The problems with 'social capital', by Christopher Scanlon in The Age, in the distant past.

"...even those who are sympathetic to the idea of promoting social bonds as a way of improving health admit that they do not know why joining your local bird-watching society lessens your susceptibility to disease."

Today, Woodpecker Thought to Be Extinct Is Sighted in Arkansas, and what is almost equally joyful, Victorian Labor strikes a blow for social justice - $780m plan to fight disadvantage.

Is it a coincidence that Carmen Lawrence is fronting the latest Damning Labor verdict on the party? She has, out of decency, not 'given a thought' to return to the front bench. Hmmm.

From the ABC

Malcom Frazer talks:

"The Government has avowedly pursued policies which deny access to the law to increasingly large groups of people. Such people include Indigenous Australians, asylum seekers and refugees, people in Immigration Department detention centres, writes former prime minister Malcolm Fraser who is addressing a Human Rights Education conference at the University of Melbourne.

Discrimination and defamation against Muslims has been rising dramatically. We have forgotten that discrimination, once it starts, spreads. This situation is already leading to increased discrimination against Jews. It will spread from minority to minority.

Governments in many places, including Australia, have played on the politics of fear and unfortunately and more tragically on the politics of division.

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read more on the link Malcom Frazer ... 

from the ABC

Senior Opposition frontbencher Christopher Pyne has taken aim at former prime minister Malcolm Fraser's decision to quit the Liberal Party, describing his criticisms as "wrong".

The Financial Review newspaper says Mr Fraser quit in December, shortly after Tony Abbott replaced Malcolm Turnbull as Liberal leader, because he believed the party was becoming too conservative.

Mr Fraser has previously criticised the party for becoming one of "fear and reaction" and says it is now unrecognisable as the party he joined more than 50 years ago. The former prime minister has also been a vocal critic of the Coalition's border protection policies.

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Malcolm Fraser has more guts and ethics than the Abbott lying cronies such as Pyne and Robb and all others... Pity that people like Joe Hockey have lost their "souls" to the Liberal party devil... Good on Malcolm Fraser...

from the Age/SMH, Alexandra Patrikios, Victorian state director of the Left Right Think Tank, a non-partisan organisation that aims to involve young people in public debate.

...

Democracy, my patriotic father reminds me, was born in Greece. Subversively, I remind him, so was the word "idiot" — originally referring to the dull-witted individual who fails to cast an informed vote.

As I prepare to take part in the democratic rite of citizenship for the first time, I get the feeling it's with the latter term that I'll be honouring my heritage.

But with Malcolm at my side, at least I'm not alone.

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read more at the SMH. May be Alexandra Patrikios should read more of this site here as well...