Ethics

As is the rite of passage for all conservative politicians, Republican hopeful Newt Gingrich has found himself embroiled in a sex scandal. Wife number two claims Newt asked for an “open marriage”. She, shockingly enough, now considers him too much of a jerk for office.

In even more yawn-worthy news, fellow hopeful, Rick Santorum, has pounced on naughty Newt and determined that those extramarital hijinks raise questions about moral character. Moral character.

You know, the most fundamental of leadership qualities. Because, you might be the smartest, the wisest, the most hard-working of all politicians, but one sexual snafu and it can all end in a finger-snap.

Continue reading "Sex scandals should not render a leader impotent" »

Labor for Life may sound like a North Korean punishment but it is, in fact, a fringe group that apparently departs quite radically from Labor policy.

They want to see an ‘end’ to abortion, a position which is closer to that of the Australian Christian Lobby (the ACL has endorsed them in a newsletter) than those of the Liberal or Labor Party.

On their Facebook site, they take what could be a sly dig at Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s view that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare” with links to a poster that reads: “Anti-abolitionists of the 19th Century said they just wanted to keep slavery ‘safe, legal and rare’.”

Continue reading "Beware the pro-lifers doing hard Labor on abortion" »

In the film Balibo, five journalists paint an Australian flag and the word ‘Australia’ on the wall of their ‘safe’ house. They are then coldly executed by the invading Indonesians.

They believed – naively, in retrospect - that their very Australianness and their civilian status as journalists would save them.

Their brutal slaying outrages us, offends our sense of fairness – and shows that the concept of fairness is an odd sort of idea to have in the midst of carnage.

Continue reading "All’s not fair in war" »

When a boat goes down, should women and children be able to jump to the front of the lifeboat queue?

The death toll from the Costa Concordia tragedy has reached five, and more stories are emerging about the chaos inside the luxury cruise liner as it started to go down.

Melbourne mother Michelle Barraclough told the Herald Sun that she had to fight hysterical adults to hold on to her 12-year-old daughter, and that the men were the worst.

Continue reading "Women and children first, or every man for himself?" »

Wildlife harvesting advocate Professor Mike Archer AM has been geeing up the anti-vegetarian ork armies with an article putting the boot in for ‘hypocrisy’ over mice. The pesky little critters erupt into sizable plagues in grain growing areas every few years and Archer thereby accused vegetarians of having the “worst possible” diet in terms of suffering and sustainability.

What not to do when it comes to a sustainable diet

During the robust online debate following his article, Archer produced the following visionary statement on Australia’s food production future:

“In fact (sorry to sound insensitive), but we should not be consuming Australia unsustainably as we are now to feed 50 million people overseas in addition to the rapidly expanding Australian population. It’s a great short-term strategy to make more money and feel we done [sic] our bit to feed the starving millions overseas, but it makes us contributors to the exacerbating global problem of overpopulation rather than part of the solution. If we could just manage Australia sustainably, that would be the beginning of a rational approach to land-use and set a good example for the rest of the world.”

Continue reading "The ethics of feeding off the fat of the land" »

The family of the 14 year old Australian boy detained in Bali has allegedly sought a TV deal through the boy’s Australian agent. This news has not been received favourably by Indonesian authorities, and both Nine and Seven are strongly denying any such deal. But as Punch contributor Steve Williams suggests, deals have been done before and probably will be again…

Dear Mr Big Fat TV Executive,

May I be the first to congratulate you on your rumoured signing of the latest Australian arrested overseas to become the new face of Your Network, even though no one has ever seen the person’s face.

Continue reading "A bang-up for your bucks" »

By now, you’re sick of the Cup, we’re sick of the Cup. But here’s a doozy of a dilemma regarding the luckiest and most ungrateful punter in Australia.

On Tuesday, a friend of The Punch’s went to the TAB to put on his bets. Before leaving, he asked his workmates if he could put any bets on for them.

One guy in his 60s gave our friend $6 for a “mystery box trifecta”. That’s when the TAB computer randomly selects three horses and if they run the placings any which way, the bet wins.

Continue reading "Friday Dilemma: How to reward a Melb Cup angel?" »

If people didn’t donate their tissue and organs to others, the following people wouldn’t have contributed nearly as much to the Australia we know: Kevin Rudd, Derryn Hinch, Kerry Packer, Jimmy Little, Fiona Coote…

We’d be a lot poorer for it. But Australia is already a poorer country than it could be. There are plenty of sick people who need organ transplants but can’t get them. Australia has one of the lowest rates of organ donation in the developed world. There are some 1,566 Australians on the waiting list for a transplant right now and every week an Aussie dies waiting for a kidney transplant.

