By Rod Benson The nation’s big banks are once again returning record profits to their investors, and approving record salaries and benefits for their senior executives. These actions have unleashed a tidal wave of criticism, with Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey going so far as to suggest that the government should impose punitive measures to “rein …
Good news for asylum seekers
By Rod Benson In a unanimous decision the High Court has ruled in favour of two asylum seekers who claimed they were denied legal fairness when they applied for a review of their refugee claims. The two Tamil men arrived by boat from Sri Lanka on October 2. Their claim for refugee status was denied, …
Wanted: modern day Good Samaritans
By Rod Benson You’ve probably noticed that a lot of the news we hear is bad news – I suppose that’s just an indication of the kind of world you and I live in today. But one story I heard recently really troubled me, and got me thinking about our diminished capacity for compassion in …
Striking a balance in Christian lobbying
Here's something my Melbourne colleague Gordon Preece wrote earlier this month, which I think deserves a wider hearing: Recently I went to an Australian Christian Lobby night in the Victorian parliament house where the leaders of the two main parties (with Bronwyn Pike filling in for John Brumby) addressed church leaders and responded to questions. It …
Shapers of Baptist social ethics
Larry L. McSwain & William Loyd Allen (eds), Twentieth-Century Shapers of Baptist Social Ethics (Macon GA: Mercer University Press, 2008). Reviewed by Rod Benson In November 2004, I wrote to 42 Australian Baptist leaders, asking each of them the following question: “If Henlee Barnette, T.B. Maston, Martin Luther King, Jr and Clarence Jordan are viewed …
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