Australian Catholic University (ACU) engages the Catholic Intellectual Tradition to bring a distinct perspective to higher education.
We explore cultural, social, ethical and religious issues through the lens of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition in our teaching, research and service.
Two new education performance reports released by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) have painted a bleak picture of Australia’s student literacy and science and mathematics achievement…
The latest announcements about boat-people involved heading further down the wrong track: a track marked out by the Howard government for political reasons, and sold to the public using dishonest rhetoric…
It is clear enough that the Gillard government’s revived Pacific Solution has not stopped the boats: it has not even slowed them. In 2002, the boats stopped, some months after the Pacific Solution was…
The federal government has announced new visa measures as part of its asylum seeker policy. Bridging visas will be issued to refugees who have been processed onshore, as part of the “no advantage” principle…
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced a royal commission into child abuse in churches, schools and foster homes. The inquiry will include, but not be limited to, allegations of abuse in the Catholic…
Lead exposure continues to be an important public health issue for Australian children, with as many as 100,000 children under five years of age estimated to have blood lead levels high enough to cause…
Australians are drinking and smoking less but putting on weight like never before, a national survey by the Australian Bureau of Statistics has found. Results from the ABS Australian Health Survey, the…
New legislation was passed last week to move single parents off the parenting payment, and onto the Newstart Allowance once their youngest child turns eight. Advocates for this change suggest that the…
Attention women of the world: according to a flood of recent news headlines (78 at last count), it’s time to stop watching the news because negative news stories stress you out more than they do men. These…
At a time when the Commonwealth sponsored Gonski Review of School Funding is recommending an increase of $5 billion a year plus for schools around Australia, it may seem odd that some state governments…
The NSW Treasury’s current trial of social benefit bonds is attracting a lot of attention, including a session devoted to bonds and other social enterprise innovations at the Economic Society of Australia’s…
Australia doesn’t just need “a Gonski response”, it needs a plan for continuing improvement in our schools, says Prime Minister Julia Gillard. In a speech to the Independent Schools National Forum, Ms…
The granting of political asylum by the Ecuadorian government to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange puts pressure back on the Australian government to act, says leading QC and human rights advocate, Julian…
In his first message on becoming Pope, Benedict XVI said the impelling duty of the successor of Peter was “to work tirelessly to rebuild the full and visible unity of all Christ’s followers”. “Concrete…
In part five of our multi-disciplinary Millennium Project series, Scott Prasser questions easy sloganeering about the importance of “long-term” policy-making. Global challenge 5: How can policymaking be…
You can tell a lot about a person’s emotional state by looking at their face. A quick glance can give you an idea of whether a person is, say, happy or angry, allowing you to modify your behaviour accordingly…
A recent post by The Conversation columnist Rob Brooks, Analytic thinking erodes religious belief, is just another in a long line of articles, books and opinion pieces seeking to perpetuate the myth that…
Mining magnate Clive Palmer has put his name forward to run for the Liberal National Party (LNP) against Treasurer Wayne Swan in the Queensland seat of Lilley at the next election. Palmer has been a vocal…
The release last Wednesday of the Senate’s Community Affairs Committee report on forced adoption resulted in almost unanimous condemnation of past adoption practices which saw young, unmarried women forced…
A two-year process of research, consultation, public input and expert consideration and analysis is a reasonable route to follow for a government-appointed independent inquiry into a major policy issue…