Abortion finally decriminalised in Queensland
The Queensland parliament has passed a bill striking all references to abortion from the criminal code. Under new legislation, women can access an abortion on request during the first 22 weeks of pregnancy and with the consent of two health practitioners after that time. This move is long...CONTINUE READING
Government’s far right sympathies not OK
“A radically evil Third Reich operative living inside the deceptively normal shell of a bland bureaucrat.” This was how Thomas White, writing for aeon.co in April, summarised a historian’s view of Adolf Eichmann, responsible for sending millions to Hitler’s concentration camps. I thought o...CONTINUE READING
Free movement, not indentured labour
The Morrison government is considering a plan to force new migrants to settle in rural areas. Reluctant to implement outright immigration cuts given how important a factor immigration has been in helping sustain Australia’s economic growth, Morrison has wheeled this policy out so as to kee...CONTINUE READING
‘Religious freedom’ is just a guise for bigotry
The federal government’s Religious Freedom Review is not about religious freedom. It is homophobia and transphobia, pure and simple. A leaked recommendation from the review, obtained by Fairfax Media, suggests that LGBTI staff and students could be fired or expelled from their schools base...CONTINUE READING
Be sceptical of aged care royal commission
The state of Australia’s aged care sector is worsening every day, with overstretched staff forced to work harder and faster than ever before, inadequate training and stagnant wages. Residents’ expectations of what living in an aged care home should be are constantly being lowered. All the...CONTINUE READING
Against the French court’s pathologising of Marine Le Pen
“Pathological liars” is a valid description of the far right. But we should be cautious not to take the first word literally. Last month, the leader of French far right party Rassemblement National (National Rally, formerly the National Front) was ordered by a court to undergo a psychiatri...CONTINUE READING
What’s a bit of political interference among friends?
The ABC boardroom is starting to look a little like a Liberal cabinet meeting, and not just because it’s been plagued by a series of coups, counter-coups and press leaks. Also like a Liberal cabinet, the ABC’s board is stacked with friends of big business: former representatives for News C...CONTINUE READING
Robert Manne’s self-important puffery
At the risk of making him sound more interesting than he is, emeritus professor Robert Manne reminds me of one of Dostoyevsky’s liberals. In the distant past, he wrote something (who can remember what) which won him a literary reputation. Then, in the 1980s, Manne found it necessary to dem...CONTINUE READING
Behrouz Boochani’s writings from Manus prison demand to be read
“I have always despised waiting. Waiting is a mechanism of torture used in the dungeon of time. I am a captive in the clutches of some overbearing power.” Powerful words. Even more so when you realise their author has been waiting indefinitely in an Australian prison on Manus Island for th...CONTINUE READING