Faith leaders should stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and should call on the Australian government to condemn all violence that threatens a just future for the people of Palestine, Israel and the Middle East. This call comes from Pax Christi, an ecumenical Christian organisation. Pax Christi Australia has sent the following appeal to all Continue reading »
politics
David Marr’s recent book, Killing for Country, confronts the reality of the dispossession of Aboriginal lands in Queensland by the Native Police Force. It is a recounting of wholesale and indiscriminate slaughter of “natives” in order to settle the land that never was Terra Nullius. Most confronting for Marr is the realization that it was Continue reading »
Australians frozen out of the housing market cannot expect that government is going to do anything that effectively closes the gap between current house prices and what most of the unhoused could afford as a deposit. Modern politicians of all stripes are all agreed that their political survival depends on doing the maximum to sustain Continue reading »
“Empires don’t just fall like toppled trees. Instead, they weaken slowly as a succession of crises drain their strength and confidence until they suddenly begin to disintegrate” – historian Alfred W. McCoy. On March 14, The New York Times published an article by Ivan Nechupurenko entitled “Shunned By West, Russia Pivots South For Trade: Skirting Continue reading »
The recent ASEAN-Australia Summit in Melbourne was widely well received. Leaders of all member countries, except Myanmar, attended. Some—President Marcos of the Philippines and Prime Minister Anwar of Malaysia—also carried out quite extensive individual programs. Speeches and comments reflected general agreement, and there was an impressive list of follow-up practical actions, many of them with Continue reading »
Israel’s war on Gaza is a war on children, a war on their childhood and a war on their future. Children are dying at an alarming rate from malnutrition and dehydration and doctors are no longer seeing normal-sized babies. On the first Friday in Ramadan this year 36 members of the Tabatbi family were killed Continue reading »
Australian Opposition leader (yep,really), Peter Dutton, is tipped to announce this week that fictional character Homer Simpson will be his new nuclear advisor in the run up to the next election. ”Homer Simpson brings a lot to the table,” said... Read More ›
The danger Hong Kong faces is not that it might become ‘just another mainland city’, but that it is already subpar to many of its urban cousins across the border. People always fret about Hong Kong’s eroding competitiveness compared to other leading Asian cities. But the clear and present danger may be its lack of Continue reading »
Since the Hamas atrocities of October 7, through the following months of disproportionate and incomprehensible Israeli vengeance wreaked upon the Palestinian people, the seismic waves from Gaza have been felt near the surface of Australian democracy itself. Reputedly we live in a robust democracy but the current situation in the Middle East has exposed fissures Continue reading »
A friend of mine resigned from her university job in February 2024 just weeks before term started. She couldn’t face another year. She was old enough to retire but I had thought she might have a couple more years of teaching in her. The bureaucracy, the rules, lowering standards were too much. Another friend, an Continue reading »