Keywords: Discourse
There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Thackrah
- 15 September 2015
24 Comments
After Malcolm Turnbull announced on Monday afternoon that he was challenging Tony Abbott for the LIberal leadership, commentators were unanimous in their speculation that Abbott would not give up the prime ministership without a fight. The pugnaciousness that characterised his political style was similarly part of the playbook of Canadian PM Stephen Harper, who was also seen to base his interaction with political adversaries on their 'standing' rather than debating policy. In Abbott's case this turned out to be a fatal flaw.
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- Frank Brennan
- 07 September 2015
11 Comments
I believe in Aylan's inviolable, inherent dignity as a human being like all of us, no matter what side of a national border we might live. I believe that a globe of 7.3 billion people with inviolable, inherent dignity confronts huge challenges and real evil when almost 60 million people are displaced. I believe that secure national borders for a country as geographically and jurisprudentially isolated as Australia confronts an enormous moral challenge, and that we are falling short, badly and selfishly.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 20 July 2015
14 Comments
As high level negotiators left the air foetid in Europe and Australia, South America was scented rather more freshly, with Pope Francis ahead in the stakes of providing hope for humanity. He delivered a fiery denunciation of modern capitalism, declaring modern capitalism's 'unfettered pursuit of money' the 'dung of the devil' and accusing world leaders of 'cowardice' for refusing to defend the earth from exploitation.
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AUSTRALIA
- John Warhurst
- 06 July 2015
18 Comments
The terms 'lie' and 'liar' have become so completely devalued that there are now far worse sins in modern politics. That is why it's hard to get excited about Opposition Leader Bill Shorten choosing to lie on air to Neil Mitchell about his involvement in discussions with Kevin Rudd to unseat Julia Gillard as Prime Minister.
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- Greg O'Kelly
- 01 July 2015
3 Comments
The phrase 'the public square' is peppered throughout Frank Brennan's work. The 1988 film Cinema Paradiso depicts the public square in a Sicilian village over 30 or so years, and its slow and subtle change from a place where human beings gather to laugh, play and discuss. Billboards and garish signs appear and it becomes a car park bereft of its humanity.
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AUSTRALIA
- Fatima Measham
- 26 June 2015
7 Comments
Ministerial discretion over citizenship can't replace court processes. Such executive overreach, which contradicts democratic principle, has already found expression in law. From July 1st, workers involved in immigration detention, including doctors and teachers, are subject to two years imprisonment for speaking publicly about what they witness. In other words, whistleblowing has been penalised.
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- Sean McManus
- 25 June 2015
4 Comments
As much as any other religious figure in Australia, Frank Brennan has maintained a religious perspective while engaging in issues of ethics and justice in contemporary Australia. His book Amplifying that Still Small Voice emphasises the importance of the 'religious sense that the human person is created in the image and likeness of God', while speaking in the language and terms that are understandable to the public square.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Ellena Savage
- 19 June 2015
13 Comments
I have a friend who tells me she loves seeing what she terms 'mediocre women' at the top of their fields, especially in public, because it shows that feminism is working. Some women have made a success of themselves as men have always done, through acquiring privilege and seizing opportunities with a sense of entitlement, rather than by the myths of brilliance and sacrifice. I like this perspective.
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