Keywords: Human Rights Day
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AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 07 September 2013
12 Comments
How clever of you to choose the day of the federal election for me to offer these reflections. I come amongst you, not as a publisher or journalist but as an advocate in the public square animated by my own religious tradition as a Jesuit and Catholic priest engaged on human rights issues in a robustly pluralistic democratic society.
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AUSTRALIA
Last year Kevin Rudd sat down with human rights lawyer and Eureka Street columnist Frank Brennan for a candid and in-depth conversation about his faith, his values and his political philosophies. He also took questions from the 500-strong live audience. Relive this fascinating insight into returning Prime Minister Rudd.
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AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 19 December 2012
19 Comments
On Saturday Scott Morrison's border asylum meter registered the arrival of the 150th boat since Julia Gillard's announcement of the Pacific Solution Mark II in August. If the 'no advantage' principle is coherent and workable, the Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers and Gillard have very different understandings of its operation.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 12 October 2012
2 Comments
Fr Frank Brennan SJ's paper 'Reflections on the death penalty on the tenth anniversary of the Bali Bombings' presented at the Australian Lawyers for Human Rights and Australians Against Capital Punishment Dinner, Red Hill, Brisbane, 12 October 2012, Commemorating the 10th World Day Against the Death Penalty.
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AUSTRALIA
- Moira Rayner
- 28 June 2012
16 Comments
In 1978, airline boss Reg Ansett didn’t fancy employing the best qualified pilot because the pilot was a woman. She took him on through the Victorian Equal Opportunity Board and ultimately won. Victoria was a leader in human rights in those days. Sadly the current Attorney General is no defender of the rights of the weak and has gutted the Equal Opportunity Commission.
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AUSTRALIA
Tony Abbott did not mention the term 'human rights' in his 3000 word speech to the Institute of Public Affairs on Friday. 'Illegal' appeared 11 times and 'asylum' once. In February, Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees gave a 3000 word speech to the Lowy Institute. A search of that speech finds 'human rights' five times, 'asylum' 21 times and no use of 'illegal'.
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AUSTRALIA
- Lyn Bender
- 30 January 2012
37 Comments
In his book They Thought They Were Free, Milton Mayor writes of 'the slow lobster boil of erosion of freedom' in Nazi Germany. As a daughter of Jewish refugees I know what this entails. The same process confronts asylum seekers today if we do not begin from a presumption of rights and humanity.
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AUSTRALIA
As the world watches the ongoing catastrophe in Syria, state-sponsored destruction of a much quieter but no less brutal kind is afflicting North Korea. Even while the country anticipates next year's 100th birthday of state founder and 'Eternal President' Kim Il-sung, NGOs are reporting that it may have run out of food.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 09 May 2011
22 Comments
One day we're told he was armed and used his wife as a human shield. The next, that he was unarmed, and that his unarmed wife rushed at a US attacker. WikiLeaks could be the only organisation we can expect to furnish us with reliable information on important events.
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AUSTRALIA
- John Stuyfbergen
- 24 March 2011
10 Comments
In a park for a Sunday barbecue, suddenly a few men from our group separated from the rest of us. I asked the woman next to me what they were doing. They were Muslims, and they were praying. Suddenly the men were back. They switched on the radio, and we all listened to and argued about the cricket scores.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Kerry Murphy
- 30 March 2010
4 Comments
Once again the coalition is inflaming passions about what is actually an insignificant number of people arriving in Australian waters and claiming asylum. Unfortunately the Government is getting caught up in this debate because it insists on maintaining the excision and Christmas Island Centre.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 28 January 2010
22 Comments
Cardinal Pell thinks Church positions
on contested moral issues have a better chance of being reflected in law and policy if parliaments are not constrained by a
Human Rights Act. I would beg to differ. Gone are the days when church leaders can do deals with politicians behind closed doors.
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