Social issues

A review of the Victorian Greens state election campaign misses the point. This is not a marketing problem. It is a problem with careerist, trying to climb over activists who are the heart and soul of the greens. Since publishing my reasons for resigning from the party, I have received…

People born overseas, or who have at least one parent born overseas, make up almost half our population. Multicultural society is not reflected in parliament. One reason is that our constitution prevents MPs from holding dual citizenship. The requirement that they must be renounce their foreign ties is outdated in…

26th January became a public holiday uniformly across all Australian states only in 1994. For many indigenous Australians, it is symbolic of the act of disposition. Yet we seem unable to have a frank and honest conversation about changing the date. If you accept - as I do - that…

Another Australia Day has been and gone demonstrating that our history provokes a range of emotional responses - pride, sorrow, happiness, anger and guilt. The large number of non-Indigenous Australians who attended Invasion/Survival Day rallies around Australia suggests guilt is a common emotional response of non-Indigenous Australians when recalling Australia's…

It is such a fashionable news headline: "One in five Australians ...has a mental illness, is in the wrong job, believe they will work beyond the age of 70, experiences racism at sports events, has some form of disability, suffers from chronic pain, waited longer than they thought was acceptable to get into a GP, doesn't believe…