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Keywords: Vin Martin

  • RELIGION

    Constitutionally Australia is a religious country

    • Kevin Donnelly
    • 03 November 2014
    29 Comments

    Unlike France, Australia's Constitution specifically accepts the place of religion in the broader society, with its reference to Almighty God in the Preamble. Its only stipulation is that governments should not privilege one religion over another, or unfairly discriminate. Moreover, our legal system and institutions might be secular in nature, but they draw heavily on Christian ethics and morality.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Hervey Bay boat arrival from Ireland

    • Frank Brennan
    • 22 September 2014
    5 Comments

    Considering my indebtedness to the two Aborigines who met [my family's ship arriving in Hervey Bay from Ireland] 151 years ago, I owe it to all my fellow Australians to agitate these issues of law, morality and politics here in Ireland so that back in Australia, the homeland which, in my religious tradition, was known as the Great South Land of the Holy Spirit.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    What's killing the charities regulator?

    • Michael Mullins
    • 31 March 2014
    5 Comments

    The Federal Government is moving to abolish the body set up to protect and regulate the non-profit sector. Vinnies CEO John Falzon describes the action as 'ideological', while Melbourne Catholic education chief Stephen Elder sees it as an opportunity to spend more time raising money and delivering services. The Government must explain the policy imperatives driving it to dismantle such an extensively considered piece of legislation.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Financial advisers can be more than bookies

    • David James
    • 26 March 2014
    6 Comments

    Removing the requirement that financial advisers act in the best interest of their clients will reveal financial advisers for what they really are: salespeople for the banks' wealth management platforms. Tony Abbott argues that the changes will remove 'red tape' and declaimed: 'We're creating the biggest bonfire of regulations in our country's history.' This is a duplicitous use of language that misunderstands how the finance sector works.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Abbott's night of the short knives

    • Tony Kevin
    • 20 September 2013
    6 Comments

    Under the US revolving door model, top public service jobs are held by staff who are openly politically affiliated. When government changes, they go back to their jobs as special interest Washington lobbyists. Australians have made clear we don't like that system. It is open to corruption, and when our governments flirt with it, they usually come to regret it.

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  • RELIGION

    Why I still love the Catholic Church

    • Frank Brennan
    • 15 July 2013
    6 Comments

    Sean Faircloth, a US director of one of the Dawkins Institutes committed to atheism, raised what has already become a hoary old chestnut, the failure of Francis when in Argentina during the Dirty Wars to adequately defend his fellow Jesuits who were detained and tortured by unscrupulous soldiers. Being a Jesuit, I thought I was peculiarly well situated to respond. I confess to having got a little carried away.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Amish psychopaths and Gandhian action heroes

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 08 November 2012
    1 Comment

    A grief-stricken Amish man stalks and psychologically tortures the man who murdered his daughter. A Vietnamese veteran seeks vengeance on the American soldiers who slaughtered his fellow villagers. But for one alcoholic writer, the idea of absolving violence through violence jars with his pacifistic leanings.

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  • RELIGION

    Leadership for justice in health care

    • Frank Brennan
    • 21 August 2012

    Fr Frank Brennan SJ is board director of St Vincent's Health Australia and professor of law and director of strategic research projects (social justice and ethics) at Australian Catholic University. Text is from his address at Leading the Way, the Catholic Health Australia Conference, Perth 21 August 2012, Governance and Mission stream.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Dying politician's tilt at immortality

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 19 July 2012
    2 Comments

    A politician learns he has a degenerative neurological disorder. His marriage is a partnership where political expediency has long supplanted affection. His estranged daughter is a religious minister and wavering ex-addict. He exudes invincibility in public, while privately he is forced to confront his own mortality.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Savaging sex and religion

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 15 December 2011
    4 Comments

    Three teenagers are lured into the midst of a demented cult waging a brutal crusade against society's sexual profligacy; the Westboro Baptists re-imagined as violent extremists. This is not the first time questioning Catholic filmmaker Kevin Smith has had a go at religion.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Boys learning sin and sex

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 30 June 2011
    4 Comments

    The Tree of Life is at once sublime and earthy. Watching it has been likened to 'living inside a prayer'. The adolescent Jack bonds with his emotionally distant father after taking his first tentative steps across the threshold of sin and sexuality.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    My morning with Frank Brennan

    • Brian Doyle
    • 22 June 2011
    12 Comments

    Fell into riveting conversation recently. We talked about Australia's and Oregon's history with assisted suicide, the plight of Indigenous Australians, and his views on the personal and public profiles of Cardinal George Pell. Here's how it happened.

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