The way to ease this crippling shortage is breathtakingly obvious. When you die, your organs should automatically go to someone who needs them. End of story.

Continue reading "Festival of Obvious Ideas #2: Compulsory organ donation" »

After 30 years of making the world a happier place, Apple co-founder and chairman Steve Jobs died yesterday, age 56. The world mourns the man some have called the Edison of our time.

People around the world took to social networks yesterday to express their condolences. Bill Gates tweeted: “I will miss Steve immensely”. Tony Hawk said: “Steve Jobs was the man”. Barack Obama’s statement, “There may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented,” got retweet after retweet. 

While this was happening, Wikileaks was also tweeting about Steve Jobs. Except in doing so, the organisation was committing a journalistic crime taken straight from the playbook of the News of the World. You wouldn’t even read what they published on TMZ.

Continue reading "Wikileaks does a News of the World job on Steve Jobs" »

Another week, another Apple product feted as the Second Coming in gadget form. Wait, hang on a minute. . .

Apple are pretty good at hype, but it seems like they’ve been a little too good at it this week. Apple fan-boys and -girls (and shareholders) were roundly disappointed this morning with the launch of a slightly improved iPhone 4, the 4S. They were let down after whipping themselves up into a frenzy of iPhone 5 speculation over the past week.

But give it 9 days, when the smartphone is set to be released here, and you’re sure to see Apple-maniacs queueing from one end of your nearest capital city to the other to get their hands on the new smartphone. Their existing year-old iPhones will just get tossed. That’s a feature of Apple products. Your latest whizz-bang gizmo is always just a few short months away from being made obsolete by a product with only slightly more whizz and a pinch more bang.

Continue reading "An Apple a day, then Jobs wants you to chuck it away" »

This is the first in a series of pieces The Punch will run featuring speakers from the upcoming Adelaide Festival of Ideas. This week, oncologist Ranjana Srivastava writes about the last days of a terminally-ill patient.

Surprisingly, it takes until mid-morning for the code blue call. The way he has declined, I would have expected him to have breathed his last by now.

Aghast at the code, I climb the stairs two at a time to get to Mr Johnson’s bed side. There he lies, surrounded by a throng of doctors, each moving to a different part of his body, to bring it back to life.

“Quick, is he breathing?” asks one. “The pulse, the pulse”, presses another, already plucking open the patient’s gown. “Mr. Johnson, wake up, wake up darling,” urges his lovely, white-haired nurse.

Continue reading "When letting go is the hardest thing to do" »

A 22 year refrigeration mechanic walks into a casino… and what happens next defies belief. (You can read all about it here.)

First, he finds $200 bucks on the floor. This in itself is remarkable. Have you ever been to a casino? There are starving seagulls who swoop on chips slower than gamblers dive for loose cash in one of those hell-holes.

Anyway, the guys picks up the cash and before he knows it he’s in a holding cell for three hours. Next thing he knows, a magistrate slaps him with a $500 fine, plus court costs.

Continue reading "Friday dilemma: Is cash on a casino floor fair gaming?" »

Derryn Hinch won the Great Organ Gamble, scoring a life-saving liver. Many lose that lottery. Many people die waiting for organs.

The latest statistics, from the Australian & New Zealand Organ Donation Registry, show about 1600 Australians are waiting for organs – 176 for livers. More than 1140 for kidneys, 96 for hearts, 146 for lungs.

Hundreds die waiting. Demand exceeds supply. We can increase supply – by getting more people to sign up for organ donation and to make sure their families are aware of their wishes – but there won’t be enough any time soon.

Continue reading "I’ve got a hunch that Hinch is just the beginning" »

There are a few things I’d like to share. I’m at greater than normal risk of developing Crohn’s disease, Tourette syndrome and losing a testicle or two to cancer. On the bright side, the odds are I’ll never develop Type 2 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis or multiple sclerosis. My IQ and episodic memory fall into the “typical” range (go to town with that one, Punchers).

Although I’m of 99 per cent European extraction, my mother’s people are Haplogroup J, which arose in the Middle East 45,000 – 50,000 years ago. On my father’s side I’m Haplogroup R1b1b2a1a2f, which most likely formed in Turkey about 20,000 years ago during the last Ice Age.

How do I know all this? Did I subject myself to an exhaustive battery of medical tests and spend millions of dollars tracing my genealogy back into the mists of time? Well, no. I spat into a vial, mailed it off, then logged on to a website a few weeks later to have the mysteries of my genetic code laid bare. 

