Whenever I find myself in a conversation about refugees it’s not long until somebody brings up the question of refugees and crime. They worry that migrants, including refugees, are more prone to crime than established Australian communities, and can usually cite some anecdotal evidence to...
Julie Bishop’s tortuous logic on foreign aid
In Search of a Slogan. A Refugee Week Reflection
Why I am a Republican. A Queen’s Birthday holiday reflection
The Shocking Stories We Tell
A new chapter in my life
Thank goodness for all that debt!
There’s a lot of angst in our community about the levels of debt we acquired during the global financial crisis. Yes Australia invested a lot of money stimulating the economy. What if we hadn’t? Listen to what happened elsewhere. Joe Stiglitz, a Nobel prize-winning economist writes in...
On the occasion of Sandy’s birthday
A Budget is a Values Statement
As the nation prepares itself for what is predicted to be a particularly tough budget, I find it worthwhile remembering something I learnt at theological college, that a budget is a values statement. Whether a church budget or a national budget, we can never reduce budgets to simply being financial...
A Jesus I Can Follow #4. Teacher of Subversive Wisdom
What does it take to live successfully? What does a life well lived look like? These questions have occupied human beings throughout history. Some centuries before Christ there was an international movement dedicated to these questions. We meet some members of this movement in Old Testament books...