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Keywords: John Falzon

  • AUSTRALIA

    Unemployment angels and demons

    • John Falzon
    • 19 October 2011
    8 Comments

    Recently I received an email from a young man in Queensland. He was writing to thank the St Vincent de Paul Society for the stance it takes on the side of people who are demonised for being unemployed. He told me his story. Here are some bits of it.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Admiring the homeless

    • John Falzon
    • 14 June 2011
    8 Comments

    Far from being demonised, people living rough on the streets should be respected and admired for their tenacity and inventiveness. This week a group of business and community leaders will seek to learn from the people who live in the guts of our greatest social problem.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Stories from the Struggletown Library

    • John Falzon
    • 25 May 2011
    10 Comments

    There was a liberal use of corporal punishment in my school. We were seen as a loutish bunch of lads who needed a firm hand. It did nothing to help my education. You don't create a smart and confident Australia by taking to people with a stick.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Dangers of democracy

    • Various
    • 17 May 2011

    You ... are a man of steel with an impotent nation in your care: talk peace; but make strong allies everywhere.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Social change based on the 'view from below'

    • John Falzon
    • 22 December 2010
    3 Comments

      Dylan Thomas wrote that 'A good poem helps to change the shape of the universe.' Our 'good poem' is the listening to, and learning from, the people on the margins. But it will only be a 'good poem' if these whispers are translated into collective action.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Vinnies' revolutionary president

    • John Falzon
    • 17 December 2010
    4 Comments

    Syd Tutton, national president of the St Vincent de Paul Society in Australia, died on Sunday. He was a fighter for social justice, uninterested in personal recognition, making light, for example, of the Papal Knighthood he received in 2009, threatening to ask the Vatican for a horse to go with the title.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    The problem with prosperous Australia

    • John Falzon
    • 18 October 2010
    5 Comments

    There's something disquieting about quietness imposed from above in the heart of a democracy. Anti-Poverty Week is a good time to reflect on how, as a nation, can hear the revolutionary stories of the oppressed and abandoned in our midst.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Vote for hope

    • John Falzon
    • 20 August 2010
    20 Comments

    Ngunnawal Elder Aunty Janet Phillips says that for Aboriginal Australians there's no 'justice'; 'just us'. How can we turn this election into a building block for a more equal society? The answer involves weighing up the known policies and track-record of both sides to assess their impact on the growth of inequality.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    CEOs in sleeping bags

    • John Falzon
    • 23 June 2010
    13 Comments

    Last week CEOs across Australia 'slept out' to raise awareness and funds for homelessness. The kindness expressed through such charity makes us a richer nation. But charity is no substitute for the justice needed to prevent homelessness.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    My brother slid away

    • John Falzon
    • 22 June 2010
    4 Comments

    Does anybody think we'll go away from here just because they've sanctioned us and breached us, preached at us, acquired our country, stolen our yesterdays, the silk and hardy timbers of them .. Do they really think they've crushed our silvers and our souls by managing our sturdy little incomes?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Forcing people to do the right thing

    • Michael Mullins
    • 22 March 2010
    9 Comments

    The cost to human dignity makes compulsory income management counter-productive. It assumes that some welfare recipients are unable to make rational decisions that take into account the long-term consequences of their actions. The same might be said for some governments.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Real stories betray Abbott's homelessness untruth

    • John Falzon
    • 18 February 2010
    22 Comments

    Everyone has a story, and they don't happen in limbo. Tony Abbott's comments about homelessness mimic the paternalistic attitude pushed by Margaret Thatcher, where the focus is on supposed individual deficits rather than structural deficits.

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