According to the SMH version of a Smith Family report on opportunity in Australia, ‘some degree of intergenerational mobility exists’.

Actually, it shows that quite a lot of integenerational mobility exists.

Consider this figure from the report showing the occupations of persons aged 30-44 in 2008 (my generation, just) compared to the occupation of their father when the child was 14 (mother where father not present). Except for managers and professionals, most children are in a different occupational category to their father.

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The Victorian government has introduced legislation unwinding Labor changes to anti-discrimination law. Among the items proposed to be repealed is a law that would have required religious organisations not to discriminate against people whose lifestyles or beliefs were contrary to those mandated by a religion. A Jakob Quilligan wrote to his local Liberal MP objecting to the change, as reported in the Sunday Age:

It is absurd that a government would excuse or pardon one groups’ discrimination against others just because it was done of the basis of their particular spiritual beliefs.

Quilligan, who is gay, thinks that he may be discriminated against by a religious employer.

While I share Quilligan’s assumption that religious objections to homosexuality are misguided, I do not share his opposition to these amendments. What is needed is some mutual toleration. As Jonathan Rauch argued recently, Read the rest of this entry »