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Keywords: Values

  • Overcoming polarised attitudes to sexual orientation

    • Thomas O'Brien
    • 08 July 2015
    5 Comments

    Since the 1950s, the Western World has been experiencing an upheaval regarding the place of society's values in sexual relations. The response of many conservatives has been to act as if nothing has changed and that the social mores and social fabric of the 1950s remain.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Abbott's woes through Pope's human values lens

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 04 December 2014
    23 Comments

    Pope Francis' recent reflections on Europe apply also to Australia. He points to the cult of economic growth that exists at the expense of human values and the relationships that shape our humanity. His critique suggests the challenge facing our Government is not to make its policies appear more palatable when they're not, but to offer policies that are in themselves enriching.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Why Phil Hughes' death resonates

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 01 December 2014
    15 Comments

    Young people are dying every day around the world, in tragic circumstances. Yes somehow the sudden and unexpected death of a young cricketer has the headlines. Maybe it was because he just did what he loved and did not make a fuss about being dropped from the test team, but he went back to working hard and making his way back into selection.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Harper Review's new world of public service for profit

    • Julie Edwards
    • 28 November 2014
    8 Comments

    Professor Ian Harper's Competition Policy Review could lead to radical change in the public services in which our governments invest over $184 billion (or 12.1 per cent of GDP) each year. Time-honoured public service values that include citizenship, fairness, justice, representation and participation, are threatened when services are seen as products that can be broken up and sold on the market. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Liberty and equality's forgotten sibling

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 18 September 2014
    12 Comments

    The way to a better society does not lie simply in defending either liberty or equality, still less in the victory of one of these values over the other. It lies in bringing together a passion both for liberty and for equality and holding them together.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Abbott's foreign policy flops

    • Tony Kevin
    • 12 September 2014
    11 Comments

    Since Richard Casey was External Affairs Minister in the 1950s, the three pillars of Australian foreign policy have been: a genuine reaching out to our Asian neighbours, adherence to UN-based multilateral values and institutions, and a firm but self-respecting defence partnership with the United States. All those pillars look pretty shaken now.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Fatal cost of shutting borders

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 08 September 2014
    28 Comments

    From the perspective of Australian policy, both Hamid Kehazaei's death and the loss of the Red Cross contract to support asylum seekers give value for money. When we are dealing with people, however, values other than economic efficiency may come to mind.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Abbott's Team Christian Australia

    • Irfan Yusuf
    • 22 August 2014
    128 Comments

    Australia is a Christian country. We wear Christian clothes. We eat Christian food, speak Christian languages. Pardon the scepticism but I don't believe all this 'Christian values' nonsense, and I won't be lectured to about my alleged failure to integrate. 

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    China syndrome haunts Abbott's Japanese jaunt

    • Walter Hamilton
    • 09 April 2014
    3 Comments

    The two powers in Asia on whom our economy and security depend, Japan and China, have reached an impasse. That should not constrain Australia from reaching out to both on the basis of mutual interest and shared values. China has a keen appreciation of the former and an abiding suspicion of appeals to the latter. Distinguishing one from the other and acting accordingly is the first great test of Abbott's statecraft.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Climate change foes need to adapt

    • Fatima Measham
    • 04 November 2013
    10 Comments

    The bases of our arguments over climate change have been trodden so much that a moat has formed around us, leaving us stuck in our little island fortresses. We know thoroughly by now the content of our disagreement. But what are the things that do not require persuasion? Is it possible that we have values and interests that intersect? Adaptation may be that intersection.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    So much for Labor values

    • Brian Toohey
    • 14 October 2013
    9 Comments

    Amid all the post-election talk about Labor values, no one within the party has explained how the appalling behaviour exposed by the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption could have occurred if senior figures took any notice of these supposedly cherished values. It is not credible that most NSW state and federal Labor MPs, and key officials, had no inkling of Obeid's behaviour while a backbencher or minister.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Holy Feast of the AFL Grand Final

    • Michael McVeigh
    • 27 September 2013
    3 Comments

    The Feast of the Grand Final has a great deal in common with celebrations in other religious traditions. Events such as Christmas and Easter are celebrations of the stories that help fashion the identity of Christians. Telling these stories each year helps us create our own new stories about the values or beliefs we follow. The Grand Final has its own stories that tell us about ourselves, as well as rituals that personalise those stories for each of us.

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