In the interests of proper disclosure it must be said that I am a big fan of Dr Anne Aly and I have been a friend of hers for the better part of 20+ years. And I was also grateful for the receipt of Anne’s book, Finding My Place, just prior to the time that […]
Suresh Rajan
It’s been many a year since I reviewed my position in so far as an Australian republic is concerned. I know that from my arrival here 43 years ago I have always felt extremely uneasy about the fact that the ultimate arbiter of my government, status and future lay in the hands of someone who […]
We, as a nation, have always prided ourselves on the quality, accessibility and affordability of our health system. Particularly when we make comparisons to the cost of the system in places such as America etc, we come out looking particularly strong. The Health Department makes the following statements on its website: Australia’s health system is […]
Over the last five or six years I have written extensively about the sheer discrimination that is present in our migration system here in Australia. That discrimination is not on the basis of race (that is another angle altogether – visions of White Australia policy come to mind) but the articles I have written go […]
No, Mr Dutton, you are not entitled to your own facts! “We just need to call it for what it is. Of course it’s African gang violence.” And “people are scared to go out to restaurants of a night time because they are followed home by these gangs”. Those are the words of Minister Peter […]
When we think of slavery we think of the African American struggle in the United States. We think of ancient civilisations that disenfranchised people and exploited them for their labour and treated them harshly and inappropriately. We imagine a world where a caste system such as exists in India is manipulated to treat human beings […]
In recent days the Twitterverse of the Premier Mark McGowan and his Education Minister Sue Ellery have been extolling the advantages that we stand to gain from the sales pitch that they have undertaken in China to attract foreign students to Western Australia. I applaud the efforts of the Minister and the Premier in recognising […]
How do you follow a start to an article that says the following? From the Sydney Morning Herald comes this paragraph: “I am the mother that the Australian government would rather forget. My daughter Mia was killed in a stabbing attack almost a year ago in a backpacker hostel in far north Queensland, while she […]
Today 31st October 2017, the Australian government descends even further into complete abrogation of any principles of humanity when they close the Manus Detention Centre. Let’s look back at the history of this detention centre. Here is a timeline that was prepared by SBS: “THE HISTORY OF THE MANUS ISLAND DETENTION CENTRE 2001: Offshore immigration detention […]
Dear Minister Dutton, I write to you today as an Australian who came to this country over forty-two years ago. I came here as part of a family migration process. My father was a school teacher at a few state schools in Perth finally retiring (due to ill health) from Mirrabooka Senior High School (a school […]
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