LIMINAL

Within days of a government minister repaying obscene amounts billed for internet use we learnt this week that one in five Australians regularly struggles to afford food. The hunger relief organisation Foodbank categorised one in four of these people as having “very low food security”. It’s worst away from our cities, and when big bills arrive. Schools respond with volunteer-run breakfast clubs. There are about a dozen across Canberra and Queanbeyan, feeding more than 500 children. It's well established that disadvantage is typically experienced across many dimensions. Those dimensions cascade. There is a strong correlation between children going hungry, health complaints and poor education outcomes. Successive studies across many countries by global agency UNICEF show hungry children are also more likely to be bullied and will experience shame and exclusion because with little food at home, they feel less able to have friends over. An infant will typically be full of w...

Behind all the talk about the independence of the ABC lies a separate but gnawing concern that populism is increasingly trumping depth in the making of its programs. Michelle Guthrie was a late convert to quality reporting (staff still wince recalling her early advice to makers of Four Corners, that they should try doing some positive profiles of successful business leaders). But under her, and under budget pressure, senior management have been hacking away at serious programs in order to make way for topical and lighter fare. It has narrowed the range of topics focused on by those programs and limited their depth. Guthrie presided over a downsizing of the ABC’s flagship current affairs programs The World Today and PM, cutting both from one hour to half an hour. The "ideas network", Radio National, was thinned as management began earnestly shifting the network into a podcast-making machine that can one day be moved off the broadcast airwaves altogether. Management m...

Do we really need a royal commission to tell us what’s wrong with aged care? From what I am told, in Canberra we know the problems and they are not extensive. Pockets could be better of course, including some of the reputable facilities run by churches. And there is at least one common complaint: that too many staff don’t speak English well. It can be a barrier to developing good relationships with residents. The other challenge, wherever you live, is the need to keep an eye on the centre to make sure its service doesn’t worsen. If the centre loses a couple of key people or can't attract staff (which happens a lot) things can go off the rails quickly. Four out of every ten people in aged care are not visited for an entire year, according to the aged care minister Ken Wyatt. That’s shocking. Even where residents have no relatives or friends who can visit, the rest of us should be able to find a way to do it. Most of the complaints made to ABC’s Four Corners program came ...

Growing up in suburban Sydney, I broke bread with all kinds. The dismantling of the White Australia policy in the 1960s and 1970s had allowed my parents to bring me from South Africa, aspire to belong and buy a house on a quarter acre block. My father started a business. Schooled in Islam, he ensured we never ate pork. I went to a public school alongside Aboriginal, Slavic, Italian, Greek and Malay students, as well as Anglos. Embracing the Jesus story, I found mentors in a diverse and welcoming community in Anglican and Baptist churches while still connected to my Muslim family. Canberra is less diverse, but still very welcoming. Here in the national capital, Senator Fraser Anning made a splash when he called for an end to immigrants who do not reflect “the historic European Christian composition of Australian society”. He’s been roundly condemned. What Anning may not have heard loud and clear is that Jesus was not European. He’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise if in a Wes...

It’s getting harder to believe, but Canberra’s forefathers wanted to create “a garden town, with simple, pleasing, but unpretentious buildings”. For most of its life, that’s how Canberra has been. Except that recently there has been an emphasis on towers that threaten to block views and plunge streets into shade. It’s not something any of us remember voting for. We are often told that packing people in more densely is good for the environment. It is said to mean less water and energy use per person. Except that it doesn’t, according to fascinating but little-known research commissioned by the ACT Environment and Planning Directorate and conducted by Patrick Troy, Mishka Talent and Stephen Dovers at the ANU. It found no significant difference in water and electricity use between residents of apartments and houses. While people with gardens used more water in summer, they were more careful in what they used at other times, acting as stewards of their environment. Apartment dwelle...

Most of us know about the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, but far fewer know about the first Aboriginal protest outside Old Parliament House, when it opened in 1927. Two Wiradjuri men, Jimmy Clements (also known as ‘King Billy’, pictured) and John Noble (known as ‘Marvellous’) walked for a week from Brungle mission in the Riverina. On arrival they insisted on meeting the Duke and Duchess of York who were there to declare it open. They told a newspaper they wanted to make it clear they had “sovereign rights to the Federal Territory”. The same newspaper reported some years later that when Noble was in trouble with white man’s law he stood up in court and said to the judge something like: “If it wasn't for Jimmy Cook you wouldn't be sitting where you are and I wouldn't be standing where I am”. Nine decades on, there’s finally some momentum for a treaty, at least at the state level. Victoria, led by Labor’s Daniel Andrews, is the most advanced, having appointed a treaty commis...

Eighteen year-old Fatima (not her real name) was tricked by her parents into leaving Australia. On board the plane they told her she had to marry a much older stranger. She didn't want to. They threatened her and took away her passport. The wedding took place behind closed doors. Distressed, she logged onto My Blue Sky, a relatively new website with a secure communications portal funded by the Australian government and operated by Anti-Slavery Australia. Its administrators contacted Foreign Affairs and arranged for a replacement passport. One of Fatima’s friends drove her to the airport. One of Anti-Slavery Australia's overseas partners helped fund the flight. It was a perilous escape. Much could have gone wrong, but Fatima made it home. Others aren’t as fortunate. “I am just worried about all the women and girls who don't contact us,” says Professor Jennifer Burn, the director of Anti-Slavery Australia which is housed in the law faculty at the University of Techn...