Keywords: Stolen Generations
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 27 March 2024
Love is a much-used word, and, like domestic cutlery, it tends to lose its shine. Its boundaries then shrink to the average rather than to the inspiring. For that reason we need stories that stretch the ceiling of love beyond anything we could imagine. Not because we think that we could reach such far places, but because it enlarges the horizon of our lives.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 08 February 2024
3 Comments
Kevin Rudd's Apology to the Stolen Generations in 2008 seems to belong to a different age. It can never be unsaid. It can, however, be disregarded. For that reason it continues to be important. It is a measuring stick by which both Parliamentary behaviour and the treatment of Indigenous Australians can be judged.
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AUSTRALIA
- Barry Gittins
- 16 November 2023
6 Comments
How should our nation reckon with its colonial history and its lasting impact on contemporary society? From the stark realities of early settlement to the enduring legacies of injustice towards Indigenous peoples, this piece explores what it means for a country to grapple with its identity amidst a backdrop of change.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael McVeigh
- 05 May 2023
1 Comment
Recent books Statements from the Soul and An Indigenous Voice to Parliament explore different perspectives on the Uluru Statement, including the relationship between the land and Indigenous people and the legal impact of the proposed constitutional change, while demonstrating the need to appeal to hearts and minds in rallying support for an Indigenous Voice.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Barry Gittins
- 20 December 2022
1 Comment
When we reflect on how best to live with the consequences of our shared, bloodied history, The Australian Wars calls for a counter-narrative; a re-positioning and re-phrasing of what has brought us to this point in our oft-stalled journey towards reconciliation.
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AUSTRALIA
- Glenn Loughrey
- 14 December 2022
1 Comment
In reflecting upon the Statement from the Heart, we need to explore what it is, what it is not, and how it works. The creative dynamic of the Statement is that it is a tool of justice and heart-healing. It is restorative justice writ large, involving the elements that make up the process leading to a resolution of the past and a creative response to the future by enacting justice in the present.
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AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 06 May 2022
5 Comments
Whoever is Prime Minister after the election on May 21, he will need to address the question of Indigenous recognition in the Australian Constitution. This is the sixth election in a row when the question has been a live, unresolved issue during the election campaign. The patience of Indigenous leaders is understandably wearing thin. Trust is waning. There is still no clear path ahead. So where to from here?
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AUSTRALIA
- Dean Ashenden
- 03 May 2022
6 Comments
The danger is that unless commissions and inquiries are accompanied by other ways of telling other truths they will inadvertently help to shrink that national story into the story of victims who in fact have never been only victims, and of unmentioned perpetrators who in fact have never been only perpetrators. They risk preaching to a more-or-less converted majority and to an implacably unconverted minority.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 14 February 2022
6 Comments
The Apology by the representatives of Government was a landmark at the juncture of the road from the past and the path to the future. It defined the harm suffered by Indigenous Australians at the hands of governments obsessed by an ignorant and biased ideology. It also vindicated the Indigenous advocates who had long demanded an end to discriminatory attitudes and behaviour within non-Indigenous Australian society and its institutions.
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AUSTRALIA
- Ross Homel
- 09 December 2021
2 Comments
A small minority of localities situated outside Greater Brisbane suffer from disproportionately high rates of a wide array of problems including low income, overcrowding, long-term unemployment, particulate matter in the air, no internet, child maltreatment, and youth crime. These different strands of disadvantage pile-up and interlock, countering attempts to break free.
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AUSTRALIA
- Celeste Liddle
- 12 August 2021
9 Comments
Across the Pacific Ocean, in Canada or ‘Turtle Island’ as it is also known by many of its Indigenous inhabitants, a horror has been unfolding. It started at a the former residential school in Kamloops, British Colombia where, via the use of ground penetrating radar technology, the remains of at least 215 Native Canadian children were found buried in mass unmarked gravesites. This school ran for 85 years, was part of compulsory government programs to forcibly assimilate these children, and was administered by the Catholic Church.
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FAITH DOING JUSTICE
The question of reconciliation in the Church is particularly pressing, given 2021 marks the 250th anniversary of the arrival of Christianity in Australia, and the 150th anniversary of the arrival of Christianity to the Torres Strait. Yet many First Australians recognise that the Spirit of God was poured out onto the original inhabitants of this great Southern Land many, many thousands of years prior.
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