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Keywords: Welcome

  • AUSTRALIA

    Vulnerable people must be at the heart of welfare reforms

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 28 September 2016
    8 Comments

    There is much to welcome in the ideals spruiked in Minister Porter's proposed welfare reforms. Who could fail to be delighted if people are helped to support themselves, and the welfare bill is reduced as people no longer need support? The question left hanging is what drives these changes. Is the human welfare of our fellow Australians the goal towards which the budgetary changes are a means? Or are budgetary savings the goal to which the treatment of our fellow Australians will be a means?

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  • ECONOMICS

    Morality is back on the economic agenda

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 20 September 2016
    4 Comments

    It is a welcome change to see budgets spoken of in moral terms. The government recently insisted on a moral responsibility to future generations to fix the deficit. And the Australian Catholic bishops welcomed on moral grounds the compromise that saw dropped from the budget measures which would further disadvantage vulnerable people. The difference was that the government's argument was focused on the budget, whereas the bishops' focused on particular groups of people.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Price of a plebiscite is too high for LGBTI young people

    • Neve Mahoney
    • 31 August 2016
    28 Comments

    If you're a cisgender straight person, the Irish vote 'no' poster, like 'Children need a mother and father', may not seem like a big deal. You may even agree with it. However, if you're a LGBTI young person who might be going through a process of denial and self-loathing about your sexual orientation or gender identity, it's just another reminder in your daily life that there are people who think you are wrong for being who you are. It's a sign that says you're not welcome or wanted here.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Leave Europe arguments betray cultural amnesia

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 23 June 2016
    19 Comments

    Some commentators in the Australian media have welcomed the prospect of Britain's leaving the EU. The founders of the union would recognise these commentators' hoped-for changes. They are precisely the conditions that contributed to the wars that they so feared: the xenophobia, disregard for human rights, chauvinism, military adventures entered by individual nations and competitive economic policies that alienated citizens and so bred authoritarian and ideologically inspired leaders.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Fenced in

    • Cheryl Howard
    • 16 February 2016
    5 Comments

    The lonely horse stands, welcomes the approach with a nod, which doesn't dislodge the flies from his face. The proffered dry grass becomes a gentle brush, freeing him from tormentors ... Simple and pure kindness can be like rain in a land parched of understanding.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    #LetThemStay reveals the political capital of compassion

    • Somayra Ismailjee
    • 12 February 2016
    8 Comments

    Since the first churches offered sanctuary to the refugees facing deportation to Nauru, a steady stream of voices have joined the call for compassion. As a political language, compassion is itself a reclamation of power. Extending safety, resources, or even a mere welcome to people in need proves that we have something to give. Strength is embodied by a capacity to aid and assist, rather than in cruelty. Empathy, care and compassion appeal to us on a level of emotion that runs deeper than mere rhetoric.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Fleeing Syria's pious knights

    • Geoff Page
    • 09 February 2016
    2 Comments

    There were some cheers in Munich station but not all Eden proves to be so free with food and toys. There's something deeper in the blood. They have that sense of deja vu: horsemen, pikes and princes ... The pious knights of 1640, those fine sectarians, who charged for thirty years across the northern sweeps of Europe, are born again in Syria with new nomenclatures; so once again the hapless foresee it's time to move.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    What is a brown body worth?

    • Somayra Ismailjee
    • 03 February 2016
    6 Comments

    A perception of Muslims as 'savage' and antithetical to peace accounts for incidents where overtly racist people can rejoice easily at the loss of human life, to little negative reaction. When a person is deemed unworthy or bereft of humanity, their death becomes gruesomely welcome. While Islamophobia itself does not define racism, Muslim people exemplify ideas of a cardinal threat against the Anglocentric West, which laterally affects how brown non-Muslim minority groups are treated.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Turnbull twist tests common good in Murray-Darling Plan

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 12 November 2015
    8 Comments

    In recent reflection on the future path of Australia the common good has made a welcome return. At the same time the Turnbull Government has transferred responsibility for water resources, including the Murray-Darling Basin, from the Department of the Environment to the Department of Trade. The two things seem to be unrelated. But the concept of the common good has been embodied robustly in the Murray-Darling Basin plan and survives in the midst of continuing conflict.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Pocock and Goodes are the role models Australia needs

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 05 November 2015
    10 Comments

    What are spectators to make of Adam Goodes' challenge to racial prejudice? What are they to make of David Pocock's outspoken defence of the environment and criticism of coal mining, or of his and his partner's refusal to marry in solidarity with LBGT couples? They make space for us to reflect on our own response to large human questions. But that space also invites us to judge our own integrity. The opprobrium such role models meet may arise out of discomfort with unwelcome self-questioning.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Building gender equality from the playground up

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 23 October 2015
    15 Comments

    Sissies are on their way out on British playgrounds. Guidelines produced by the Institute of Physics for the Department of Education recommend that teachers strongly discourage sexist language at school. While internet forums are replete with admonitions from members of the public furious at the erosion of so-called free speech, the guidelines are a welcome tool in the long and exhausting fight for female equality, and Australia would do well to consider adopting such procedures too.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Brown ban helps parents talk about domestic violence

    • Jen Vuk
    • 02 October 2015
    6 Comments

    Fairfax columnist Clem Bastow has raised concerns about the campaign to ban US rapper and convicted woman basher Chris Brown from touring here: 'The use of immigration law to "send a message" is something any feminist should be profoundly uncomfortable with,' she wrote. Well, as a feminist and a mother of two young boys, I welcome the ban. I've come to realise that in the dialogue I have with my sons about violence against women, rhetoric, posturing, and even hypocrisy have their uses.

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