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Keywords: John Smith

  • AUSTRALIA

    Erasure of an Aboriginal temple

    • Patti Miller
    • 03 May 2012
    21 Comments

    For thousands of years there was a temple on the banks of the Macquarie. A long avenue of trees carved with serpents, lightning, meteors and hieroglyphs led to a walled space where a giant human figure made of earth reclined. It was as important as the Acropolis or the temple of Horus. But it no longer exists. 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Geriatric sex and dignity

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 29 March 2012
    4 Comments

    The characters' move to India is not merely about stepping outside of comfort zones, but also stepping beyond the familiar in order to examine life in, literally, a new light. Graham has unfinished business there that dates back to his youth. Ageing tomcat Norman simply wants to get laid.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Zero tolerance for ritual humiliation

    • Michael Mullins
    • 12 March 2012
    19 Comments

    The Church is recognised as having tolerated abuse of children and young adults, and sometimes regarded it as character building, in connection with corporal punlshment and activities such as drinking rituals at university residential colleges. But the Catholic college at Sydney University has broken with tradition by implementing its zero tolerance policy.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Catholic writers' agnostic appeal

    • Lucas Smith
    • 29 February 2012
    7 Comments

    The priests are ineluctably compromised: one has capitulated to state pressure to marry; the other has fathered a daughter and drugs himself with alcohol. But the author's achievement, and a mark of his faith, is his ability to 'distinguish ... between the man and the office'.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Rudd resurrection no miracle cure for Labor

    • John Warhurst
    • 19 September 2011
    9 Comments

    If Rudd was re-installed as leader, Howard's Lazarus impersonation and Menzies' return to office in 1949 would have been outdone by the most remarkable twist ever in Australian politics. Only insiders know whether it might happen. Only voters know whether it might work.

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  • MEDIA

    My News of the World shame

    • Alan Gill
    • 13 July 2011
    5 Comments

    As a teenager in Britain I thought Catholic clergy were a pure and undefiled lot, while their Protestant counterparts were hopelessly scandalised. The source of this information? The News of the World. I'm ashamed to admit I was once myself seduced into writing for this unrepentant scandal ship.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    NSW and Victoria's 'tough on crime' confusion

    • Michael Mullins
    • 06 June 2011
    7 Comments

    While Victorian Attorney-General Robert Clark pushes for tougher treatment of young offenders, his NSW counterpart Greg Smith is looking to Victoria's current 'enlightened' model, which favours early intervention over punishment.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Defending Rudd's aid agenda

    • Jack de Groot
    • 14 October 2010
    12 Comments

    Associate Professor of Public Policy at Australian Catholic University, Gary Johns, has challenged the Government's growing support of African nations. In so doing, Johns blatantly dismisses the fundamental principles of solidarity, human dignity, common good and option for the poor.

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  • RELIGION

    A feminist's view of Mary MacKillop

    • Moira Rayner
    • 11 October 2010
    12 Comments

    Men's control over Christian women's religious lives has grown vastly over the centuries. Perhaps MacKillop might have agreed with Virginia Woolf, 'The history of men's opposition to women's emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.'

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A Shakespearean view of Australian politics

    • Adrian Phoon
    • 26 July 2010
    2 Comments

    Malcolm Turnbull recently compared Kevin Rudd to the Shakespearean character Coriolanus, a reviled control freak. Politicians sometimes invoke Shakespeare to flatter their own cause. But this is fraught with dangers: they can come off sounding pompous, or their analogies may backfire.

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  • RELIGION

    Pope Benedict's greed-free capitalism

    • Paul Oslington
    • 15 July 2010

    Some commentators have latched on to Benedict's encyclical Caritas in Veritate as a new 'third way' between socialism and capitalism. This is a remarkably bad idea.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Campaigning to Christians

    • John Warhurst
    • 30 June 2010
    6 Comments

    Christians rarely agree on what they want from government. The Australian Christian Lobby jumped the gun last week with its forum for political leaders to address Christian voters: the elevation of Julia Gillard means it now needs to engage afresh with a new Prime Minister.

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