2013

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Aug312013

NATIONAL AFFAIRS: ‘Same-sex marriage’ would require change to Constitution

National AffairsAugust 31, 2013

A leading Australian constitutional lawyer, Dr Augusto Zimmermann, has questioned whether amendment to the Commonwealth Marriage Act to permit “same-sex marriage” would be constitutional, and said that such a change could only be adopted through a constitutional amendment. Dr Augusto Zimmermann Dr Zimmermann was speaking at the Victorian Parliament House, during National Marriage Day celebrations on August 13. Brazilian-born Dr Zimmermann is an internationally-recognised legal scholar who teaches at Western Australia’s Murdoch University School of Law, where he currently is senior lecturer in law as well as associate dean for research and director of postgraduate studies. He was appointed to…

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EDITORIAL: Federal election: Australia’s stark choice

PoliticsAugust 31, 2013

Despite the rapid decline in the Rudd Labor government’s standing during the early days of the 2013 election campaign, there is widespread agreement that neither side is addressing the larger challenges facing Australia in the years ahead. On the government side, Mr Rudd promised, at the outset, that his election campaign would end the negativity in Australian politics and put forward a positive vision for the country. He immediately proceeded to launch a fear campaign targeted specifically against Tony Abbott, ranging from the weird — that Mr Abbott would be facing sexual harassment charges if he were an employer, for…

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Aug172013

CINEMA: In defence of our humanity

Music Cinema & BooksAugust 17, 2013

Pacific Rim, an American science-fiction film (rated M), is reviewed by Symeon Thompson. Pacific Rim is a thriller that pays tribute to the likes of Godzilla and Neon Genesis Evangelion>; but does so with a delicacy that belongs entirely to its creator, Guillermo del Toro, the man meant to be at the helm of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit. Aliens, called Kaiju (Japanese for “strange creatures” or “monsters”) have been invading the Earth through an inter-dimensional portal in the ocean. To combat them, humanity bands together to build the Jaegers (German for “hunters”), huge human-operated robots. Despite the initial success of…

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Aug172013

BOOK REVIEW: Intriguing blend of Christian themes, Arthurian legends and time travel

Music Cinema & BooksAugust 17, 2013

FROM WHATEVER SHADOWS THEY COME by Agnes-Mary Brooke (Nelson, NZ: The Medlar Press) Paperback: 211 pages ISBN: 9780958219877 RRP: AUD$23.70 Reviewed by Siobhan Reeves Few book plots utterly defy summary. From Whatever Shadows They Come, by Agnes-Mary Brooke (aka Amy Brooke), is such a rarity. This novel for young adults is extraordinarily complex given its brevity, and could be confusing for the inattentive reader. It melds together aspects of Christian-inspired legends, the romantic tales of King Arthur, Celtic mythology, time travel and science fiction in an intertwined blend of different characters’ first-person narratives. It is rather counter-intuitive for…

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