Keywords: One Nation
There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
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AUSTRALIA
- Fatima Measham
- 08 June 2017
13 Comments
Since 9/11, as well as more recent, atomised attacks in Europe and the UK, our judgment about what is against us has been clouded. It is not Islam, no matter what politicians and commentators say. To believe them is to take seriously the notions that it is ever possible to 'fight' religion as if it were a nation-state, that religion holds a single interpretation, that the only legitimate victim of religious violence is white and non-Muslim, and that human motivation is simple and direct.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
It's a no eye contact sport, when I see a girl I like. She's putting lip balm on her lips, as the morning scenery slips by like a young child getting out of his pyjamas. I stare at everyone but her, because her face is like a burning sun ... It's only as I go to get off she looks up and smiles. I smile back, I've done a few miles with these smiles. I'd like to peel the pastry off and eat the sweet thing underneath. I catch my breath like a butterfly in a net. She's another stranger I'll never know the destination of.
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AUSTRALIA
- Ann Deslandes
- 26 May 2017
4 Comments
Wealth inequality in Australia is flourishing. The top one per cent of household wealth in Australia is moving toward being 20 per cent of total wealth, and the country is a preferred destination for millionaires. With a government that prefers to impoverish and vilify the disadvantaged and spend big on coal mines, this does not look likely to shift. But there are always other paths to social justice, and in Australia one may be through the millionaires - or at least the companies on which their fortunes are built.
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AUSTRALIA
- Barry Gittins
- 25 May 2017
7 Comments
Australian kids are being bashed, raped, starved, scorned and otherwise treated with no dignity or kindness. The study states it is not simply a case of one-off abuse, noting that 'research has demonstrated that maltreatment sub-types seldom occur in isolation (e.g. sexual abuse is often accompanied by psychological maltreatment or physical abuse)'. That is difficult reading. It makes me sick to write it. But the paper should, in a just society, serve as a catalyst for a national conversation.
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ECONOMICS
Fake news aside, increasingly, we live in a world of fake figures. There is a cliche in management that 'what gets measured gets done'. In public discourse that might be translated to 'what gets measured is considered real'. One obvious fake figure is GDP, which is taken as a measure of national wellbeing. In fact, it is just a measure of transactions. If money changes hands because something disastrous happens then GDP will rise. That is hardly an indicator of national wellbeing.
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PODCAST
Is there such a thing as bad debt when it comes to national budgets? Is infrastructure spending a great idea by default? We also take a glance at the first 100 days of the Trump presidency. As an antidote, we finish with a quick reflection on the latest moves by Pope Francis.
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RELIGION
- Fatima Measham
- 12 April 2017
18 Comments
Easter, for me, has always been a time to sit in the brokenness of things, to absorb the dread and devastation, and reel at the inexplicable sacrifice. Crushing humility might have characterised my experience in previous years. This year, I feel formless rage. The human drama of Easter - with its betrayals, moments of audacity and doubt, the machinations in shadow - bears the sting of injustice. The central narrative is political. Choices were made by people in power. They are still being made.
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AUSTRALIA
- Irfan Yusuf
- 05 April 2017
16 Comments
Hanson doesn't pretend to be religious. Her anti-Islam agenda isn't inspired by some rightwing evangelical passion like Danny Nalliah's nor by a conservative moralistic Catholicism like Cory Bernardi's. But she clearly can feel the pulse of many in the electorate who worry about terrorism and national security. Hanson's politics really only work when there is a 'them' for 'us' to worry about. But where does she get this idea that Islam is not a religion but an ideology?
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INTERNATIONAL
- Munyaradzi Makoni
- 28 March 2017
1 Comment
Life is back to normal a month after residents of Mamelodi in South Africa marched from on the Home Affairs offices in protest over criminality among immigrants. Now, there are calls for closer re-examination of the action, which many see as threatening peace in one of Africa's biggest economies. 'If drugs and crime were really the issues, it should have been billed as an anti-drugs, anti-crime march, not an anti-foreigner march,' said Johan Viljoen of Jesuit Refugee Service.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Na'ama Carlin
- 28 March 2017
12 Comments
Some things are invisible until pointed out. Take the water tanks that pepper the rooves of buildings and homes in the West Bank. 'That's how you tell between Palestinian villages and Israeli settlements,' a friend points out. 'The Palestinian homes need water tanks because of restricted water supply from Israel, whereas the settlements don't.' Access to clean water is a fundamental human right, and the water situation in Palestine reveals a cruel privileging of one group over another.
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PODCAST
In this episode, we touch on energy, infrastructure and the political lens through which we receive nation-building ideas. We talk about Jay Weatherill, the South Australian Premier, who gave a master class this week in how to make federal ministers squirm. We also ask whether it is possible for journalists to remain neutral, a quarter into the Trump presidency.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 14 March 2017
24 Comments
The debate over section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act (18C) has gone on for far too long. It's time to bring it to a close. To date, I have been silent in the present debate, in part because I was a critic of such legal provisions when they were first proposed in 1992 and again in 1994. I have since been convinced that a provision like 18C could be designed to target racial vilification, leaving offensive insults beyond the reach of the law in a robust democracy committed to freedom of speech.
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