Dawe, Morrow and Gessen – Satire and The Rise Of Populism

Actor/satirist Bryan Dawe has such a low-key, laconic approach to ‘giving a talk’ that the journalistic instinct to take notes deserted me. Dawe is the surviving half of the satirical act Clarke & Dawe, but he is much more than that. He told the audience at Griffith University’s Integrity 20 Summit that when it came to political satire, he and John Clarke had never been short of material over 25 years of producing their weekly…

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John Hewson and integrity in a post-truth world

Nobody can call out an errant politician better than former Liberal Opposition Leader John Hewson. In the 22 years since he resigned from politics, Hewson has become a respected academic, the darling of TV panel shows like Q&A, and a regular on the celebrity speakers’ circuit. Yesterday, Hewson was a keynote speaker at Griffith University’s two-day summit, Integrity20. Who better to address the opening topic “Post-Truth, Trust and the Ethics of Deceit?” Hewson has been…

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Mental Health Week – a psychiatrist walks into a bar

You wouldn’t always associate grain silos with the national funding crisis facing Australia’s mental health sector. Mental Health Australia chief executive Frank Quinlan did just that, using the silo analogy to lament the distribution of funds that so often see alcohol and drug problems and mental health problems dealt with separately. He cited the 2016 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report on alcohol and drug use which states that one in four people who…

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Journalists facing deadly risks

Not for the first time, I’m ruminating about the deadly risks facing journalists working in conflict zones or countries like North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Egypt or even India. It’s 1am and I’m reading the Guardian Weekly, starting with its world roundup, where my eye is drawn to a headline: “Indian journalist beaten to death.” In just 100 words we are told that Shantanu Bhowmick’s death at the hands of a stick-wielding mob brings the…

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