Religion & Ethics Australia Daily

A twice-weekly public affairs review from the Centre for Christian Ethics, Morling College

No. 007, 5-8 November 2004  ² compiled by Rod Benson

News reports

Aboriginal issues

A good education at boarding school can help indigenous Australians go a long way in life, Noel Pearson argues at length. Aust 5 Nov 04

Football star Adam Goodes and Labor heavyweight Warren Mundine will sit on the Howard government’s unelected 14-member National Indigenous Council, whose head, Children’s Court magistrate Sue Gordon, said she was not interested in an apology to the stolen generations. Weekend Aust 6-7 Nov 04; see also Aust 8 Nov 04 leader

Australian Labor Party deputy president Warren Mundine says the crisis in Aboriginal communities “imploding” from violence and health problems forced him to go beyond politics and accept a position on the Howard government’s new National Indigenous Council, which replaces ATSIC. Aust 8 Nov 04

Abortion

Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott has declared that the abortion debate has just begun. “Women’s right to choose is a good principle,” he said, “but is it an unforced choice? Are people being railroaded into this by parents, husbands, boyfriends and the culture of convenience?” Aust 5 Nov 04

“We have an opportunity to really change the system to meet the needs of the ageing population and I would hate to think that the bigger picture is obscured by a small minority who want to reduce the number of abortions,” Australian Medical Association president Bill Glasson said, referring to reform of the health system. AFR 5 Nov 04

A federally-funded forum should review the nation’s abortion laws and practices to see if changes need to be made, Veterans Affairs Minister De-Anne Kelly urged yesterday. Weekend Aust 6-7 Nov 04

“There is, as [parliamentary secretary Christopher Pyne] put it, something incongruous and disturbing about doctors working to save the life of a premature baby 23-weeks-old and, in another ward of the same hospital, aborting even more viable ones at 24 weeks and above. What has changed is that we have all seen film footage of those babies in their humidicribs. So it’s no longer possible for most people to think about fetuses at that age as nullities that can be disposed of without any qualms,” writes Christopher Pearson. Weekend Aust 6-7 Nov 04

Australian Governor-General Michael Jeffery called for better education and the use of contraception to reduce abortion numbers, and said it would be “great” to reduce the number of abortions to zero. Sun Herald 7 Nov 04

State Premiers insist that the federal government has no election mandate to “meddle” with abortion law and should stay out of what is a state responsibility. Labor health spokeswoman Julia Gillard said it was suggested that a private members bill banning the funding of abortions by Medicare was being prepared. Prime Minister John Howard had said following his recent re-election that his government had no intention of altering the current arrangements regarding abortion. Aust 8 Nov 04

By speaking out on abortion, Michael Jeffery has “taken down the vice-regal rule-book and torn it to shreds,” argues Barry Everingham. Aust 8 Nov 04

The Australian publishes 12 more letters to the editor on abortion. Aust 8 Nov 04

Strident opponents of abortion are blind to the lessons of history, argues Geoffrey Barker. AFR 8 Nov 04

Cyndi Tebbel argues, among other things, that abortion statistics do not “indicate a failure by women to grasp the serious nature of abortion. What they represent is a sad indictment of the pitfalls of trying to plan a family (or not) using the highly fallible and sometimes dangerous tools we loosely call birth control.” SMH 8 Nov 04

Abuse – sexual

Aboriginal women campaigning against child sex abuse have questioned the worldwide attention paid to recent sex abuse trials on Pitcairn Island when authorities refuse to address identical problems in remote indigenous communities in Australia. Weekend Aust 6-7 Nov 04

Alcohol

Sweetened pre-mixed alcoholic drinks are aimed at young girls and women, Faye Lo Po, chairwoman of a committee reviewing how the alcohol industry targets young consumers, said. SMH 8 Nov 04

Bioethics – cloning

Professor Ian Wilmut of the Roslin Institute, who cloned Dolly the sheep, has applied to be permitted to clone human embryos with motor neurone disease (MND). The UK pro-life charity Life condemned Wilmut’s plans, urging him to use adult stem cells and disputing his claim that human cloning is necessary in order to understand how MND occurs. Evangelicals Now Nov 04

Bioethics – IVF

Infertility treatment is being colonised by big business and clinics can no longer be trusted to make the best recommendations for patients based on their medical needs, bioethicist Amin Abboud says. SMH 8 Nov 04

Criminal justice

The NSW Police Integrity Commission has sideswiped the force’s most senior officers by seizing control of the entire investigation into Justice Jeff Shaw’s car crash and the disappearance of his blood sample. SMH 5 Nov 04

“If judges and politicians don’t have higher standards in terms of ethical responsibility, how will others themselves try to reach those standards?” federal opposition leader Mark Latham said, commenting on the issues surrounding Justice Jeff Shaw’s mysteriously missing blood sample. Aust 5 Nov 04

NSW Supreme Court judge Jeff Shaw has placed his fate in the hands of the criminal justice system he represents, providing police with a crucial blood sample taken the night he was involved in a minor car accident. Justice Shaw yesterday entered a clinic for medical treatment and help for alcohol-related illness. SMH 6-7 Nov 04; Weekend Aust 6-7 Nov 04

Even if Jeff Shaw’s blood sample proves he was driving while drunk, he cannot be stood down from the NSW Supreme Court unless a majority of both houses of the NSW parliament vote for his removal. Weekend Aust 6-7 Nov 04

