LIMINAL

Imagine the entire population of Canberra driven from their homes in mere weeks. That's the scale of what's happening in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar, once known as Burma. More than 300,000 persecuted Muslim Rohingya were forced to leave their torched villages in the past month. Australia's response has been a disgrace, all the more so amid our campaign for a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council. We've offered just $5 million to the emergency relief effort, a pittance compared to the $122 million we are spending surveying opinions on whether same sex-couples should be able to marry. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says she's "deeply concerned" and has called for "restraint". Australia is the richest kid on the block. This is our region. The Rohingya have been persecuted for years because of their darker skin and different religion. There have been forced displacements dating back to the 1990s. In February this year, a UN report...

A true story. A young woman was applying for a job in the Australian Public Service. She needed a security clearance and character references. A friend took the call. It would take 15 minutes. The questions were standard until one of the last: "Is your friend, in your view, addicted to texting?" The questions that followed were about computer use and phone use more generally. You can guess there's a problem when questionnaires designed to gauge the suitability of employees ask about texting. While the Community and Public Sector Union tells me it is not standard for candidates to be asked about their device use directly, it is very likely that their acquaintances are asked about it, directly and indirectly. There's no doubt that texting is a relevant consideration for security, but it's probably also relevant for something else: the ability to get on with meaningful work. While powerful tools that, when used prudently, can help the mind, mobile devices can a...