Stood in Elder Park with the rest of Adelaide for the Apology this morning. Rudd got things almost spot on and there was a real feeling of elation in the crowd, then Brendan Nelson came on. People left on mass. He kept talking and started on about the Northern Territory intervention. More people left. People slow clapped, they booed, still he went ( Read more... )

Kevin Andrews' (Minister for Immigration) recent comments about why we're going to limit our intake of African refugees make me spit.

'When you look at the data that this is a group that have special or unique challenges beyond those of other groups of refugees'
He goes on to talk about education challenges, the number of people who've spent time in ( Read more... )

While I really need to pick up some more work and earn some more money right now (you can see how seriously I am taking this can't you?) it is so tempting to relax into the laid back vacation that is the life of the casual worker. When I am actually at the museum, which isn't really that often given the short working days and the fact that I'm only ( Read more... )

Let's pretend for a moment that I know something about European politics. Yes, it's a stretch, but here we go ( Read more... )

One sleep to go! :)

Help! I might collapse before I even make it out of the country.

I'm incredibly annoyed about the latest terrorist scares. Selfishly so. Don't they know I need books on the plane!? And I have a whole heap of little luxuries like Jurlique travel face spray which might have to go in the onboard luggage if this keeps up. Dammit, I ( Read more... )

From yesterday's Indaily:

The federal budget strengthens the divide between the haves and have nots, the South Australian Council of Social Service (SACOSS) says. Council executive director Karen Grogan said the Government was more interested in building roads than communities. "Given the fact that we still have 2 million Australians living in ( Read more... )

Courtesy of www.getup.org.au

Last July, the Australian government finally ended its shameful policy of keeping children in indefinite detention when they came here seeking asylum. After finally inserting a modicum of human decency into what had been a disgraceful policy for more than ten years - same old policy, but now "out of sight, out of mind ( Read more... )

The ABC radio tried to contact us today looking for someone to do an interview about dictation tests under the White Australia Policy. We were all off in meetings and so missed their deadline. I was wondering why they suddenly wanted to talk about history so urgently, but then I found out what has made the news recently: Citizenship test for ( Read more... )

Following up on my last post, a friend told me a story about someone he knew who's father was going senile. The elderly gentleman with the senility issue had long had a bit of a gambling problem, and when he took to wandering off and forgetting what he was doing or where his home was he tended to end up in the local pub playing the pokies. His ( Read more... )

No, not those cartoons, but an interesting development none-the-less.

From the Independent Weekly:

Fornicating cartoon grotesque: Downer
A cartoon depicting Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer as fornicating dingoes is a grotesque stunt by a tacky publication, Downer says. But the minister says the Indonesian paper which ( Read more... )