SPC Forum 2010: Human Rights & the NT Intervention, with Hon Alastair Nicholson AO Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia 1988-2004. The Northern Territory Intervention, introduced in 2007, has caused great anger, frustration and despondency among the majority of Aboriginal people in the NT. The Intervention required the suspension of the Racial Discrimination […]
SPC 5th ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 1 DECEMBER 2010 Report by Peter Whiting SPC President. Welcome to this the 2ndAGM we have convened at the YTU site. There is a lot to report for the period under review. Our speaker series has continued, and items of diverse but very relevant subject matter were covered. Just some of […]
Prime Minister Gillard’s announcement that the government will release from detention children and family groups seeking asylum in Australia is being welcomed by church and community groups. Yet many Australians would have been shocked to learn that 738 children were being held in immigration detention centres around Australia, some for long periods. Phil Glendenning led […]
Asylum seekers arriving by boat make up a tiny percentage of our annual immigration, yet Australia has treated them very harshly. On 12 August 2010 Caz Colman spoke to Social Policy Connections on alternatives to current ways of receiving asylum seekers. Caz is the Director of the Hotham Mission Asylum Seeker Project, a Melbourne-based agency […]
Professor John Warhurst spoke to SPC on 4 August 2010 about religion and politics in Australian federal elections, including church lobbying, relations with parties and governments, and the role of the faith of political leaders. John Warhurst was born in Adelaide and studied politics and economics at Flinders University in South Australia. He has taught political science in […]
Social Policy Connections, in association with Act for Peace, welcomed Revd. Dr. Andre Karamaga as guest speaker in the Study Centre of Yarra Theological Union on 19 April 2010. Dr Karamaga is a Rwandan Presbyterian minister. He is currently General Secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches, which represents 173 churches and Christian organisations […]
As Australia’s prosperity becomes more closely tied into China with values so different from ours, the question of our responsibilities and opportunities looms large. Do we think enough about what we have got ourselves into? Social Policy Connections featured Dr Thomas Bartlett and Dr Paul Rule discussing implications of Australia’s close economic ties with China […]
