination and Religious Freedom

    • Frank Brennan
    • 22 February 2022
    1 Comment

    In recent days, if you were to listen to the media reports, you could be forgiven for thinking that religious educators want to retain a right to exclude children or teachers from their schools on the basis of their gender or sexual orientation.  Nothing could be further from the truth. Or nothing should be further from the truth. 

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