Continue reading "Welcome to Gattaca: What’s in your genes?" »

Human rights abuses happen everywhere, including Australia. Amnesty International has today released a report on human rights, which is critical of Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers and Aboriginal people. Claire Mallinson discusses the report’s findings and takes a look at the effect of digital media on the fight for human rights.

When Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was released after 15 years under house arrest late last year, one of the first things she commented on was how she had missed the digital revolution.

That may be so, but the digital revolution did not miss her. When she stepped out on to the balcony of her home she was greeted by a sea of supporters, mobiles phones held aloft and eager thumbs pressing buttons. Within seconds her picture could be seen on web sites, the internet and 24-hour news channels around the world.

Continue reading "Human rights at home and away" »

When announcing Osama bin Laden’s death, US President Barack Obama declared it was about “liberty and justice for all”.  The Punch asked RMIT’s Adjunct Professor Peter Norden, a law, crime and justice expert, what that means.

What was your immediate response to the announcement of bin Laden’s death?
Certainly a sense of surprise that it happened without warning.  But then I reacted to the words used by the US President and Australian Prime Minister that “justice had been done”. My understanding of justice being done is when an accused person is taken into custody, tried and receives the verdict of the court. 

Continue reading "Punch Q & A: Just what is justice?" »

Here’s a game: Pretend you’re famous and the public is interested in the minutiae of your life.

What would the media dig out? How would you be presented? For many of us that’s a frightening thought.

Did you inhale? Have you ever said something inappropriate? Any bitchy ex-colleagues or schoolmates lurking around? Did you ever drink too much, sleep with the wrong person, or get close to someone bad?

Continue reading "Is it asking too much for pollies to be decent citizens?" »

It’s Maundy Thursday, the holy day that one Punch staffer thought for years was “Monday Thursday”; some weird hybrid day.

For many, Maundy (or ‘Holy’) Thursday is the start of a very sacred few days. For most, it’s the last day of work before we gorge, binge, and maybe later repent.

In the Christian tradition, today commemorates the Last Supper; so feasting – particularly if it involves bread and wine - is pretty much encouraged.

Continue reading "Carbon tax. Obesity. Libya. What Would Jesus Do?" »

So many words are spilt today arguing about the non-existence of an almighty that it’s easy to forget that atheism isn’t the end goal. Far from it.

Atheism is just the beginning. It’s the question of what comes after God where things become really interesting.

Because atheism is ultimately only a negative thesis: it simply states that there exists no god or gods. As such, to say I’m an atheist tells you something about what I don’t believe in, but it tells you almost nothing about what I do believe in.

Continue reading "Is there a life after God?" »

First things first. Let us pause to salute the salty goodness of crispy rashers a-fryin’ in the pan. As my naughty Jewish friends no doubt say before hoeing into their bacon and eggs, “Mmmm… sacrilicious.”

Second point of order. Let’s recognise Australian Bacon Week, and in particular the push by Australian Pork Limited for us all to consume more of the Aussie stuff. Did you know that 80 per cent of our bacon is imported? Or that some iconic Aussie bacon brands have that sneaky “made from imported and local ingredients” label on the side which MP Amanda Rishworth wrote about so eloquently on The Punch last week?

The answer, according to APL, is to make sure you buy pork products with their somewhat unimaginative pink square logo. This will ensure you are not buying imported pork, most of which comes from the EU, and most of which is Danish. APL say that the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service does not test imported pork for chemical residues and other nasties. The EU also has some pretty dodgy pig farms. And while it is is one of several worldwide jurisdictions phasing out inhumane treatment of farmed pigs, conditions at many Danish farms are still far from pleasant, as this disturbing video shows. The question is: are things much different in Australia?

Continue reading "A sizzling, crispy salute to bacon, without the porkies" »

Jim Carrey. Ricky Gervais. Adam Sandler. Steve Martin. All well-known funny men. Well, move over, guys. Philip Nitschke, the world’s best-known euthanasia activist, is considering a career change.

Life must have been pretty dreary for Nitschke lately. He has spent the last fortnight or so touring the British Isles in the dead of winter, touting his message of suicide on demand. It must be a bit demoralising to give a passionate lecture to a sea – a pond actually – of blue rinsed and bald heads in chilly local halls week after week.

But things are looking up. Dr Nitschke is contemplating a career as a stand-up comedian. No, this is not, repeat, not a joke. He told the newspaper Wales on Sunday, “There is a proposal to do some sort of stage stand-up comedy. It will be comedy associated with the issues of death and dying directed more at entertainment, that’s what we are looking at.”

