Confusion with other similarly named educational institutions will occur. There are Sturt primary schools. There is a tertiary Sturt School at Mittagong, in the Southern Highlands some two hours drive from Sydney. This school started in 1941 and is an Australian centre of excellence for contemporary craft and design education, specialising in wood work.

Leave well enough alone. Do not change CSU’s name. Instead apply your intellectual grunt and finance to further improving the quality of your graduates. For the benefit of Australia.

As Voices for Indi met to discuss a possible successor for our local Independent and unaligned MP Cathy McGowan, it is appropriate to consider the way in which true “democracy” should operate, and the ways in which that process may be corrupted by other “interests”.

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Looking around the world as well as at home, this corruption of the public’s will seems to be the rule rather than the exception. In our apparently “free” societies, the manipulation of elections can only take place through media – with spin and smear and false claims; the boundaries between advertising and disinformation are blurred.

It is self evident that true democracy depends on true information, but how can we establish what is true? As it happens, this debate is now thrust into the spotlight in the UK, with the revelation that the UK Foreign Office has been funding a project called the “Integrity Initiative” that it claims is to counter “Russian disinformation” in the “defence of democracy”.

But hacked documents have revealed networks of agents and journalists around Europe actively undermining democratic processes by feeding disinformation into social media, to counter the true information coming from Russia and her allies about NATO’s covert operations, including the “Novichok” poisoning in Salisbury. As Churchill famously said – “the truth is so precious (or dangerous) she must be protected by a bodyguard of lies.”

I was interested to read recently some comments made by American vice-president, Mike Pence. He said "Prayer is the pathway to heal our country. I believe, as every President from George Washington forward believed, in the role of providence in the life of this nation. I really do believe the prayers of the American people have made a difference.” I think the same could be said for Australia. What would happen if all over Australia, those of us who believe in Almighty God, would daily pray for Australia. As a New Year's resolution why don't we try it and find out? 

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