How we treat our elderly is a measure of our true worth and moral integrity as a community.  

I was privileged to attend the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety’s first Victorian community consultation in Bendigo this week.

It took me a while to realise that people mostly assume your actions are all about you.

The assumption is that a person’s motives are basically self-interested.

I recall dining in a small town called Lititz, in rural Pennsylvania. After a particularly good meal and great service, I left a very large tip on the table for our waitress to find after we’d left.

I walked away hoping it would make her day.

But when my travel companion saw it, I was loudly accused of trying to boost my own ego.

“Professor Peterson has really helped me rediscover meaning. He’s been like pastor Peterson to me.”

Marcus is a young man in his mid-30s, sitting next to me at Dr Jordan Peterson’s sold out Sydney lecture. Like the scores of others present – many of them young men – he has paid a handsome fee and battled Sydney’s congestion to be here.

And he’s keen. Really keen.

Rebecca DiGirolamo’s article in the Sunday Mail revealed why Tammy Franks’ Abortion Law Reform Bill must be rejected.

Her excellent summary of the laws in all other jurisdictions shows that the Bill proposed by MP Tammy Franks and the Greens will be the most extreme in Australia. DiGirolamo accurately said the bill would “remove legal gestation limits (read abortion up to and including birth) for termination and remove the two-practitioner rule.”

I wonder what Pilate’s tone of voice was as he asked Jesus that famous question.

Sarcastic? Pensive? Scoffing?

Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away;
for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter.
Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.
The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice.
He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intercede… 
[Isaiah 59:14-16a]

One year ago – almost exactly – I read this scripture. I was days away from starting my new job as ACL Managing Director.

Isaiah’s prophecy diagnoses many cultural maladies in his day. All of them are increasingly relevant to our times.

This one hits the bullseye.

Let me be the first to engage in some bigoted quackery and talk conversion.

That is to quote Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, who has announced plans to ban so-called ‘LGBT conversion therapy.’

Late in 2017 I travelled through Germany. It was the 500^th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.

The occasion made the sadness of what I observed more poignant.

The people who walked in darkness
  have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
  on them has light shone...

Stop Adani. Keep coal in the ground. 100% renewable energy by 2030.

Those are the demands of School Strike 4 Climate Action, a movement of 5-18-year-old students who have been walking out of school in their thousands in the name of “climate justice.”