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Keywords: Complexity

  • AUSTRALIA

    Seeking refuge, finding red tape

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 05 July 2024

    There is no doubt that laws for determining refugee status and onshore protection are complex. The cases of NZYQ and ASF17 demonstrate that when laws regarding asylum and protection intersect with laws regarding character and protection of the community, the results can be extremely messy.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    For better laws on family violence, we need better data

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 27 June 2024

    In addressing family violence, the immediate emphasis must be to protect women and children. But if the only response is harsher penalties in addressing any social problem, it is bound to be ineffective. Regulation depends also on understanding why people are drawn to behave badly and how the culture that supports it can be changed.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The fraught search for identity

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 13 June 2024

    The wonder of Khin Myint's Fragile Creature: A Memoir lies in his calm and magnanimous reflection on his experiences and in his attempt to understand those who treated him poorly. It also provides a lens for reflecting on the dynamic at work in public debates that touch identity.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Justice and Hope

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 07 June 2024

    Raimond Gaita insists that there is something precious in each human being. He does not rest this conviction on a particular religious or philosophical grounding. It flows, rather, from a rich reading of human possibilities and questioning of the meaning of life.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Nam Le's 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem

    • Peter Craven
    • 05 April 2024
    1 Comment

    Nam Le is one of the strangest writers in the history of Australian literature and is also one of the most incandescently brilliant — which is very weird if you bear in mind that his primary claim to legendary status is a book of short fiction published in 2008. With 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem, Le returns with a new work that encapsulates the brilliance and complexity that fans and critics have come to expect.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The Rainbow and the Blue

    • Julian Butler
    • 04 March 2024
    2 Comments

    Having first marched with the Mardi Gras Parade in 1998, the NSW Police will march this year, albeit out of uniform. This decision comes amidst community distress following a tragic double homicide, sparking calls for the police's absence. However, those seeking to keep the police out of Mardi Gras may have missed the complexity of this case and the more nuanced status of identities in our contemporary context.

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  • MEDIA

    The whole truth?

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 18 January 2024
    6 Comments

    Once upon a time it was fairly easy to distinguish fact from fiction, but now journalists in particular regularly merge the two. We are now forced to cope with notions such as alternative facts and the post-truth era. I, for one, cope badly with both, with this twisting of what I would like to be an essential and straightforward matter.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Conflict over the conflict

    • Kenneth S Stern
    • 25 October 2023

    The university campus is really the ideal place to tackle thorny issues. It is a safe place to examine all ideas, even — or perhaps especially — those that people find offensive or disturbing. The sad fact, though, is that there is a push these days to send the opposite message to students — that they should be shielded from intellectual discomfort. (From 2022)

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    ChatGPT and the apocalypse

    • Simon Smart
    • 01 February 2023
    5 Comments

    With the launch of ChatGPT, my initial amazement quickly gave way to unease and a sense that something essential could be about to be lost. We will need help to navigate such complexity and considering what is essential to our human nature would be an important place to start.

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  • RELIGION

    Best of 2022: What did the Plenary Council achieve?

    • Paul Collins
    • 05 January 2023

    The Plenary Council (PC) is over and the time has come for assessments. What did it achieve? In positive terms it brought together an enormously generous group of people whose dedication to Catholicism is extraordinary. It also demonstrated the diverse complexity of the community. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    In praise of complexity

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 21 July 2022

    One of the tests by which we can judge political maturity is whether it gives due weight to complexity. It is easy to reduce political conversation to opposed statements between which we must choose. That will sometimes be appropriate. Often, however, discussion of policy raises several different questions, each of which needs to be considered.

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  • RELIGION

    What did the Plenary Council achieve?

    • Paul Collins
    • 12 July 2022
    33 Comments

    The Plenary Council (PC) is over and the time has come for assessments. What did it achieve? In positive terms it brought together an enormously generous group of people whose dedication to Catholicism is extraordinary. It also demonstrated the diverse complexity of the community. 

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