The Victorian parliamentary inquiry into the handling of child abuse by religious and other non-government organisations follows ongoing concern by the police and people involved in dealing with the consequences of sexual abuse, that the churches, particularly the Catholic Church, have not treated the problem of sexual abuse of children sufficiently seriously, and have not…
Senior federal Liberal frontbencher Kevin Andrews has recently produced an internationally-acclaimed book, Maybe ‘I Do’: Modern Marriage and the Pursuit of Happiness. Here he summarises some of the book’s main ideas. The United States’ Brookings Institution economist, Isabel Sawhill, wrote this year that if individuals do just three things — finish high school, work…
Global warming trend is real Sir, Peter Westmore’s article, “Arctic sea ice recovery contradicts ‘global warming’” (News Weekly, October 27, 2012), contains a number of errors and omissions that, taken collectively, might have led him, and readers to draw somewhat different conclusions. First, when he stated that “the extent of Arctic sea ice is back to about what it was in 2007, at this time of year”, it would have been appropriate for him to explain what makes 2007 significant. As data sets from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the National Snow and Ice Data Center in the United…
Australia’s bid for an elected seat on the UN Security Council, to be decided after this issue of News Weekly goes to press, will do nothing to advance Australia’s long-term interests and is hopelessly misconceived. The bid was launched by Kevin Rudd after his election as Prime Minister in 2007, as evidence of his…
Total Recall (rated M), a remake of the 1990 film of the same title, is reviewed by Symeon Thompson. Total Recall is enjoyable sci-fi film entertainment, full of vim and vigour and violence. While not being earth-shattering in its intellectual or creative sophistication, it’s jolly good fun with a dose of political philosophy and philosophical psychology thrown in for good measure. It’s the end of the 21st century, when global war has devastated most of the world, leaving inhabitable only two areas — the United Federation of Britain (Europe) and the Colony (Australia). Living space is at a premium, and…
In the name of “marriage equality” and “non-discrimination”, liberty — especially religious liberty and the liberty of conscience — and genuine equality are being undermined, warns Robert P. George, a Princeton law professor who spoke in Australia earlier this month. It was only yesterday, was it not, that we were being assured that the redefinition…
