Fast News
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What should Rudd do now?  Update: 2012-02-23 'Rudd should ...', 'Gillard should ...' And so the national conversation drones on, constantly crossing the divide between moral imperatives and self-interested political plotting. Things are now so messy, you wonder whether there is any point in trying to sieve the short term political interests of the players from the moral imperatives of good policy and sound administration in the national interest. It's not as if this level of intrigue, back-stabbing and character assassination is anything new in Australian tussles for the top job in politics. Think only of Hawke and Keating. They sealed a pact in November 1988 secretly agreeing to a seamless transfer of the leadership baton down the track. Their fellow ministers and caucus members were not privy to it; and we the public were completely oblivious. Helping to make breaking up easier Update: 2012-02-22 COUNSELLOR Amanda Bluck wants to get the message out that separating couples need not cause trauma for the people around them. Ms Bluck, who runs the UnitingCare Community's Post Separation Co-operative Parenting Program in Bundaberg, said many people might not be aware of the service. "What we do is work with separated parents, or parents contemplating separation," she said. "I call it the separated parents program." http://www.frasercoastchronicle.com.au/story/2012/02/22/helping-to-make-breaking-up-easier/ Pancakes on the menu for Wimmera Uniting Care Update: 2012-02-21 WIMMERA Uniting Care staff and volunteers are flipping excited about morning tea tomorrow. The team will cook up pancakes as a Pancake Day fundraiser for Wimmera Uniting Care. The event raises money for programs to support disadvantaged children, youth development and families. Wimmera Uniting Care chief executive Wendy Middleton encouraged people to support the event. She said people could visit St Andrew's Uniting Church Hall in Pynsent Street, Horsham, or the corner of Firebrace Street and Roberts Avenue, Horsham, to enjoy a snack and support the fundraiser. Uniting Church supports community processing of asylum seekers Update: 2012-02-21 The Uniting Church in Australia today expressed strong support for allowing asylum seekers to live in the community while their claims are being processed. Uniting Church President, the Rev. Alistair Macrae said, âThe evidence is clear that locking people in immigration detention damages them. Itâs contrary to all decency to continue to lock up children and vulnerable families for months and even years. âWe are appalled by the stories in todayâs Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun which give the mistaken impression that asylum seekers in community detention are living in luxury. Nothing could be further from the truth. Whatever their intention, these stories serve only to spread prejudice and misunderstanding. Uniting Church Volunteer Recognised on Australia Day Update: 2012-01-31 Lu Piper, a Uniting Church volunteer in Papua New Guinea, has been awarded a Medal (OAM) of the Order of Australia for service to the international community through educational, health and pastoral roles. The Medal, awarded on Australia Day, recognises Luâs extensive work in PNG as well as her contribution to indigenous education in Australia and her work as a parish minister in the Anglican Church. Lu, a trained teacher, worked in PNG in this capacity from 1968 â 1972. She then was seconded to the Melanesian Council of Churches to work on a Christian education syllabus for Primary school students. She spent several years teaching in a remote indigenous community in Australia before returning to work at Gaulim Teacherâs College in PNG http://www.unitingworld.org.au/2012/uniting-church-volunteer-recognised-on-australia-day/ Easy access triggers explosion in online gambling - study Update: 2012-01-30 POKER machines may be in the spotlight but academics warn online gambling could become a significant public health problem if action is not taken to protect vulnerable users. The largest study of online gambling habits in Australia, which surveyed more than 6500 people, found 50 per cent of participants had taken up gambling in the past six years, making it the fastest-growing form of gambling in the country. Lead researcher Sally Gainsbury said it was highly accessible and convenient and appealed to punters already involved in multiple forms of gambling. When adventurers give until it hurts Update: 2012-01-30 Could the surge in volunteer tourism be doing more harm than good? VOLUNTEER-related travel has been one of the biggest trends in tourism in the past decade but who is measuring how much good it is doing? With "voluntourism" now a mainstream commodity, many are questioning to what extent the good-natured intentions of travellers are being matched by benefits to communities. Advertisement: Story continues below "With the growth in the area, there's a real concern about why people are doing projects and whether it is just to make them feel good," says a Sydney-based expert in responsible tourism, Stephen Wearing. "It has been commoditised by mainstream tourism and they [tourism operators] have realised they can turn a profit out of it. http://www.smh.com.au/travel/traveller-tips/when-adventurers-give-until-it-hurts-20120126-1qjan.html New TV series invites participation from religious young Aussies Update: 2012-01-30 Religious young Australians will put their faith to the test in a new ABC TV series that challenges them to live a totally different life for two weeks, reports news.com.au. Applications are now open for the experimental series, Holy Switch, that will put six Australians aged 18-23 and their families in a spiritual-style exchange program in March, April and May this year. Breaking the 'boat people' deadlock Update: 2012-01-30 If you are tired of hearing about asylum seekers imagine how weary they must be. Much of the analysis regarding asylum seekers does not seem to drive home the core truth: that the debate conducted by politicians is not really about solving the so called refugee problem. It is predominantly a show for an audience. It is a game of hardball. That game is an old one played by tyrannical regimes throughout time and perfected under Nazism by Joseph Goebbels. First, demonise a group. Then you can progressively suspend their rights and use them to shore up your power. Junior sport can cost parents a fortune Update: 2012-01-30 THE search for the next Darren Lockyer or Laura Geitz is costing Queensland families thousands of dollars a year, at a time when the State Government is urging kids to exercise more and fight childhood obesity. A family with two kids each involved in both summer and winter sports would shell out up to $2000 a year on fees and equipment alone - and hundreds of dollars more on petrol and other transport costs. The Queensland Government heavily promotes junior sport and will stage a series of "Super Sports sign-on days" next month, but a Government spokesman said it was up to individual clubs and sports to keep fees affordable. Mark Bates, a financial counsellor from Uniting Care Community, said some parents felt they were "letting the kids down" because they could no longer afford the cost of junior sport. Beyond Australia's adolescent identity crisis Update: 2012-01-25 It is easy to forget how young Australia is. Many look to 1788 as the source of national identity, but Federation is actually a closer approximation of birth. Given that the creation of the Commonwealth was driven in part by a movement that sought to formally distinguish what is Australian from what is British, 1 January more accurately captures the beginnings of nationhood than 26 January. If we thus take 1901 as our birthyear, then our country turned 111 on New Year's Day. A mere drop in the ocean, in a world where China, Egypt, India, Iran and Mexico have histories that stretch back uninterrupted into antiquity. Our own Indigenous history is at least 500 times older. Even the US, the closest comparable country in terms of genesis, is far ahead in maturity. By the time the First Fleet pulled into Sydney Cove, 12 years had passed since the American Declaration of Independence. When our first Federal Parliament was inaugurated, the US Constitution had been in place for over 100 years. We have been singing our current national anthem only since 1984. This youthfulness contributes to the ongoing tensions around what being Australian means, or indeed who we ought to be. Like many adolescents, Australia is going through a protracted identity crisis. |
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