Painting Fakes

Extinction Rebellion has been making headlines around the world, including here in the centre of the universe (Brisbane, or course).  Their campaigns of nonviolent civil disobedience, aiming to create pressure to accelerate action on climate change, have disrupted daily life in major cities around the world.  Here in Brisbane, as elsewhere, they have blocked roads and other transport routes, gluing themselves to roads and locking themselves on to pieces of infrastructure to ensure long delays.  Plenty of people have been arrested, some multiple times, but this is part of their intention. Like many people who feel strongly about the need for action on climate change, I am torn about Extinction Rebellion.  Overall, I support them.  I agree with their message - that we need to urgently decarbonise and that we are a long way from taking climate change seriously either in Australia or globally.  I'm also not troubled by nonviolent civil disobedience, a time...

So, in Part 1 of this series I discussed the religious dimensions of the Israel Folau case, and in Part 2 I provided a summary of how international human rights treaties frame religious and other freedoms.  Now, onto the current Australian legislation.  The Commonwealth Attorney-General, Christian Porter, released the government's draft Religious Discrimination Bill at the end of August 2019, with a consultation period of a little over a month (ending October 2). The drive to legislate for religious freedom gained pace during the process of legalising same sex marriage, and is a kind of compensation to conservative religious people for losing that battle. In the wake of that process the government established a Religious Freedom Review led by former Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock.  This review found that there is no particular immediate threat to religious freedom in Australia. The Panel also heard that, as a whole, Australians generally enjoy religious freedo...

So, I never got an answer to my last Dear Scomo letter.  So instead of waiting forever, I wrote him another one. Dear Prime Minister Jon I am still awaiting your reply to my letter of 14 June, but I thought that I would write to you again given that events have moved on since then. Back in June I wrote asking you to lead your government into a more positive engagement with the issue of climate change.   I suggested you needed to move Australia towards more willing and enthusiastic participation in global mitigation efforts, planning for our economic transition to net zero emissions and getting serious about adaptation. While you have not replied to my letter the actions of your government since then have left me with little confidence you are getting to grips with this important issue, despite your reassuring words. You have repeatedly assured Australians that we are well on track to meeting our 2030 emissions reduction targets.   Yet official governm...