January 23, 2023

t is not my wish to offend anyone. And I am a loyal Australian. But in good conscience I cannot celebrate Australia Day. We need to change this day so that it inclusive of all Australians. 

I suggest that we have Federation Day on January 2 as our national day. The coming together of the colonies on January 1, in 1901, meant that we left the colonialism of old Britain and began our own journey, as a free, democratic and multicultural nation.

And although our treatment of First Nations peoples was unacceptable, it was, at least, a start to another day. 

January 26 is not a start, it is always going to be a looking back.

January 12, 2023

Archbishop Pell has died and with him the secrets of his time as a leader who covered up systematic abuse. Whatever one may believe about his personal culpability as an abuser, the well documented abuse by priests in the diocese he led is an undeniable legacy.  Such cover up can no longer be tolerated in any area of Australian society.

The victims of Pell’s time remain and should be our primary concern.

January 11, 2023

The commercial media’s obsession with Meghan and Harry and the whole taudry business of the ins and outs of the royal family and its apparently fractured relationships points to both the poverty of the media and those who consume it.

It also, more than ever, suggests that the only relevance of the royal family in the contemporary world is to feed the media frenzy and the persistent fascination with the royal fantasy.

Is it time, Australia, to talk about being a republic?

January 10, 2023

I write this at the beginning of 2023 and the war in Ukraine goes on and on, to what we can not tell but the end result will not be good. I wonder what history will make of our collective amnesia and tokenism?