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The face of evil
Matthew Sharpe | November 24, 2023Adolf Eichmann presented himself as a petty apolitical bureaucrat following orders in a vain attempt to escape the gallows, but his own words revealed him to be a ruthless ideologue committed to the Nazi regime and its ghastly goal of annihilation.
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Moral fights
Alan Stevenson | November 23, 2023Our commitments to moral values can hamper rather than motivate progress towards basic humanitarian goals, indeed, moral motivations frequently exacerbate rather than relieve suffering, injustice and hatred.
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The great energy rip-off
Open Forum | November 22, 2023Australia’s sky-high electricity prices are often blamed on the gradual switch to renewables or global inflationary pressures but the fact remains that network businesses have pocketed supernormal profits of $11 billion – on top of “normal” profits of $16 billion – since 2014.
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The identity trap
Hugh Breakey | November 17, 2023Yascha Mounk’s new book skewers the fashionable but flawed paradigm of post-Marxist identity politics which splits people into social groups to stoke conflict and revel in ‘oppression’.
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Why don’t Jews feel safe?
Michelle Grattan | November 13, 2023Jewish organisations have criticised Foreign Minister Penny Wong over her latest comments on the Israel-Gaza conflict, while Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles has said Jewish Australians “have never felt less safe”.
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Australia’s seismic tremor
Bob Ford | November 12, 2023Shockwaves from the violence in the Middle East have exposed and exacerbated the growing fault lines in Australian society, and only a fresh commitment to liberal values and national unity will help to heal them.
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Fear, uncertainty and doubt
Howard Manns | November 1, 2023Politics is a people business, and appealing to emotions – or ignorance – can be more effective than rational, fact based campaigns.
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Addressing Australia’s gambling problem
Patrick Whyte | October 28, 2023A QUT researcher has called for stronger government policy to regulate the online gambling environment, restrict marketing, establish behaviour change programs and provide better support for people with a gambling problem.
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Eyes wide open
Brendan Walker-Munro | October 27, 2023An unprecedented public announcement by senior officials in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance has identified China as the most sophisticated and sustained thief of intellectual property in the world.
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First, do no harm
Rachelle Buchbinder | October 24, 2023A prominent Monash academic argues that the medical system remains rife with overtreatment, overdiagnosis, and the medicalisation of normal conditions.
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Remembering Bill Hayden
Paul Strangio | October 22, 2023Opposition Leader, Foreign Minister, Governor-General, and perhaps the best Prime Minister Australia never had, the late Bill Hayden enjoyed a significant public career in service of his country.
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Picturing loneliness in aged care
Barbara Barbosa Neves | October 13, 2023Gerontology tends to offer a biomedical understanding of growing old but the arts and social sciences can look at cultural dimensions to understand ageing beyond “biological decline”.