All sides of Australian politics have sustained pressure on the United States to drop the charges against Julian Assange. While the Cheng Lei experience might provide an instructive lesson on how to negotiate with what is a political charge, this may have to wait until after the 2024 election. 2023 was the year when the Continue reading »
politics
Why was Christ born in a stable? Because the Israelis bombed all the houses. Truly. Every year Jesus is born, dies and is reborn. He is reborn into our world – that is part of what makes Christian symbology meaningful. This year Christ is a brown skinned Middle Eastern man about to be born in Continue reading »
Out of our hearts can come thoughts that are pure and beautiful or “evil intentions, murder…” What we think and let influence our thinking shapes our words and actions, for good or ill. How important therefore are the choices we make! The choice to nurture love with words and actions that bring healing as compared Continue reading »
After the birth of Jesus, there was the flight into Egypt. Benjamin Netanyahu’s 1st Century predecessor, Herod, had decreed the slaughter of all the male children under the age of two – not Gaza this time, but West Bank Bethlehem. You don’t say “No’ to God – nor to God’s messenger, the angel Gabriel. To Continue reading »
The victimisation by Israel of Palestinian children is so profound that Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkain, a Hebrew University of Jerusalem law professor, has described it as “Unchilding,” that is, in order to “eliminate the next generation of Palestinians, Israel treats Palestinian children as both nobodies who are unworthy of global children’s rights and as dangerous and killable Continue reading »
“The fact that one of the least populated countries on Earth contains the world’s second most expensive housing is a national calamity, and a stunning failure of public policy,” writes Alan Kohler, in the latest Quarterly Essay. He doesn’t mince words. We are in a housing crisis – and it is a public policy failure Continue reading »
Peace should be one of our ultimate goals as we seek a better society. Nothing is more important. But what can anyone say about peace that doesn’t sound too preachy or self-righteous? I hesitate to say anything for this reason. Yet one thing I do know, as a starting point, is that peace is an Continue reading »
Despite the limitations of the recent COP28 climate meeting in Dubai, there was a positive aspect skipped over too quickly by its critics. At the closing plenary (time stamp 2:24:50), the Zambian representative described his delight at the ‘climate love’ he experienced – the extraordinary goodwill among most participants. Goodwill, moral sensibility, and the empathetic Continue reading »
Usman Khawaja played an important batting role in Australia’s recently finished demolition of Pakistan in the first Test in Perth. The ongoing controversy, however, around his writings on his cricket boots and black armband as a protest display have raised questions about the relations of sport and politics and the role of sporting and other Continue reading »
A central question the Joint Committee on Public Accountability and Audit is pursuing in its inquiry into probity and ethics in the Commonwealth public sector is how to hold individual public servants to account for the failures so often being found in ANAO reports and those of other inquiries. Must we have a Royal Commission Continue reading »