Russell’s 25th

Thank you so much for all coming!

CafePraxis how many lattes is too many?

Hi Guys
I have been asked about being on some panels and running cafepraxis at UNOH’s Surrender in July 18-20, 2008 at Belgrave Heights. (BTW- UNOH=urban neighbours of hope)

But I wonder how many events do we want to run the cafe at this year? Here is a possible list.

• Grassroots (sacred space, cafe & workshops/action) - April
• SYG (Urban Seed’s sacred space, cafe & biblestudy/chat) - June
• Surrender(cafe venue & action info, part of the panels), - July
• Praxis08 (so wee have good coffee at our gathering ) - Sept
• maybe a venue at NCYC09???maybe not? (Cafe space and panels????) - Jan

Is this too many places. It feels like a lot. I want it to be a fun and different way to chat about justice and discipleship and not a pain for volunteers.

Other motivation is that profits go into our praxis08 gathering to help people afford it.

Ideas? Thoughts?

Bashing up the kitchen.

Pretty self explanatory, but will explain anyway.
Mum and Dad Skilton are getting a new kitchen and on this Saturday (after they had already pulled up the flooring and taken the upper joinery off the walls, and the tiles) we cleaned out the rest of the kitchen ready for the instillation.
Will keep you updated when new kitchen is in.

FOE Action on climate refugees

Friends of the Earth (FOE) are calling for citizens to participate in their cyber action on climate refugees. One of the serious impacts of climate change is rising sea levels which will displace many people in low-lying Pacific island nations. FOE is asking you to sign their electronic petition calling on the Foreign Affairs Minister, Stephen Smith, to implement the ALP’s policy on climate refugees. To find out more and to sign this petition, click here

Aid budget in a nutshell

(From Ben - keep checking out the feed bar here at morepraxis or his blog to hear more from Ben about the budget) 

The budget has been handed down – an expression, incidentally, that I love. It’s a bit Charlton Heston as Moses in The Ten Commandments really. Well, if Moses had begun each commandment with “Mister Speaker, in order to support working families…”

I’ll leave it for others to opine on how Swan and/or the Rudd Government have passed their “first big test” with the budget overall. I don’t do tax cuts or infrastructure funds or baby bonuses, just the aid budget… In a nutshell:

• Aid increases to $3.66 billion in 2008/09 – up $505 million from the 2007/08 budget (an increase of 9% in real terms)
• $238 million of this increase is accounted for by the Government cancelling the final tranche of debt owed to us by Iraq
• So, not counting Iraq debt, the real increase is 4.9% on last year’s budget
• Aid will reach 0.32% of Gross National Income (a level it was last at in 1995/96) – up from 0.3% GNI last year, but still less than half the internationally-agreed aid target of 0.7% GNI Australia has committed to
• The budget begins to deliver on the Government’s pre-election commitments to increase funding to water and sanitation ($300 million over 3 years), eliminating avoidable blindness in the region ($45 million over 2 years), and establishing Pacific partnerships for development ($127 million over 4 years for a regional infrastructure facility and $54 million over 4 years for a Pacific Land Program to address land reform challenges)
• There are some further, modest increases in funding for UN agencies and other multilateral bodies

continue reading “It’s an aid budget - the headlines

Only Christian group to make a submission

Only Christian group to make a submission

The Justice & International Mission Unit was the only Christian group to make a submission to ‘The Impact of Voluntary Student Unionism on Services, Amenities and Representation for Australian University Students’ inquiry. [Read more]

International law from conservative commentators

Not sure if people saw this great post from Ben down in the feeds

Gerard Henderson goes all populist in his rant denying that past Australian Government policy and actions towards Indigenous Australians might ever have amounted to genocide. Because the “person on the street” understands genocide as mass murder, and because mass murder didn’t take place, therefore Australian Governments can’t possibly have committed genocide against Indigenous Australians.

He knows, of course, but glibly dismisses – “legalisms and academic debates aside” – that the real definition of genocide in international law is something quite different.

Genocide is the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, through acts including murder, inflicting life conditions calculated to bring about physical destruction of the group, preventing births within the group, and forcibly transferring children away from the group. continue reading over at Ben’s

Frankfurt

Neva and Daniel just got a little tiny doggy ... long little tiny doggy.
Now Stanley and Frank can grow old together. Good luck to Frank and I know he enjoys being part of the family already.

More photo’s here.

Hobart, Tasmania

Some of you may know that I have been traveling to Hobart for a bit of work lately. The last time I travelled down there I actually managed to stay a couple of days extra and Russell came to join me. We were there for just 2 days and had heaps of coffee time, walking and plenty of chatting to plan our lives away.

Commonwealth Government provides $4 million to No SweatShop label

By Antony McMullen
Social Justice Officer
Justice and International Mission Unit
Synod of Victoria and Tasmania

“One group said they were paid $2.50 for a detailed shirt which took one hour to sew. Another group said they were paid between $2 and $3 an hour. When asked about hours worked, most indicated that they often went weeks without a job but when the work was available they worked long hours.”

– Ethical Threads, report by Brotherhood of St Laurence (2007) on Australian Homeworkers [Read more]

Next Page »