Religion & Ethics Australia Daily

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

No. 001, 15-18 October 2004  ² compiled by Rod Benson

News reports

Agriculture

A collection of feature articles on organic farming and marketing. SMH 18 Oct 04

Anglican Church

Anglican Dean of Sydney Phillip Jensen accused Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams of “theological and intellectual prostitution” and called for his resignation, labelled fellow evangelicals in Britain (the Reform group)

as “a bunch of old women,” and berated evangelicals who accepted women’s ordination. Aust 15 Oct 04; SMH 15 Oct 04; Weekend Aust 16-17 Oct 04

Bioethics – cloning

Harvard researchers pressure ethics boards for permission to create cloned human embryos for medical research, following a failed attempt in 2001. SMH 15 Oct 04

Bioethics – stem cells

Christian opposition to stem cell research and harvesting, including this from Sydney Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen: “Life is a continuum deserving of respect from its start at fertilization to its end at death. Human embryos should not be created and used as instruments of research.” Aust 15 Oct 04

Adrienne Torda, Senior Lecturer in Medical Ethics at UNSW, explains some of the problems surrounding stem cell research. SMH 15 Oct 04

Consumerism

Clive Hamilton, author of Growth Fetish, on why people strive so hard to be rich if affluence fails to improve wellbeing. AFR 15 Oct 04.

The desire to acquire is capitalism’s driving force, but is it ultimately destructive? John F. Schumaker asks in an essay. Weekend AFR 16-17 Oct 04

Criminal justice

The Northern Territory’s Opposition Country Liberal Party calls for petrol-sniffers to be jailed in a push to curb the habit. Weekend Aust 16-17 Oct 04

Divorce

Children of divorced parents can have feelings of sadness, longing, worry and regret, but 75-80 per cent suffered no psychological problems, enjoyed intimate relationships, had not divorced, and appeared to be unscarred by the event, a US survey revealed. SMH 18 Oct 04

Employment

Alan Mitchell compares Australia’s unemployment performance with that of the US, UK and New Zealand, and finds that the Australian labour market is over-regulated and under-performing. AFR 18 Oct 04

Environment

GrainCorp chairman Ronald Greentree was fined $450,000 for bulldozing 100 hectares of NSW wetlands and planting wheat. AFR 15 Oct 04

The NSW government plans to quarantine large tracts of coastline between Nowra and the Victorian border in a bid to prevent councils from approving large-scale development applications. SMH 16-17 Oct 04

Ethics – education

Education agents allegedly duped 32 international students into buying forged documents that opened the door for further study. Weekend Aust 16-17 Oct 04

Ethics – medical

The US Food and Drug Administration has given permission for humans to receive implantable electronic tags for computerised medical information. SMH 15.10.04

Euthanasia

Retired Uniting Church minister Dorothy McRae-McMahon supports euthanasia for the terminally ill, like her 47-year-old son Christopher. SMH 18 Oct 04

Executive salaries

Reflection on the results of a recent survey of 50 of the top 100 Australian companies revealing shifts in senior executive remuneration. SMH 16-17 Oct 04

Australian company chairmen have warned shareholders to expect more big pay rises for non-executive directors due to heavier workloads. AFR 18 Oct 04

Families

A feature on the problems that separated families face, focusing on fathers and the ‘angry dads’ movement. SMH 16-17 Oct 04

Homosexuality

Would-be European Commission justice and civil liberties minister Rocco Buttiglione claims that homosexuality is wrong and that marriage is “to allow women to have children and the protection of a male.” Weekend Aust 16-17 Oct 04

Homosexuality & faith

The worldwide Anglican communion could be about to ban the ordination of openly gay bishops. SMH 18 Oct 04

Human rights

The UN accuses Israel of severe human rights violations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. SMH 16-17 Oct 04

Pharmaceuticals

Prof David Healey of the University of Wales claims that the pharmaceutical industry routinely bribes doctors and ghost-writes articles about drugs in important medical journals. SMH 16-17 Oct 04

