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Keywords: Sacrifice

  • AUSTRALIA

    Building constitutional bridges: In conversation with Frank Brennan

    • David Halliday
    • 28 June 2024

    It's been eight months since the Voice referendum, and people are starting to grapple with what its defeat means for Australia. There are few voices in Australia as qualified to conduct a postmortem of the outcome of the Voice referendum campaign as Frank Brennan. We examine what lessons can be learned and crucually, whether there’s reason for hope for Indigenous constitutional recognition.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Uncle George’s war

    • Juliette Hughes
    • 21 June 2024

    Most soldiers don’t like to talk about what they’ve been through, the things they’ve had to see; the things they’ve had to do. Uncle George was more willing to talk as he got older and more willing to be coaxed by a crowd of adoring nieces. But there were some things he'd never say. And the war never went away from him.

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  • RELIGION

    Can ashes find a voice?

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 13 February 2024
    5 Comments

    In a world grappling with war, inequality, and environmental devastation, can a celebration of sacrifice offer hope? For a secular Australia, the relevance of Lent may lie in bridging the gap between a seemingly dehumanizing act and the profound belief in the preciousness of human life. Can this paradoxical notion inspire action to heal the wounds of our world?

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  • ECONOMICS

    Our greatest threat isn't climate change or AI. It's Moloch

    • Daniel Simons
    • 14 September 2023

    In a world increasingly governed by algorithms and AI, the ancient deity Moloch emerges as a haunting metaphor for our tech-driven sacrifices. Drawing parallels from historic rituals to present-day digital dynamics, ancient fears offer insight into today's most pressing existential challenges. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Gratitude needs ambivalence on the costs of war

    • Jim Curtain
    • 24 April 2023
    4 Comments

    Amidst gratitude and remembrance to those who have served, we would do well to look with ambivalence on the toll beyond the battlefield; on families, soldiers' mental health, and questions about government transparency. Anzac day serves as a poignant reminder to acknowledge sacrifices and damages of war.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The hope of remembering

    • David Rowland
    • 10 November 2022
    3 Comments

    When people gather on Remembrance Day, commemorating the cease-fire at the end of the First World War, people take great pains to remember; a small acknowledgement of the horror of war, its loss, sacrifice and suffering. And in that time, it’s also worth pausing to reflect on those for whom wartime sacrifices and suffering are a daily reality. What do these people wish to remember?

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    On Father's Day

    • David Halliday
    • 05 September 2022
    1 Comment

    There’s a modern narrative around fatherhood being about sacrifice and loss that deserves some scrutiny. New fathers are frequently heard vocalising hardships, grieving the loss of former pasttimes. But there’s something else there that’s harder to articulate and appreciate. 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    In praise of naughty thoughts

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 29 August 2022

    The subject of this Stray Thought is not sleazy thoughts. It is rather the thought of becoming a lion tamer which might steal upon a person focused from childhood on being a musician with all the sacrifices that this choice has entailed. Or the thought that might lead a soccer goalie to leave his position and go forward to score a winning goal for his team. Naughty thoughts are secret, personal and disruptive. They defy the conventional wisdom we have accepted about career, security and responsibility.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Australia's true relationship with Timor-Leste

    • Sophie Raynor
    • 09 September 2019
    13 Comments

    Australia’s priority is clear: self-protection at all costs, no matter the sacrifice required of Timor-Leste. And it’s a theme that continues today: Australia’s neighbourly relationship with Timor-Leste remains one of taking anything it can, not of sharing like friends.  

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A common good frame for economic stimulus

    • Joe Zabar
    • 26 August 2019
    3 Comments

    While the current economic climate is cause for concern, it is not the time to panic. A more sensible alternative to austerity is for governments, business, unions and charities to look for ways we can together soften the impact of any global downturn. This will require bipartisan agreement to sacrifice some or all of the budget surplus.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Bob Hawke's post Tiananmen legacy

    • Jeremy Clarke
    • 30 May 2019
    4 Comments

    The events of 4 June 1989 in Beijing were horrific, but then prime minister Hawke's leadership and the skills, passion and sacrifice of the generation of Chinese that stayed in Australia in Tiananmen Square's aftermath have consequently made Australia a more vibrant society.

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  • RELIGION

    Sexual hypocrisy and the western church

    • Vicki Buchanan
    • 25 September 2018
    76 Comments

    Just as prayers and sacrifices did not measure the true holiness of the Pharisees, so too has sexual propriety provided a false measure of closeness to God in the West. If someone has multiple sex partners but is helpful to strangers, are they better or worse than someone who has only slept with their spouse but is racist or unkind?

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