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Keywords: Teenagers

  • AUSTRALIA

    Gillard's grotesque people smuggler sledge

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 04 November 2011
    20 Comments

    So-called people smugglers are often penniless teenagers who are simply a link in the chain for those who are seeking legitimate asylum. The Government's new retrospective law will punish such individuals for an act that was legal at the time it was committed.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Australia's child abuse parable

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 27 October 2011
    4 Comments

    At its heart is an act of violence against a child. But on the whole The Slap stands as an epic parable of middle class Australia. The tagline 'Whose side are you on?' is a furphy: it is impossible to wholly sympathise with any character. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Fearing America's national debt

    • Brian Doyle
    • 27 July 2011
    8 Comments

    America, my country, is teetering on the edge of a dark future. We cannot continue in this fashion, or we will enslave our children and grandchildren to ruinous debt; we will twist their lives in unimaginable ways, because we would not pay our bills or reduce the luxury with which we lived.

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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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  • AUSTRALIA

    Why we swear

    • Philip Harvey
    • 06 June 2011
    6 Comments

    Fining people for swearing is silly. We can no more control what people say than we can hold the wind, or even a very large fart. Victoria's swear-fine laws are likely to be used either as threat or reality on those who can least afford the fine and cannot fight back.

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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

    Mothers, soldiers and other entrepreneurs

    • Brian Doyle
    • 04 May 2011
    3 Comments

    To attempt, to begin, is really to dream, to envision, to speculate, and then to work like a burro to implement, to create, to make real. How is it that a word like entrepreneurship, which means vast and amazing things, has become so commonplace and thin?

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  • MEDIA

    Cyber traps for young players

    • Chris Middleton
    • 11 April 2011
    6 Comments

    The use of Skype to demean a young female trainee at the Australian Defence Force Academy once again demonstrates that the internet can damage young people’s sense of self. It also points to the need for an educational program that builds an awareness of our culture and an ability to question information and critique forms of communication.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Where children used to play

    • Vin Maskell
    • 09 February 2011
    4 Comments

    After she died — her mind went first, then the rest — he moved across town, where he lived in a different type of street. A busy street with traffic and noise. No place for a street party. Once a year, though, he returns to see the next generation of neighbours. New leaves on old trees.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Harry Potter's dark days

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 18 November 2010
    1 Comment

    The youths take fearful strides into adulthood, embracing responsibility through necessity, unprotected by parents, teachers or mentors. Like many fictional 'chosen ones', Harry Potter is an allegorical Christ figure.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Australian invasion anxiety in adolescent fantasy

    • Tony Kevin
    • 09 September 2010
    13 Comments

    What do young Australians take away from John Marsden's novels - and now, the film Tomorrow, When the War Began? They are more than escapist fantasies. They convey value messages, calling on young Australians to cherish our country, not to take it for granted, and to be prepared if necessary to kill and die for it.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Not just war as teens fight back

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 09 September 2010
    3 Comments

    The characters voice implicit moral concerns about the right to kill in self-defense, and rationalise why it might be right to take up arms against the invaders. When Ellie is confronted by a mural depicting an encounterbetween Captain Cook and a group of Aboriginal Australians, she ismomentarily arrested.

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