The slow motion neoliberal coup in Brazil, which masquerades as impeachment of the President for corruption, took another turn this month with the ousting of President Dilma Roussef and her replacement by Vice-President Michel Temer and the right -wing Brazilian Democratic Movement Party or PMDB (in Brazil impeachment results in the appointment of a person from a different party to that of the elected […]
May 2016
Here in Kabul, I read a recent BBC op-ed by Ahmed Rashid, urging a “diplomatic offensive” to build or repair relationships with the varied groups representing armed extremism in Afghanistan. Rashid has insisted, for years, that severe mistrust makes it almost impossible for such groups to negotiate an end to Afghanistan’s nightmare of war. Glancing […]
“You can’t be wrong if you’re right, and you don’t stop fighting for justice simply because those around you don’t like it, you keep fighting.” – Rob Riley A couple of weeks ago I attended the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) at the UN headquarters in New York. The planning to attend […]
The world we live in is at a dangerous point right now. We are in the grip of a dangerous project of austerity driven by ideas that we call neo-liberalism that have brought us to near catastrophe. It has led to billions of people in serious hardship and many millions struggling from Greece in the […]
The life expectancy gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and the rest of the population remains two decades wide. Despite the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reporting that the life expectancy gap has been reduced to 10.6 years, it is in fact still more than 20 years less that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander […]
“There’s something fundamentally threatening to the capitalist economic order in a ruling like this- the idea that a person is not personally responsible for any action they take out of economic necessity- because capitalism is based on creating that necessity for millions of people around the world” US public defender Alec Karakatsanis on a ruling […]
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 […]
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 […]
(1)
Join us on