Religion & Ethics Australia Daily

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

No. 015, 3-6 December 2004  ² edited by Rod Benson

News reports

Aboriginal issues

Australia’s two most influential Aboriginal leaders, Patrick Dodson and Noel Pearson, have come together to make a joint appeal for a new dialogue with Prime Minister John Howard, based on the principle of mutual obligation. Weekend Aust 4-5 Dec 04

A sea change is taking place in the thinking of Aboriginal Australia, with Aboriginal leaders embracing a responsibility-based agenda stressing mutual obligation rather than the old welfare mentality. The Weekend Australian’s leader comments on this and provides a historical context. Weekend Aust 4-5 Dec 04

Palm Islanders are caught in a trap of state control where initiative is stifled, and where a radical solution is desperately needed, writes Tony Koch. Weekend Aust 4-5 Dec 04

Prime Minister John Howard has welcomed ideas from the Victorian former footballer and Aboriginal activist Michael Long as part of a new start in solving entrenched problems in indigenous communities. SMH 4-5 Dec 04

Bioethics – reproductive technologies

Ultrasounds in the second half of pregnancy do not harm babies’ development, says a world-first study that will reassure parents concerned at the technology’s use.

Corporate governance

Nearly a quarter of the largest 100 sharemarket-listed companies failed to provide the disclosures required under the Australian Stock Exchange’s corporate governance principles, with many companies giving no detail on executive remuneration and small companies having trouble finding independent directors. AFR 6 Dec 04

Changes in corporate governance rules are squeezing partners in professional firms out of traditional directorship roles, writes Fiona Buffini. AFR 6 Dec 04

Criminal justice

Tomorrow Russell “Mad Dog” Cox, who was sentenced to “life” in 1975, will be freed on parole from Grafton jail. A truth-in-sentencing determination in 1996 had translated “life” to 29 years and four months, which ends tomorrow. The SMH leader points out the irony of this in the light of a recent High Court ruling that it was perfectly legal for the federal government to keep certain asylum seekers in detention until they died – a life sentence for no crime at all. “If that is the law, it should change.” SMH 6 Dec 04

Debt

Reserve Bank reforms to the Australian credit card market have led commercial banks to shift customers onto the indirectly regulated payment cards of American Express and Diners Club. AFR 6 Dec 04

Drugs

Prescription drugs, such as those used to treat children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are replacing caffeine as students’ drug of choice during exams. AFR 6 Dec 04

Environment

Having lost its rock star front-man to federal politics, the Australian Conservation Foundation has turned to one of the nation’s most respected greenhouse scientists, Professor Ian Lowe, to lead a new generation of environmental campaigns. Aust 3 Dec 04

Architect Mike Reynolds, who designed the environmentally-friendly “Earthship” home, hopes to flood the world with his residences, but believes fellow architects are “all uppity” and are “just f—in’ up the world.” SMH 4-5 Dec 04

Ethics – business – Australia

Asbestos disease victims won a critical financial reprieve yesterday when a former James Hardie Industries subsidiary caved in and agreed to pay $88 million to fund compensation claims. AFR 3 Dec 04; Aust 3 Dec 04

Ethics – business – general

The US corporation Dow Chemical yesterday finally accepted full responsibility for the 1984 Bhopal (India) disaster, and said a $US12 billion plan would be implemented to fully compensate the victims. At least 15,000 people died at the time and hundreds of thousands were affected when methyl isocyanate leaked from the Union Carbide plant 20 years ago this week. Many thousands more have died since. SMH 4-5 Dec 04

Executive salaries

The chief executives of Australia’s biggest listed companies are sitting on entitlements to nearly $100 million in termination payments despite moves by boards to rein in the size of the so-called “golden parachutes.” AFR 6 Dec 04

The AFR’s leader argues that “termination and retirement benefits, like all aspects of pay, must be plausible. And since directors now have to explain to shareholders how they work them out, it is in their interest to make them so.” AFR 6 Dec 04

Arthur Levitt calls for a new approach to executive pay and termination benefits. AFR 6 Dec 04

A string of CEOs have negotiated payouts that will leave them smiling, writes Damon Kitney. AFR 6 Dec 04

Fundamentalism

James Murray writes on the attraction of martyrdom in modern-day Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Weekend Aust 4-5 Dec 04

Gambling

A South Australian MP has warned denials by the Adelaide casino and the state’s gambling commissioner about the extent of underage gambling “fly in the face” of evidence told to him and to gambling counsellors. Aust 3 Dec 04

