Human Rights
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. The Occupation of the Australian Mind.
Fear and apathy have taken up residence in the collective political consciousness of Australia. Indeed, it may be that they have achieved that most desirable of states for governments seeking to remain in power, or oppositions sensing their imminent ascendency to it: a state of collective unconsciousness that consents to its own increasing subservience and Continue reading »
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ANTHONY PUN. Genetic manipulation of Human Embryo must be guided by proper moral and ethical research protocols.
A recent story emerged at the International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong about an experiment in off-target gene editing of two human embryos in an attempt to render the resultant twin babies resistant to HIV infection. The father is HIV positive whist the mother is negative. This experiment attracted severe criticism for Continue reading »
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Racial misprofiling
On 9 November, Hassan Khalif Shire Ali crashed a vehicle full of gas cylinders in Bourke Street, Melbourne and stabbed three people, one fatally, before being shot by police. The 30-year old was on multiple watchlists at the time because if his known radical views and links to Islamic State. Yet he was not under Continue reading »
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JIEH-YUNG LO. Ross Cameron sacking shows we won’t tolerate racism any further.
In typical fashion, Andrew Bolt through his blog at the Herald Sun mounted a defence of Ross Cameron’s sacking from Sky News Australia. Instead of recognising its racist connotations directed towards Chinese people (and people of Chinese origin for that matter) Bolt went on by saying Ross Cameron’s intentions, while recognising his poor choice of Continue reading »
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LYNDSAY CONNORS. Morality, marketing or a strange convergence of both?
In the final weeks of the run-up to the Wentworth by-election, the Prime Minister promised rapid amendments to anti-discrimination law to remove the freedom of private schools to expel students on the basis of their sexuality, his own fears of ‘gender whispering’ in public schools that he claimed had driven him to enrol his children Continue reading »
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KATE MALTBY. What to Expect When a Woman Accuses a Man in Power.
Last week, the world gazed on as Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testified against a man backed by the strongest political forces in America. I couldn’t watch. Continue reading »
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JOHN FALZON.Morrison’s mantra is ‘choice’. But what real choice do the poor and homeless have?
Everyone was walking past, refusing to meet her eyes. She wasn’t asking for somewhere to live. She wasn’t even asking for something to live on. All she was asking for was just enough to buy some breakfast. But everyone just kept walking past and the angrier she got the wider the berth they gave her Continue reading »
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SUSAN RYAN. Ladies in Red.
In the late 1970s, federal Labor, still in opposition after Whitlam, was struggling. New polling research enabled me to advise national conference that Labor would not regain office unless it increased its support among women voters. If women had voted Labor in the same proportion as men had, Labor would have won every election since Continue reading »
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TAMSIN SHAW. Edward Snowden Reconsidered (New York Review of Books Daily 13.09.18)
This summer, the fifth anniversary of Edward Snowden’s revelations about NSA surveillance passed quietly, adrift on a tide of news that now daily sweeps the ground from under our feet. It has been a long five years, and not a period marked by increased understanding, transparency, or control of our personal data. In these years, Continue reading »
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KIM WINGEREI. The responsibility of free speech.
I don’t like what Steve Bannon has to say. I find Nigel Farrage’s attempts at shrouding his anti-immigration messages in “Judeo-Christian values” abhorrent. But I am also quite certain that neither pose more nor less of a threat to Australia than Chelsea Manning does. The idea of picking and choosing who gets to speak is Continue reading »
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STEPHANIE DOWRICK. Exposing the myths of “border protection” we will see the refugees as real people; and act accordingly.
On Thursday morning of the Liberals’ week of mayhem, facing front benches empty of ministers and with the day’s sitting of Parliament about to be shut down, ALP leader Bill Shorten said: “The purpose of government is to uplift the nation’s vision”. He’s right. We all know that he’s right. But vision takes courage. And Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Peter Dutton is an embarrassment for all of us. Repost from March 21 2018
Peter Dutton failed as Health Minister. His track record since then is even worse. Continue reading »
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HENRY REYNOLDS. Ethno-nationalism and Australia’s place in the world.
Ethno-nationalism is resurgent in many European countries, in the United States and in Israel. Hostility to immigration and to refugees is widespread. The Australian debate about the level of immigration is a mild symptom of the present malaise. Andrew Bolt’s more strident recent attack on immigrant communities attracted widespread and cogent criticism. But it raised Continue reading »
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MICHAEL JENSON. Nigerian farmers are under attack, so why don’t we hear about it?
