As Australian citizens, Muslims, albeit a small percentage of the total population, living in this democracy have the freedom and the responsibility to be true to their principles when engaging in politics and standing up for justice. In fact, this role has been made easier by the growth of alternatives to the major parties. In Continue reading »
politics
“To be good citizens means owning your own home. If you don’t, you’ve failed in some way” – Sophia Maalsen, University of Sydney. I sit at Brunetti’s with high school friends, wondering what I’m doing here. This group of intelligent women, educated at a prestigious girls’ school, are debating where to buy their second and Continue reading »
For most of the past year, Joe Biden has been calming panickers in the inner circles of the Democrat Party, persuading them that the campaign was under control, that things were moving his way, not least because of Donald Trump’s criminal law problems. The big reveal at the first presidential debate showed an emperor without Continue reading »
Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights has tabled a report that makes a persuasive argument for comprehensive legislation to protect Australians’ fundamental human rights. Its Inquiry into Australia’s Human Rights Framework (2024) identifies a catalogue of deficiencies in the nation’s disaggregated systems of human rights protection. The report provides a new and compelling case for Continue reading »
The security vetting process has gone off the rails in Australia. It’s been outsourced to the private sector, which has a financial incentive to make renewing a security clearance as lengthy as possible. Those with high-level jobs in many government departments, agencies and the defence bureaucracy have to renew their clearance every five years. They Continue reading »
Becoming the latest recruit in a well-organised global program, Australia has joined the 24 nations which have appointed envoys to combat anti-Semitism. We still await an envoy for resisting Islamophobia. On 9 July, Australia’s Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus weighed into the perennial debate about what constitutes anti-Semitism, telling the National Press Club that anti-Semitic statements are Continue reading »
For the sake of America’s security and world peace, the U.S. should immediately abandon the neocon quest for hegemony in favour of diplomacy and peaceful co-existence. In 1992, U.S. foreign-policy exceptionalism went into overdrive. The U.S. has always viewed itself as an exceptional nation destined for leadership, and the demise of the Soviet Union in December 1991 Continue reading »
It is ironic that a past and would be President who has been a strong supporter of 2nd Amendment freedoms to own assault rifles was nearly killed by one. It is ironic that a past and would be President who has been a strong supporter of 2nd Amendment freedoms to own assault rifles was nearly Continue reading »
Every generation, or thereabouts, has its moment of unlearning or forgetting two salutary lessons that should be indelibly imprinted on the memory and the consciousness with the advent of war: first, idiosyncrasies or hubris, or both, can overpower political leaders; second allies are not necessarily friends no matter how much they may seem like us, Continue reading »
Summers right across the northern hemisphere are getting hotter but vegetation can lower the temperature locally. Macaques show humans how to cope with hotter conditions. Poor progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Northern summers are getting hotter Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, even if not all the details are clear (the axes Continue reading »