Robyn Dunphy
Is Russell Crowe a Kiwi or a Kangaroo?
Many people think of Russell Crowe as an Australian. Most know he was born in my homeland, New Zealand, but assume he is now an Australian. Russell is not an Australian. I discovered this last night and have to say I got a bit of a shock. Not that he isn’t a citizen: after all […]
Malcolm Fraser has called for a Royal Commission
Malcolm Fraser has called for a Royal Commission into “Australia’s management of offshore asylum seeker processing”: in other words, a Royal Commission into the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship. I hope he is successful and that many voices join his. This article is my way of saying, “Yes, I support Malcolm’s call”. The Royal […]
So now we dump people on third world countries
Papua New Guinea. What is the definition of a third world country? A friend of mine, who has a different view to my view on the question of asylum seekers, pronounced today that third world, as a definition, is a cold war construct. Had anyone else said this, I would have simply suggested they get their arse […]
Did you know tampons are more dangerous than guns now?
Did you know tampons are more dangerous than guns now? That is according to the great state of Texas, anyway. I have two daughters who have come to the western world from a patriarchal society not entirely unknown for corruption. Somehow I have to find a way to explain to my daughters that the most […]
Does our Prime Minister need diversity training?
During lunch today I glanced at Twitter and noticed an exchange between @Msloulou77 and @RedRoverSays, which I responded to:
The Return to Rudd: a turn for the worse on asylum seeker policy?
Originally posted on Castan Centre for Human Rights Law :
The night of Wednesday 26th of June was full of surprises. We got an old/new Prime Minister in Kevin Rudd, found out that our first female Prime Minister was quitting politics, and learned what the Foreign Minister Bob Carr thinks of refugees and our international obligations…
So you are a writer, right?
I don’t care what sort of writer you are: author of books, scriptwriter, journalist, columnist or blogger. You write. The question is, do you backup your work? My day job, for those who don’t already know, is in the field of IT – Information Technology to the uninitiated. Let me tell you what happened to […]
A tribute by a loving sister to her brother
We see people in the media and we have a tendency to think they have perfect lives: when we see them they always look perfect: perfect make-up, perfect hair, perfect clothes, perfect shoes. We imagine them having perfect homes and perfect cars and perfect everything else. Sometimes we envy them – all those glossy magazines […]
Rape as a political tool
I shared a link on Twitter to an article in The Age today: Five men rape journalist, 22, in Tahrir Square: reports. A couple of paragraphs towards the end of the article particularly caught my eye: Although sexual harassment is not new to Egypt, suspicions abound that many of the recent attacks are organised by […]
Motherhood, sexism, feminism, rap and the whole damn thing
Last week, as an afterthought, I popped this short statement at the end of Feminism can be frivolous fun: A parental afterthought – please stop calling each other “bitches”. You are just popularising the images from rap songs which glorify mistreatment of women. Parents battle to teach their sons to respect women and this undermines all […]
Random Observations of Life 