Human trafficking

Controversial historian Keith Windschuttle has concluded that the 19th century trade in kanakas to work the Queensland canefields is a myth. Aust 6 Dec 04

Immigration

Keith Windschuttle writes on why he believes our immigration policy from 1901 to the mid-1960s was not as racist as academic historians contend. Aust 6 Dec 04

Internet

Opinions are divided on whether anti-spam laws have a positive effect, writes Rachel Lebihan. AFR 3 Dec 04

Multiculturalism

European nations are abandoning their doctrines of diversity in the face of Islam, writes Charles Bremmer. Reluctantly, some intellectuals have lately concluded that the model for Europe should be the US. On Tuesday, a writer for French left-wing daily Liberation noted that immigrants in the US threw themselves into “the American dream” and prospered. “There is no French, Dutch or other European dream,” she noted. “You emigrate here to escape poverty and nothing more.” Aust 6 Dec 04

Piracy

Hundreds of thousands of Australian users of Kazaa are being stalked online by the music industry’s hired gun, an American company that tracks down and then remotely enters home computers it finds swapping songs online. Aust 3 Dec 04

Politics – UN

On the scandal surrounding the UN oil-for-food program, US Republican senator Norm Coleman says it’s time for UN Secretary-General to resign. AFR 3 Dec 04

Religious liberty

With anti-Western feelings growing in Indonesia, it’s not easy for Christians living in the world’s largest Islamic nation, writes Sian Powell. Aust 6 Dec 04

Roman Catholic Church – Australia

Cardinal George Pell has backed the Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane’s tough stand on renegade priests who performed “invalid” baptisms using politically correct language. A South Brisbane cleric had allegedly baptised an infant in the name of “the Creator, Liberator and Sustainer” rather than the traditional “Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Aust 3 Dec 04

Sex

Hypocritical puritans hounded leading sex researcher Alfred Kinsey to the grave and now they are after his movie, The Guardian’s John Patterson writes. “Kinsey is one of the inventors of our modern sex lives. He stands with Margaret Sanger, who agitated for birth control and backed research that gave us the Pill by 1960 – which in turn gave us the unzipped sexual revolution and the bra-burning women’s movement . And because of that, the religious right still fear and despise Kinsey and his works . these creeps want the clocks turned back to when the church held sway over our sexuality.” Meanwhile Focus on the Family’s film critic, Tom Neven, calls the movie “rank propaganda for the sexual revolution and the homosexual agenda.” SMH 6 Dec 04

Trade

Left and right trade union leaders have reached rare agreement on their “grave concerns” about Australia negotiating a free-trade agreement with China.

AFR 3 Dec 04

Highly protectionist measures are being included in the misnamed US-Australia free-trade agreement, and Australia is being forced to embrace virulently anti-free-trade measures – especially in relation to spurious online copyright infringement claims. AFR 4-5 Dec 04

The Australian manufacturing industry is proposing an across-the-board strengthening of anti-dumping rules to counteract the impact of one of China’s key demands in negotiations for a new free-trade agreement.

AFR 6 Dec 04

Workplace relations

The Labor states are considering a constitutional challenge to the federal government’s tough new industrial relations laws that limit the rights of unions to enter workplaces. AFR 3 Dec 04

The Howard government has been forced to deny union claims that it plans to scrap the annual minimum wage case, as tensions continue to rise over its fourth-term industrial agenda. AFR 4-5 Dec 04

ACTU secretary Greg Combet has challenged unions to adopt a positive response to the Howard government’s tough industrial relations reforms, and flagged a new push to direct industry superannuation funds toward national infrastructure. Weekend Aust 4-5 Dec 04

Other items of interest

As portions of a confidential Red Cross report finding “cruel, inhumane and degrading” treatment of detainees at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay are published, David E. Anderson reviews some recent books and reports on torture and the war on terror and notes the absence of any serious consideration of the ethical issues at stake. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week814/exclusive.html

Growing up in a strict Baptist home, Robbi Neal gave herself to Christ when she was eight years old. An unhappy family life, a failed marriage, and surviving cancer have now shaped her faith in a God that lives outside the Church. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/relig/spirit/stories/s1248942.htm

Michael Duffy interviews Bernard Lewis, arguably one of the most influential historians of our time – and the main intellectual force behind George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/counterpoint/stories/s1249555.htm

Norman Swan talks to Professor Irving Weissman, Director of the Cancer and Stem Cell Biology Institute, Stanford University, on stem cell research and therapeutic cloning. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/helthrpt/stories/s1250698.htm

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.