Paolo Totaro reveals that “everyone loves [NSW Supreme Court Judge Jeff Shaw],” and that he enjoyed a faultless legal and political reputation. “But his drinking was affecting his health.” SMH 6-7 Nov 04

Energy

Wind power is of little practical use, a German report claims, casting possible doubt on the subsidisation of wind farms in Australia through the mandatory renewable energy scheme (MRES). Weekend AFR 6-7 Nov 04

Environment

A balance lies between global warming sceptics and believers, says environment writer Bernard Lane. Greg Bourne, the new chief executive of conservation group WWF Australia, believes conservationists must use new tools to shift the weight of opinion in favour of a new economy that can weather the age of global warming. Weekend Aust 6-7 Nov 04

Ethical investment

Ethical investment can provide “guilt-free” returns, but some funds are greener than others, a feature report claims. Weekend AFR 6-7 Nov 04

Ethics – business – Australia

The state Labor governments will today support NSW laws that make James Hardie’s Netherlands parent company retrospectively accountable for the asbestos liabilities of its two former Australian subsidiaries in a move that could provoke a High Court challenge and unsettle international investors. AFR 5 Nov 04

Former HIH Insurance chief executive Ray Williams has won a round in the first case to be brought against him over his role in Australia’s biggest corporate collapse more than three years ago. Williams was accused of misrepresenting the value of the company in its 1999 and 2000 reports. AFR 5 Nov 04

Business faces tougher laws on social responsibility to avoid a replay of the James Hardie scandal. “I cannot understand that directors and managers should assume it’s appropriate to behave in a profoundly anti-social way in order that they may maximise profits to shareholders,” NSW Attorney-General Bob Debus said. SMH 6-7 Nov 04

Ethics – business – general

Australian Wildlife Conservancy chairman Martin Copley argues that, with loss of species, habitat destruction, declining water and air quality, and increasingly saline and shallow topsoils, business must make peace with conservation. SMH 8 Nov 04

Ethics – medical

Some people tested for hereditary diseases felt coerced into doing so by family members, insurance companies or mortgage lenders, the first national survey on the issue has found. SMH 5 Nov 04

Parenting

Greg Callaghan examines the plight of men who receive the heartbreaking news that the children they have raised are not biologically theirs. Weekend Aust 6-7 Nov 04

Politics – Australia

Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet Peter Shergold has warned the public service to work more closely with a wide range of lobby groups once the opposition loses the power to block legislation in the Senate. “Business, community organisations and the public service need to work together to ensure they can have a significant impact on the development of long-term, strategic policy,” he said. AFR 5 Nov 04

One feature of both the Australian and US polls which has so far gone unremarked is that the two elections saw the number of indigenous politicians fall to zero. In Australia, Aden Ridgeway lost his NSW Senate seat, while Andrea Mason, Family First’s leader, narrowly failed to win a SA Senate seat. Andrew Leigh (blog) 5 Nov 04

Politics & faith – Australia

Asked to define family values, Family First Party’s new federal senator, Victorian Steve Fielding, one of 16 children, said, “Everybody knows what it is – and they know what it’s not, to a certain extent.” In a feature interview with Michael Bachelard, he distanced his views from those of the US’s bellicose Moral Majority; said it was wrong for Australia to have gone to war in Iraq on “a false basis,” but now wanted troops to stay to fix up the mess; said he was embarrassed and ashamed “at how we’ve treated [asylum seekers]”; opposed abortion; and described gay and lesbian marriage as the best example he could come up with of what is not “family values.” Weekend Australian 6-7 Nov 04

Punishment – corporal

Hazel Edwards, author of the children’s book There’s a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Cake, has refused to agree to a request from her publisher Penguin to change a line in the latest edition of the book from “Daddy gave me a smack” to “Daddy growled at me.” Penguin children’s book publisher Laura Harris said the request was in response to changing attitudes toward child discipline. The book was first published 25 years ago. Aust 5 Nov 04

Sex

A Victorian female physical education teacher and mother of three who had a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old boy might not be jailed after a judge said the student’s consent could be a mitigating factor in her sentence.

Aust 5 Nov 04

Author Tobsha Learner observes that sex in books is big business, and identifies several burgeoning genres: objective sex in narratives that are constructed solely towards the consummation of a sexual act; subjective sex that is an integral part of a narrative and engages the psychological; and sexual autobiography that eroticises the author and creates a voyeuristic dialectic between reader and writer. Weekend Aust 6-7 Nov 04

Sunday trading

Church leaders say they have nothing against Sunday trading but would like it to start later so their flocks can gain some spiritual nourishment first. Anglican Bishop of South Sydney Robert Forsyth said “a manic shopping spree” on Sunday was inappropriate. SMH 8 Nov 04

Other items of interest

On the Ship of Fools satirical website, a ‘mystery worshippers’ recently attended Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, and filed this report – http://ship-of-fools.com/Mystery/2004/894.html

READ is published by the Centre for Christian Ethics, Morling College, 120 Herring Rd, Eastwood NSW 2122 AUSTRALIA. Telephone (02) 9878 0201. The content of READ and the views expressed in articles do not necessarily represent the views of the Centre for Christian Ethics, Morling College or the Baptist Churches of NSW & ACT. Subscription is free. To subscribe, email with the words “subscribe to READ” in the subject line. Use the same email address to request more information. Copies of original articles are available on request. Abbreviations: AFR=The Australian Financial Review; Aust=The Australian; SMH=The Sydney Morning Herald.