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 […]
Health and Wellness
Homelessness can be ended but the will to do so is not a universal one. In the world’s 12th biggest economy, Australia, the number of older women who are homeless has doubled in the past four years. Australia has among the world’s highest median wages, argues itself as a global social justice warrior but the […]
Gerry Georgatos (The Stringer, 17 November 2017) argues that we should not allow ourselves to be overwhelmed and dominated by trauma, that we should get back on our feet, strengthened by our scars. He is right, of course, that trauma does not have to be a life sentence, but the question is … how do […]
Our days on this earth are not many and what we do with our days matters, not only for us but for those around us and for those whom we leave behind. Trauma is a part of life, few are unscarred. However for far too many, trauma overwhelms them and subsumes their personality. Trauma becomes […]
In the last few years I have written more than 300 articles on the suicide crises and on suicide prevention. In those same years I have supported hundreds of suicide affected families and thousands of critically at-risk individuals. There has never been an article I have written that in its midst I was not notified […]
More Australians suicided in the one year, 2015, than in any other year and sadly it may soon be reported that just as many or more suicided in 2016. Though I pray I am proven wrong it is likely that in the years to come that the harrowing toll of 2015 will be exceeded in […]
There are many people out there who send me emails and Facebook posts accusing me of “social engineering”, “political correctness” and all variety of society destroying activities as I have attempted to raise issues of vilification and discrimination on the basis of race, religion and other ethno cultural attributes. It has often been hard to […]
Writing in the ABC Online magazine The Drum, John Mendoza has described the Abbott/Turnbull Government’s recently announced mental health reform package as ”the most transformative reform package in a generation”. Mendoza, who was previously chair of the National Advisory Council on Mental Health and CEO of the Mental Health Council of Australia, is a respected figure in […]
Under normal circumstances I would be writing stories about issues of race and religion and problems that may have arisen thereof. Today, I am writing something of issues I deal with in the area of my work. I want to bring to you two stories related to Epilepsy and its treatment with medical marijuana. It […]
It is now one hundred years since drugs were first banned — and all through this long century of waging war on drugs, we have been told a story about addiction by our teachers and by our governments. This story is so deeply ingrained in our minds that we take it for granted. It seems […]
General News
- 1 Jan 2019
We rail against homogeneity while beneath it all, the ambience and veils of the eclectic, we long for homogeneity, at least in the name and form of equality. Critical class and race theories abound but all remain manifestations. Windows into […]
(0) - 1 Jan 2019
There is more homelessness than is reported. Youth homelessness is on the increase. It’s complex in terms of the spectrum of issues; complex life circumstance dynamics that led to homelessness, including family violence and/or neglect of the needs of children, […]
(1) - 30 Aug 2018
The death of a child is always heartbreaking but when it is by suicide it is as devastating as it gets, with long term negative psychosocial effects for those left behind. There is a whole different level of anguish and […]
(0) - 22 Aug 2018
Future generations will damn the present for its atrocities as we damn and indict the past for theirs. The offshore custodial predicaments that have degenerated to indefinite immigration detention will cast a dark pall of grimness and aspersions into the […]
(0) - 8 Jun 2018
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 […]
(0) - 3 May 2018
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 – […]
(1) - 24 Apr 2018
Many reckon they understand the accumulation of life stresses hurting those who live below or in close proximity to the poverty line. Poverty and suicide intersect. Poverty and incarceration intersect. Incarceration and homelessness intersect. The layers of stresses and the […]
(0) - 22 Apr 2018
Wheelchairs for Kids is one of those one in a million charities where everyone is a volunteer, where no one draws any form of remuneration. In its three decades since establishment, it has donated rough terrain children’s wheelchairs to 73 […]
(0) - 17 Apr 2018
Seven million Australians live in rural and remote Australia. There are also 1,000 remote communities, the majority with few or no services. Australians living rural and remote have shorter lives, with more than half of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders […]
(0) - 17 Apr 2018
There have been millions of casualties as a result of the catastrophes in Syria, with a half million dead, with millions of refugees, with collective human consciousness diminished and reduced to the aberrant. It is said that no lie lives […]
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