Continue reading "Dr Death makes suicide a laughing matter" »

With the fate of the proposed flood levy hanging in the balance as we await the outcome of negotiations between Senator Nick Xenophon and the Federal Government, it‘s timely to have a close look at the whole issue of disaster insurance and the insurance industry generally.

A sad reality emerging from this summer’s national disasters is that not only have we been as a nation generally under-insured for natural disasters, but more significantly for consumers the insurance companies are basically a law unto themselves when it comes to paying out on insurance contracts.

As anyone who has tried to take on an insurance company knows all too well, the legal cards are stacked in the company’s favour.

Continue reading "Let’s get medieval on insurance company’s arses" »

The Australian Family Association responds to Tory Shepherd’s Punch column on abortion.

Ah pro-choice warriors, methinks thou dost protest too much.

The sheer passion and vigour with which you attack anyone who gives off even the vaguest whiff of pro-life sentiment casts doubt upon the substance of your convictions.

Shout those evil medievalists down! Throw names, mud, whatever – just make sure you get ‘em good!

Continue reading "A response: (Unborn) Human Rights 101" »

It’s the worst part of being a working journalist. Those times you approach people for their story, when they’ve been through the most terrible time of their lives.

I’d love it if every story was just the opposite. And mostly they are on 60 Minutes. This week I’ve finished writing stories on adorable animals, a very successful businessman, a surprising health advance, and a man who risked his life in a war.

But last week, my focus was on the Keep family who lost their 2 year old daughter, and both her Grandmothers, when their house literally was ripped open in the Grantham flood.

Continue reading "Grantham story was definitely no ambush" »

The dramatic return of 60 Minutes on the weekend raises new questions about so-called “death knocks”.

In the first story, reporter Michael Usher interviews the Keep family, who last month lost baby Jessica and both grandmothers in the Grantham flooding.

The 23-month-old was torn from her pregnant mother’s arms. It is difficult to imagine a greater tragedy.

Continue reading "A fine line between reporting and milking a family’s grief" »

The Jerry Springer of modern philosophy was in good form when he addressed a packed crowd on Wednesday evening in the Great Hall of the University of Sydney.

Peter Singer, now a professor at Princeton University in the US, was back in his native Australia for a visit.

Most philosophers count themselves lucky if their mother appreciates their work. But Singer is regarded - by journalists, at least - as the most influential living philosopher. In fact, at Sydney Uni, he was introduced with the fulsome praise normally reserved for superannuated television stars: “If we had a collection of national living treasures, Peter would certainly stand tall amongst them.”

Continue reading "Peter Singer: the Jerry Springer of philosophy" »

Should we play God?  It’s time we dumped that question.  It only shows how deluded we are about where we’ve already got to.

Playing God is taking over responsibility for the things that once could only be committed to prayer, ritual and trust in the Almighty – the things that couldn’t be controlled, including most things to do with the health of you and those you loved. 

You become responsible for what was just “in God’s hands”.  A hazard of life becomes a risk you accept.  Nowhere is this more obvious than in the matter of starting a family.

Continue reading "Playing God? We already are." »

What is the point of a “non-judgemental” ethics centre? It’s a serious question.

In my naiveté, I had always assumed that the whole point of ethics was to arrive at some sort of judgement about what is right and what is wrong. But take a look at the secular St James Ethics Centre’s website and it would appear I was wrong.

The St James Ethics Centre - headed by Dr Simon Longstaff – bills itself as offering a “non-judgemental forum” to explore ethical issues.
It won’t investigate unethical behaviour. It won’t help you make an ethical financial investment. But the biggest problem is that a “non-judgemental” approach lowers the stakes. It means your standard of ethics can only be judged by whether you are being true to yourself or not.

Continue reading "Who’s teaching the ethics teachers getting their ethics?" »

Anonymous says:

I found out my friend’s husband has been getting nude lap dances when he stays out until 4am. He’s put them on the company credit card and the company found out.

Luckily for him it’s a family company and all they’ve asked is he pays it back. But he has two kids and a mortgage and I’m sure my friend doesn’t know about this at all.

Should I tell my friend? Or do I just clean the mess up when she finds out?

What would you do in this scenario? Add your advice below:

Anonymous says;

“A close friend has been working on her new year’s resolutions to quit smoking (again) and hit the gym.

I feel so bad to say, but I know she can’t do it – as she is very good at failing.

As high spirited as she is, I know she is setting herself up to fail.  I’ve told her to be realistic and set achievable goals. Is it time to tell her to wake up to herself?”

