Keywords: Michael Mullins
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 21 May 2012
64 Comments
Everyone is entitled to bodily integrity, but they also have a right to the best possible health outcomes. When it comes to circumcision, the experts can't agree and infants can't decide, so it's up to parents to make a responsible choice on behalf of their infant sons. But only if they can afford it.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 18 May 2012
12 Comments
With East Timor marking ten years of independence on Sunday, it is relevant to ask which nation in particular it is celebrating independence from. In one sense East Timorese value independence because it is a reminder that they do not hold ties and obligations to Australia, which might have become their neo-colonial master.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 14 May 2012
15 Comments
Joe Hockey provoked outrage with his recent suggestion that we should rely on families rather than the state for social welfare. His premise that high social spending leads to debt and decline reflects the GDP fetish of fundamentalist economists that Joseph Stiglitz blames for Europe's current economic problems.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 07 May 2012
2 Comments
The end of big media businesses such as Seven, Nine, Ten and the newspapers would be bad for media proprietors like Kerry Stokes and Rupert Murdoch, but not necessarily a great loss for the rest of us, given the NBN's empowerment of small media enterprises and the diversity that implies.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 30 April 2012
20 Comments
There is a lot not to admire about the business practices of Rupert Murdoch, but he stands tall as an elder who is able to maintain his stature in the face of great challenge. The Federal Government's new aged care blueprint has the potential to ensure that more Australians will retain their dignity in old age.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 23 April 2012
27 Comments
Victoria's parliamentary committee has much it could learn from Ireland's Murphy Report into clerical sex abuse, which identified the 'don't ask, don't tell' culture under which bishops did not talk about it even among themselves and were unaware of how widespread the problem was.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 16 April 2012
14 Comments
In the shadow of the blockbuster Q&A and Global Atheist Convention was a poignant encounter between atheist broadcaster Philip Adams and Jesuit theologian Gerald O'Collins. The instant bond between the two may have a flipside in an affinity between fanatical atheists and fundamentalist religious believers.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 02 April 2012
28 Comments
Foreign minister Carr used the phrase 'overlap of cultures' to describe people of different cultures living together. The bishops are entitled to expect the Government not to legislate to 'smash' the sacrament and religious institution of marriage. But tolerance of other cultures and faiths must be reciprocal.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 26 March 2012
16 Comments
Julian Burnside taunted his audience at La Trobe University in 2010 with the suggestion that we take a couple of children out of detention and publicly execute them. His point was that we are not bothered by the mental torture of children in immigration detention because it is out of sight.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 19 March 2012
5 Comments
Media bosses believe self-regulation is compatible with protecting the interests of ordinary Australians. It's akin to allowing big tobacco to specify the size of health warnings on cigarette packs.
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AUSTRALIA
- 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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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 05 March 2012
25 Comments
It's alarming that two Melbourne academics are arguing for the legalisation of infanticide. It is worth recalling that in 1939 academic argument led to the Victorian Parliament legalising eugenics, of which infanticide is a form. Fortunately it was never practised due to embarrassment over the Holocaust.
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