The earth out here is rust red. I am in the Pilbara. Vast flat plains are punctuated by hills comprised of angular slices of rock that share the hues of the soil. They look man made but nature is their only artisan. Termite mounds, some as tall as a human adult, dot the plains. Spinifex clumps rise...
How shall we honour those who fought for freedom? A reflection on Anzac Day 2016
Each Anzac Day I find myself struggling between a desire to honour the sacrifice made by those who went to war and the desire to dissociate myself from the idealisation of our soldiers as beyond critique and above reproach. I want to affirm the day is one on which we remember the horrors of war...
Australia.A Work in Progress. Australia Day 2016.
It’s Australia Day 2016 and I am sitting in the Fly cafe at Melbourne airport waiting for my flight home to Newcastle. It has been a quick, overnight trip, but in the last 18 hours I have experienced everything that makes Australia a great country. Mum, my son and my brother are in Melbourne to...
The pain of the first peoples. When will enough be enough?
Pain inhabits her words, her tone, her posture. Raw. Visceral. Some pain is intense but short-lived, but not hers. This is a deep sorrow decades in the making. The pain of one who has been terribly wronged, whose loss has been incalculable, but whose pleas for redress fall upon deaf ears. There is...
Are we the world’s stingiest nation?
Never before has an Australian government made cuts to the international aid program like those made by the Abbott government. The argument goes that we can’t afford to borrow money in order to give it away. We first need to deal with our debt crisis, and then we can afford to give more. A...
Joe Hockey ends the idea that Australia can help make poverty history
Yesterday Treasurer Joe hockey announced that next year’s international aid budget would be slashed by $1 billion. This decision marked much more than the cutting of the aid budget. It marked the end of the idea that Australia could play a significant role in bringing extreme poverty to a...