Continue reading "Friday dilemma: the price of friendship" »

NSW is on the brink of introducing ethics teaching into classrooms across the country, but no-one, not even the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, has any notion as to what we will be teaching our children.

The problem with modern day ethics is the lack of unified standards for deciding what is right or wrong.

Worse than this, many educators seek to frame the debate in terms of relativism, which provides the perfect platform for communities and countries to sacrifice basic human rights in the name of concepts such as religion, culture and philosophy.

Continue reading "If we’re going to teach ethics in schools, let’s do it properly" »

Judging by the mardi gras of colourful wraparounds on Mary MacKillop that festooned our newsstands recently, Catholicism is alive and kicking off all that bad publicity about child sex abuse.

The Enlightenment came and went a few hundred years ago, but lots of Australians still believe in virgin births, the resurrection, and miracles. Ex-Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, is among them.

The right to practice religion is quite rightly a cherished freedom in liberal Western democracies. So it’s a little puzzling that some in the Catholic and Anglican church hierarchies are unwilling to extend exactly the same kind of freedom to NSW children who want to learn about secular approaches to ethics.

Continue reading "What about the freedom of the non-religious" »

Many Australian’s are becoming increasingly concerned by unchecked corporate power, a view cemented by the recent mining sector campaign which within just a few months resulted in a sitting Prime Minister being rolled and billions cut from their tax bills.

Nearly fifty years ago, Labor was attacked for being run by “faceless men” when the leadership team of Calwell and Whitlam were photographed peaking through a doorway, waiting for a room of unelected party officials to dictated their policy.

These days it seems a whole new group has claimed the role, wielding a disproportionate influence on the levers of power in Canberra, with both sides of politics appearing beholden to the will of the corporate sector.

Continue reading "Big money still opens big doors to our politicians" »

The current debate over teaching ethics in NSW public schools would test the patience of Job. That phrase won’t make sense to most NSW pupils, and it is for that reason we need more time, not less, for teaching Scripture in our schools.

The Bible is clearly a central text for understanding Western (and not just Western) culture. And yet Bible literacy is in a woeful state, not only among students, but also among teachers and public figures. Recently, on the fabulous ABC TV music quiz show, Spicks and Specks, it took around a dozen pure guesses before any of the six panellists—all cultured people—could identify where a biblical character came from.

I remember super-smart Jewish doctor friends who asked me where in the Bible they could find the story of Noah. And don’t get me started on the biblical illiteracy of the current rock-star atheists, who can hardly tell their Scriptural right hand from their left (that’s from Jonah ch.4 verse 11).

Continue reading "Schools ethics debate is testing the patience of Job" »

The NSW Government is currently trialling Ethics classes for students in year 5 as an alternative to the Religious Education that has been a weekly feature of public education in that state.

In today’s fast paced world, where concepts of right and wrong are increasingly blurred in a stream of You-Tube-anything-goes behaviour, ethics education could be incredibly beneficial.

But the critical question is who determines what is ethical? Do we look at the conduct of public figures to create modern yardsticks of ethical behaviour? Do we look to our political leaders?

Continue reading "Ethics classes for Labor pollies and their appointees" »

Let’s for a moment accept that the majority of parents think that there should be time set aside in primary school years for kids to learn about values.

But what if the only choice parents had was for their child to either learn about one religion’s view of the world, and from that religion’s proselytisers, or to have a ‘dead’, fill-in time, learn nothing, non-class session?

What if the school system, in allocating time for learning stories about values, favoured a religion with a story centred on a God who needed a human sacrifice before He(!) could fully relate to his creatures?

Continue reading "Irreligious but good – ethics classes for heathens" »

A quick flick through some of the side effects of RU-486 makes for sober reading. These range from stomach cramps, through nausea, vomiting to ectopic pregnancies and severe internal bleeding.

Quite clearly, it is a serious drug that should be treated with some caution and strictly only under medical supervision.

If RU-486 weren’t an abortion drug there wouldn’t be any controversy. No-one would question the prosecution of two people for procuring and administering another pharmaceutical with side effects as serious as those of RU-486. But it was never about the drug. It was about access to abortion.

Continue reading "Abortion drugs are dangerous, just think about it" »

It might be a military doctrine best remembered from the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but “shock and awe” could just as easily describe the latest warfare by TV and radio stations in the battle for ratings.

The Austereo network’s Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O have become the most notorious exponents of this tactic on the airwaves in the past few weeks.

But just as in war, even the best laid plans can backfire when they are unleased on the battlefield.

Continue reading "Kyle and Jackie O may have shocked their last jock" »