Israel’s deregistration of international health providers in Gaza makes legally mandated care increasingly impossible, raising serious questions about compliance with international law. (more…)
Stephanie Dowrick
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2025 in Review: What this year taught us about life, loss and shared humanity
Amid violence, war and deepening polarisation, 2025 has shown that despair and passivity are choices too – and that human survival depends on rejecting dehumanisation in all its forms.
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Is the Northern Territory Government knowingly endangering First Nations children and young people?
It should be impossible to ignore heartbreaking evidence of the effects of structural racism on Aboriginal children and young people, particularly those caught in a fully discredited punitive system in the NT that now includes “torture” plus risks of death as well as trauma. (more…)
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Out beyond right-doing and wrong-doing there is a field. Let me meet you there (Part 2)
Out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing there is a field.
Let me meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about. (Rumi) (more…)
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Let’s combat antisemitism, not use it to dehumanise others – Part 1
The state of Israel’s heinous conduct must not be seen solely as a “Jewish problem”. (more…)
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Investing in Pearls
There’s a certain frisson as well as tension to this time of the year (June). It’s the time when those of us lucky enough (with enough) to have to make tax decisions can choose where to make a tax-deductible contribution that will, indeed et voila, lessen our tax bill while (possibly) benefitting a good cause. (more…)
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Sussan Ley and gender politics
Apart from a slight uptick of hope when Malcolm Turnbull gained the leadership of the Liberal Party in September 2015, promising to bring “emotional intelligence” to the role, I have never wished the LNP anything but defeat and oblivion. (more…)
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Easter: More rising than falling
“I call upon heaven and earth this day to witness that I have put before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life! Choose life, so that you and your descendants may live.” (Deuteronomy, 30:19) (more…)
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Updates from Jerusalem, then and now
From the Committee to Protect Journalists: “The Israel-Gaza war has taken an unprecedented toll on Gazan journalists since Israel declared war on Hamas following its attack against Israel on October 7, 2023. As of November 26, 2024, CPJ’s preliminary investigations showed at least 137 journalists and media workers were among the more than tens of thousands killed in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel, and Lebanon since the war began, making it the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992.” (more…)
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Is “knowing what’s going on” too much to bear?
The courage it takes to “know”, to “realise”, to “comprehend” when “trusted” global powers act against humanity is a profoundly personal effort. Your success will only ever be relative. Yet your choices will and do affect the collective (society). They also affect your identity: where and how you feel alliances, where and how you draw a sense of belonging. Or suffer the dangers of exclusion. (more…)
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A tribute to Susie Menadue
The phrase “Life is changed, not ended” is profound. Used by John Menadue in his tribute last week to his wife, Susie, it speaks volumes for their shared trust that we are more than “dust”, flesh and bones, however mysterious that “more” may be. And that it is, possibly, a glimpse of that “more” that can most meaningfully connect and free us. (more…)
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Can this year’s UN International Day of Peace make any difference in a conflict-obsessed world?
That question above is both meaningful – and meaningless. A paltry “Day of Peace” — this year, Saturday 21 September — insults the efforts of those who work year-round for something approximating “peace”. Or, at least, who work in multiple ways to promote more intelligent evidence-based possibilities to contain, if not resolve, conflict, and to reduce the unchecked pursuit of power and territory through destruction and death. (more…)
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P&I thriving is up to us
This is a topic difficult to raise without it sounding like a sermon. And although I happen to be writing on a Sunday (and was ordained as an Interfaith, post-denominational minister nearly 20 years ago) “sermonising” has never worked for me: not in the getting or the giving. (more…)
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Weaponising antisemitism impedes justice and peace
Weaponising a real fear in the West of being called or being seen as “antisemitic”, while simultaneously exploiting long-entrenched anti-Arab prejudice, the Israeli government has successfully exempted itself from legitimate interrogation, reproach and effective sanctions for its unchecked expansionist ambitions and inhumane, racist actions against Palestinians. (more…)
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How have we come to this? “Othering” is humanity’s original sin
“Under conditions of tyranny, it is far easier to act than to think.” Hannah Arendt (more…)
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Cruel and mendacious: It’s not the Voice that “failed”
No one who cares about basic human rights, or a sense of honour and of honouring, should be remotely intimidated by the sickening “success” of Dutton’s typically self-serving, cruel and mendacious campaign. The Voice did not fail. Australians failed the Voice. (more…)
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Our Central Land Council “overwhelmingly asks you to vote YES”
“For over half a century the Central Land Council has fought for the voices of Aboriginal people from the heart of our nation to be heard. Our 90-member Council overwhelmingly asks you to vote YES, because we know that when decision-makers listen to our voices we end up with policies that help us, not harm us, and money is spent wisely.” – Lesley Turner, CEO, Central Land Council, NT. (more…)
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In the final week of the referendum – make up your own mind
What can we achieve together in this final week of the referendum campaign? Join me on Thursday for a special webinar with First Nations women Lynette Riley and Beverly Baker to learn first hand about the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament. (more…)
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Women cannot revive Liberal “appeal”
How drearily predictable it is that in the wake of another loss in Victoria that mythical cohort “women” is being bandied about as key to a resurrection of the floundering, flailing and failing Liberal Party at both State and Federal levels. Brad Hazard is the NSW Health Minister retiring at the forthcoming March 2023 election. He’s not confused. “’Obviously it would be helpful to have more women in the parliament,’ he said on 20 November. ‘”But would you do that to the exclusion of getting good people in?”’ (more…)
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Questionable Deves in leafy Warringah
We have in Scott Morrison a Liberal Party leader who “sold” himself to the nation on the basis of “stopping the boats” and dehumanising, then indefinitely imprisoning, asylum seekers. Now this same “leader” is stirring transphobic bigotry, using the lowest means to try to again secure the nation’s highest office. (more…)
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Easter celebrates life – and peace
One of the most beautiful names given to Jesus is “Prince of Peace”. So why do Christian churches support conflict so enthusiastically – including bitter conflict between denominations and sects, and armed conflict between nations? (more…)
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Replace celebration of January 26 with a lifetime of deep listening
The day is an abomination masquerading as inclusivity. Whatever we call it, there should be no link to the violence of the colonisers. (more…)
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Election 2022: perhaps Australia will see the light this time
Australia’s vote for Scott Morrison’s government in 2019 was a triumph of naive hope over bitter experience. History must not repeat itself.
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A call to contemplation coexists with a call to meaningful action
The longing for stability is real, whatever our political leanings. But there is another choice, brought about by a transformation of consciousness.
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A universal story of hope for today’s world, whatever you believe
Questions about the birth story of Jesus and his divinity are secondary to his message of love and peace, which has never been more relevant.
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Labor and independents can end a political reign of error
Anthony Albanese’s best chance of election victory is to appeal to the better nature of Australians — and to replace his deputy.
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Business as usual: The price of Gladys Berejiklian’s politics
The emotional and moral maturity of our politicians has been on trial at ICAC.
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Mirage man Morrison continues to defeat the common good
The Coalition government remains in thrall to a tiny rump of its support base despite its wilful refusal to make changes necessary to the national interest and the climate.
