Labor, Conversion Therapy and Draco
We can’t say we were not warned: since 2017 Labor representatives have been announcing their intention to ban, if not criminalise, so-called “conversion therapy”. Back in 2017, the Victorian Health Minister, now Attorney-General, Jill Hennessy declared their new Health Complaints Act would “provide the means to deal with those who profit from the abhorrent practice of gay conversion therapy … which inflicts significant emotional trauma and damages the mental health of young members of our community”. According to Ms Hennessy, the crime of conversion therapy is so grave it demands “reverse onus” of proof in which the “accused is required to prove matters to establish, or raise evidence to suggest, that he or she is not guilty of an offence”[i].
In October 2018, the Labor government’s LGBTI task force, its Commissioners for Gender and Sexuality, Health Complaints and Mental Health, the Victorian Human Rights Law Centre and the Australian Research Centre in Sex…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
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6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
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2 mins