We’ve heard a lot lately about white South African farmers being killed in farm murders. But another group of African farmers are being killed in far greater numbers and we’ve barely heard a whimper. Continue reading »
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GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND
A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts covered in other media. Continue reading »
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GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND
A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts covered in other media. Continue reading »
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ELAINE PEARSON. Cambodia’s ‘dirty dozen’ have no place in Australia.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s crackdown on dissent is in full swing ahead of national elections later this month. But who are the generals around Hun Sen who act like a praetorian guard protecting him and the ruling party, helping to crush or eliminate political opponents, and then obstructing efforts at accountability? Continue reading »
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JOHAN LIDBERG. When whistleblowers are prosecuted, it has a chilling effect on press freedom in Australia.
Fear is a tricky thing. It’s often hard to distinguish between what is real and perceived danger. US President Donald Trump, being more comfortable with autocrats than democratic leaders, is arguably a real danger to the world order. Continue reading »
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VINCENT CHEOK. Understanding China and the Chinese – An Australian Perspective – Part 1.
My parents were Hakka Chinese from Malaysia. I came to Australia as a minor in 1968 and have been here ever since. The first time that I knew I was ‘special’ as a Chinese was when I was working in a rural town in South Australia over Christmas 1968 while waiting for my matriculation results. Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE Why are Australian defence correspondents so quiet about complaints to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on the use of Australian and Latin American mercenaries by UAE in the war against Yemen (Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK)
ANCILE Avocats French law firm filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the use of an army of mercenaries trained in the UAE and sent to participate in the ongoing war in Yemen. Continue reading »
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TONY SMITH. Hostage to the masculine sense of entitlement.
When a society seems unable to ameliorate its social problems, something is obviously amiss. People in the USA might despair of ever breaking free of the pervasive firearms culture which is implicated in frequent mass shootings. In Australia, we have at least two persistent catastrophes: horrific road tolls and the scourge of domestic violence which Continue reading »
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GEORGE BROWNING. Domestic Violence
Last week we were confronted with domestic violence in the most tragic of circumstances as a NSW father became the brutal killer of his two teenage children. Most Australians will have found this news inexplicable. How could a father submerge natural feelings of paternal care and responsibility in an ocean of anger and bitterness to Continue reading »
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ANDREW JAKUBOWICZ. A Rose by Any Other Name: Reflections on the future of race discrimination and vilification in Australia
In a penultimate spate of inter-personal hostility between the current Race Discrimination Commissioner and his opponents in government and the media, the future of a Commissioner (RDC) and the enabling Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) have been flagged by Attorney General Porter as being high on his “to do” list. Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Domestic violence is a greater threat than terrorism
Last week in Sydney we saw the tragic death of two teenagers as a result of domestic violence. We know that over 12 months on average one woman is killed every week in Australia by a current or former partner. Yet national effort and resources are directed overwhelmingly to counter terrorism where in the last Continue reading »
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JONATHAN FREEDLAND. Inspired by Trump, the world could be heading back to the 1930s.
The US president tears children from parents, and in Europe his imitators dehumanise migrants. We know where such hatred leads. Continue reading »
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ANDREW LEIGH. Rising to the challenge of inequality.
Thomas Piketty and his colleagues have used new data to track inequality and sharpen the choices we face. Continue reading »
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ANDREW JAKUBOWICZ. A peace treaty to end the low-intensity guerilla campaign against the indigenous population.
Australia is a nation and a state established on grounds belonging to Indigenous owners, through a war which has never ended. Continue reading »
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ANDREW HAMILTON. Triggs champions common compassion (Eureka Street 12/6/2018)
Common compassion is an aspiration more widely praised as a gift of Western Civilisation than accepted and practiced. But once government trash it with impunity we are all the losers. Continue reading »
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ELAINE PEARSON. Australia’s Government must guard against foreign interference, but not by curbing our rights.
Authoritarian governments around the world use broadly drafted national security laws to silence human rights defenders, journalists, bloggers, and critics of the government. Australia should not join them by passing a revised espionage and foreign interference law that excludes safeguards for legitimate disclosures in the public interest. Continue reading »
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KARL HOWARD. The importance of community .
Communities are a fundamental requirement for the human condition; they consist of a group of people with shared interests, similar attitudes – often with aligned social values -resulting in delegated responsibilities. A community is a product of independent actors joining together, operating in a specific habitat, whether a neighbourhood, a gym, a workplace, or a Continue reading »