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Even more disturbing than PNG's poverty and gender-based violence is its military and police human rights record. Evidence of abuses in the form of a military blockade, massacres, rape and torture during the Bougainville Crisis of the 1990s are well-documented. The history of this crisis reveals PNG as incapable of caring for its most vulnerable citizens due to systemic corruption.
With the release of some frightening reports over the last 12 months, those who deny the scientific consensus on climate change will have to expand their list of 'alarmists' to include some unlikely suspects — the World Bank, PricewaterhouseCoopers and the International Energy Agency. When accountancy firms start sounding like environmental campaigners, the future looks very alarming indeed.
Rudd's rise from backbencher to Labor leader in the five years to 2006 was facilitated by his weekly presence on Channel 7's Sunrise. Here he created a persona seen as ordinary, trustworthy and familiar to the point of intimacy. Things went wrong when he was unable to work with colleagues to get things done for Australians who saw him as their mate.
Casting a Victorious PM Abbott as a puppet of Pell and Howard, or a fiddler with women's rights, seems risible; Abbott is bound by social restraints after all. Nonetheless, there is something ominous in David Marr's droll observation: 'His values have never stood in his way.'
The Prime Minister's aggressive attempts to tighten the rules for 457 visas is part of a campaign to appease her party's blue-collar base. This didn't begin last month in Western Sydney; it was kick-started as far back as 2011 when she said the 'Australian Greens do not share Australian values'.
My first encounter with gay reparative therapy (GRT) was the day I summoned the courage to ask a friend about the cluster of scars on his wrists. The Australian Psychological Society recognises conversion therapy as harmful to individuals' mental health. Yet GRT of minors is unregulated, and in the case of Christian ex-gay groups often run by unqualified laypeople.
Human beings have a bias towards a belief that the world is a fair place in which one's actions have appropriate consequences. This 'just world hypothesis' implies that those who suffer calamity must be at fault. It is the opposite of empathy and poses a serious challenge for those who seek to implement progressive social policies.
Lobbies such as the Australian Churches Gambling Taskforce are frustrated but doing the right thing by attempting to appeal to the sense of compassion in our politicians. We can only trust in human nature that this will ultimately prevail. Unfortunately other groups such as the Australian Christian Lobby think in terms of the 'Christian vote' and play on politicians fear of electoral oblivion.
Migrants and refugees find Australia attractive because the rule of law generally functions well. If mob rule prevails, as is threatening to occur in the case of Craig Thomson, Australia will lose its lure and the politicians could finally have their wish because the boats will stop.
If Julian Assange is soon extradited from UK to Sweden, as now seems likely, he faces rendition to the US, and the prospect of a long prison sentence or even assassination. The Australian Government continues to do almost nothing to protect its besieged citizen.
Matters of national importance are often unreported or glossed over by the major media outlets because they are considered insignificant or difficult. Without quality journalism, a democratic society would lose its greatest source of independent scrutiny.
Corporations treat social responsibility as a PR tool or a trade-off for financial success. The truth is that if consumers suffer, so too do the corporations that depend on them. Socially responsible initiatives such as the Carbon Tax will benefit society holistically.
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