Suchergebnisse

This essay addresses the silences and soundings of Rebecca Belmore's (Anishinaabe) and Julie Nagam's (Anishinaabe/Métis/German/Syrian) sound art, which reflects their environmentalism and profound commitment to Indigenous ways of knowing, making, and listening. Working at the intersection of sound art and politics, the two perform sonic interventions into settler colonial spaces—the National Parks system and the gallery, respectively. Belmore's Wave Sound (2017) and Nagam's Our future is in the land: If we listen to it (2017) illustrate how their sound art gravitates toward the ecological and considers what healthy and unhealthy relationships between humans and the nonhuman world—plants, animals, resources—sound like. Belmore and Nagam introduce marginalized perspectives and voices to address the problematic authority of whiteness that conspicuously dominates the discourse on music, sound, and environment—a relatively homogenous and exclusionary artistic, technological, and scientific discussion.

In this Journal, Rachel Kunde shared her experiences as an altruistic surrogate, advocating for greater government support for surrogate mothers. Based on her own experience, her argument suggests that recognising women's bodily autonomy is a central consideration in liberalising the regulation of surrogacy. Importantly, she argues that surrogacy arrangements need not impair the dignity of the surrogate mother. In particular, her advocacy appears to presuppose reproductive rights both in the intending parents to found a family, and for the surrogate to bear a child. This article responds to Kunde. While celebrating Kunde's contribution to the discourse through her personal narrative, it takes a broader approach to the question of regulation. This article first addresses the question of rights for each of the intending parents and the surrogate mother, suggesting that even if reproductive rights have some standing at law, they are not of themselves sufficient to justify liberalisation of altruistic surrogacy. Instead, it argues for a relational approach to regulation, looking beyond the individualised rights-based experience to that of national, and indeed global, relationships. Central to this argument is articulating dignity and autonomy as the principal values at stake.

[Extract] Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) have challenged our thinking around what it means to be human. Associated with this is the dignity and humanity in a decision to become a parent, and how our genetic material is to be used. On the one hand we might claim a "reproductive right" as an expression of our personal autonomy and control over our bodies. On the other hand, we may call for reproductive justice – an idea that seeks to balance a complex matrix of competing claims for dignity of personhood. These claims may involve men and women as donors of gametes, women who carry a child to term, and the child themselves. ART is regulated by legislation in every Australian state, and under Commonwealth law and policy. While a willing donation of sperm or ova to conceive a child may seem to promote personal autonomy, there are many ways in which human dignity can potentially be compromised through use of ART. This starts with how we understand control or "ownership" of gametes themselves, through to our right to be a parent, or to contribute to reproduction when we ourselves do not wish to be a parent.

[Extract] On 19 March, the Queensland Attorney-General, Jarrod Bleijie, introduced the Crime and Misconduct and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2014 to Parliament. The Bill is designed to respond to two inquiries into the working of Queensland's Crime and Misconduct Commission. The Bill has been roundly criticised - not least by Tony Fitzgerald QC, who has described it as 'a gross abuse of power'. In this post however, I will examine the legitimacy of a lower profile change proposed by the Bill: the renaming of the head of the CMC from 'chairperson' to 'chairman'.

The Commonwealth government continues to demonstrate its expertise in Orwellian turns of phrase. Law reform initiatives have seen the government call for submissions on 'traditional' freedoms while passing a tranche of laws that challenge rights to due process and the protection of the law. The Migration Amendment (Protecting Babies Born in Australia) Bill 2014 for example, rather than protecting babies, removes protection for babies born in Australia to asylum seekers, that would otherwise be available under the Refugee Convention. The Guardian for Unaccompanied Children Bill 2014 appoints a guardian for unaccompanied non-citizen children. The Bill is a 'measure to assist Australia to meet its obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child'. The Orwellian twist is that the Bill is intended to apply to all children held in immigration detention, found by the Human Rights Commission to be contrary to human rights.

[Extract] The Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, again today finds himself the subject of attention following comments on a morning TV show. Asked for his greatest achievement yet as the Minister for Women, the PM said that it was 'repealing the carbon tax'. He went on to say: 'As many of us know, women are particularly focused on the household budget and the repeal of the carbon tax means a $550 a year benefit for the average family.' Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who herself does not view the world through the 'prism of gender', defended the PM by saying 'women's policy is everyone's policy'. She is of course correct. We would all benefit from advancing women's interests, giving substance to formal equality, ending feminised poverty and violence against women. Except that there is one thing remarkably absent from the PM's statement and indeed the government's own policies. And that is women themselves. The PM's statement is a clear statement of the government view that equates women's economic standing with that of the household. This is incorrect and reinforces women's dependence at a structural level.

[Extract] I saw somewhere online today a criticism that the majority of Australians receive government benefits. This was presented as a means of criticising those who do as 'leaners', pointing out that a minority of Australians are 'lifters'. Interestingly, the comment aggregated those on government 'benefits' and those who received their income from government jobs (ie public servants). I suspect that by government benefits, the author meant both welfare as well as tax concessions. The argument, presumably, is one for smaller government and the promotion of do-it-yourself wealth. This kind of discourse tends to categorise those on 'benefits' as lazy and the public service as a bloated and unnecessary workforce. In this post I point out why this is a lazy dichotomy that supports not an economic view but an ideological one. While I have written before about the subtext of 'lifters and leaners', here I use the very interesting and seminal work of Charles Reich from 1964, The New Property.

[Extract] Friday saw the announcement that the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority ('GBRMPA') had approved dumping of dredging spoil within the boundaries of the marine park. This followed the Commonwealth's go-ahead for the construction of the world's biggest coal terminal at Abbot Point, off Bowen, to facilitate mining in Queensland's coal-rich Bowen Basin. The decisions were made in the context of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act which, under s2A (1) apparently aims to: provide for the long term protection and conservation of the environment, biodiversity, and heritage values of the Great Barrier Reef Region. Despite the Minister's assurances that the decisions have been made based on 'the science' and the dumping will be subject to rigorous conditions, the very fact of the decisions by both the Commonwealth government and GBRMPA call into question the real intent of the Act.