Politics – Australia

Family First Party founder Andrew Evans interviewed on the party’s developing policy agenda: “Left on social justice, Centre on conservation and Right on balancing budgets and economics.” Weekend Aust 16-17 Oct 04

Politics & faith – Australia

Frank Devine on the rise of the Christian Right in Australian politics. “By denying the importance to most Australians of moral values based on religious belief and tradition, politicians and opinion shapers make room for politico-religious splinter groups.” Aust 15 Oct 04

On Prime Minister John Howard’s love affair with the Australian Christian Right. According to Family First leader Andrea Maddox, “the appeal of ambiguously Christian rhetoric was not limited to minor parties and was central to John Howard’s shifting the Liberal Party to the socially conservative right.” SMH 15 Oct 04

Toni O’Loughlin talks to Victorian Family First senate candidate Steve Fielding and Uniting Church minister David Millikan about Pentecostalism and capitalism. Weekend AFR 16-17 Oct 04

On the rise of Family First Party, Sydney Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen said people with strong views on sexual morality and abortion who felt disempowered by the “previous political ethos are organising to make their views known”. Sun-Herald 17 Oct 04

Pornography

Mobile phone carriers will soon be required to comply with two sets of rules governing content as regulators try to ensure that children are protected from easy access to pornography. Weekend AFR 16-17 Oct 04

A mobile phone user claims her phone was “hijacked” and used to send multiple adult SMS messages without her knowledge. SMH 18 Oct 04

Privacy

Federal police are pressuring the Howard government to consider introducing a national identity card to help combat terrorism. Aust 15 Oct 04

Prostitution

Four Sydney people, including a mother and son, will stand trial accused of trafficking in Asian women, under new federal sexual servitude laws. SMH 15 Oct 04

Sex

Adultery is identified as the “No. 1 social sin” in a study of what Australians consider to be acceptable behaviour. SMH 18 Oct 04

Trade

Australia must revisit laws governing the free trade agreement or the deal could be indefinitely delayed, according to the US government. Aust 15 Oct 04

Water

The AFR outlines the politics of the National Water Initiative and National Competition Policy, and argues that the federal government should “put the suspended National Water Initiative back on track and push it home as quickly as possible.” AFR 18 Oct 04

Work

“There’s no time for love and intimacy in our market-driven lives,” laments Madeleine Bunting. SMH 18 Oct 04

Workplace relations

The AFR argues for comprehensive industrial relations reform in the wake of the Howard election victory. AFR 15 Oct 04

Marcus Priest argues that, without reform driven by union members, the union movement in Australia will not survive. Weekend AFR 16-17 Oct 04

The federal government plans to “tread softly” on industrial relations reform. SMH 16-17 Oct 04

The federal government will reintroduce legislation to allow 85 per cent of unfair dismissal claims to be dealt with by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission as the first plank of its promised “harmonised” system of national workplace relations laws. AFR 18 Oct 04

Other items of interest

NSW Baptist statement on abortion for the forthcoming publication Religion and Abortion in Australia – http://www.baptistsocialissues.org.au/papers/abortion.htm

The first of a series of occasional articles by Rod Benson in association with Dr Mark Tronson’s ministries –

http://rodbensonethics.blogspot.com/

“British and Australian Baptists spearhead effort to fight global poverty” – http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=4855

“Deported to danger: a study of Australia’s treatment of 40 rejected asylum seekers” (A Project of the Edmund Rice Centre for Justice & Community Education) – http://www.erc.org.au/research/pdf/1096416029.pdf

Chris Marshall on the kingdom of God – http://www.reality.org.nz/article.php?ID=365

Dean W. Nadasdy, “Ethics in the pulpit,” – http://www.cph.org/Newsletter/Churches/03/sep/pulpit.asp

Robert F. Kennedy Jr on George W. Bush’s crimes against nature – http://www.alternet.org/story/20124/

St James Ethics Centre survey on truth in government –

http://www.ethics.org.au/things_to_do/survey/truth_in_government.asp

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