Here's how a 15-year-old West Australian girl described a sexual encounter she had with three boys at a party after too much drink: "It felt really good at the time but afterwards I felt cheated and used."

The Mother's Day press release was cloying. The innovation it heralds is unnecessary at best and, at worst, a sexist menace.

An Open Letter to the Greens and Senator Nick Xenophon on Australia's Emissions Trading System

As H1N1 influenza continues to spread across the world, we ask: how Australia would cope if it were hit right now by a pandemic, bio-terror attack or other large-scale disaster?

Should pregnant women smoke? OK, that's a no-brainer but here's a harder one. When pregnant women do smoke, what should we do about it?

Tuned into the boat-people debate this week? If yes, you'll know that the stress and disagreement that has long characterized the debate about migration is over. We all agree now that it's the people-smugglers we love to hate. People smugglers, the PM said, are "the absolute scum of the earth."

A kindler, gentler divorce may be a contradiction in terms, but the means to achieve it has arrived in Australia. Just a few weeks ago at a conference in Sydney, a group of good-hearted, specially trained lawyers met to discuss the ways a marriage in this country could be dissolved using a process called collaborative family law.

Something is happening to conservative political parties in Australia and overseas. Left-of-centre parties have gained power in the UK, US and Australia by advocating agendas far more centre than they are left. This has left the conservative side of politics floundering, unsure if they should stay the course or contest the middle ground by bringing their policies into line with voters who want greater regulation of the market and less government intrusion into their personal affairs. In Australia, centrist Labor governments are in government Federally and in every state except Western Australia. However, this may change with moderate Opposition leaders in both NSW and Victoria seen to have a chance next time voters go to the polls.

Australia has come a long way-some might say the wrong way-when the Education Minister dismisses debates about equity in school funding as a diversion from what she laughably calls Federal Labor's broad and deep reform agenda.

Australian publishing is a success story. In contrast to the uneven product of the heavily subsidized film industry, publishing continues to go from strength to strength. Around 45% of general audience books sold in Australia have been published here, and 40% of the top 5000 trade books have Australian authors. Not bad for an island at what Former PM Paul Keating reportedly described as the universe's arse-end.

Fond of kiddy-fiddlers? A friend of the porn industry? You must be, if you oppose a mandatory filter on the net. Or so says Senator Stephen Conroy and his allies in the Christian Right and Authoritarian Left.

The rugby and footy season have begun. I know, because allegations of sexual violence are in the news.

I was centimeters away from death or serious injury. Millimeters, even. The woman in the car hadn't meant any harm. She had only just parked and was now hurrying on her way, probably wondering if she had enough coins in her wallet for the meter, if the space she'd just backed into was truly legal, and if she still had time to avoid being late.

We expect a lot of our media. Not more than we should, but a decent amount, often without either acknowledging the importance of a free press to democracy, or the structural factors that can get in the way of well-meaning journalists doing the right thing.

Jill Stark interviewed Leslie for her article in the Age.

It wasn't true then, and it still isn't now. In fact, it's a big, fat porky pie. I'm talking about women's rights and the scary potential that, however flaccidly they are enshrined in law now, things are about to get worse.

Philosophers struggle to define love, little less explain it in ways we all crave. Ways that allow us to find and to nurture it, so as we journey through life-with the same lover or someone different-it will continue to flourish.

For Labor, the problem seems grim. Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith can either follow the lead of the Obama administration in lifting Australia's version of the global gag rule, or ensure we remain the only country in the world that limits its foreign aid in this way.

British and American parents are about to get it, and Australian parents may want it too. Electronic babysitting, using a hard-to-remove wristwatch device with a GPS chip, is coming to a retail and online outlets soon. Want your tubby daughter to walk to primary school, but need assurance she's arrived safely? Have reason to doubt your year 9 son's insistence he is spending Saturday night at a friend's house? Child location devices offer peace of mind to any parent with a mobile phone or computer.

In the wake of the passage of the Abortion Law Reform Bill here in Victoria late in 2008, Elizabeth Kehoe sent me this beautiful tribute.

This summer, Norway has quietly joined Sweden in outlawing paid sex. Men who have sex with prostitutes working in brothels or on the street face hefty fines or six months in gaol, while the women involved will be offered assistance to exit the industry. "We want to send a clear message to men that buying sex is unacceptable," said the Norwegian Justice Minister, echoing the sentiments of Swedish detective Kajsa Wahlberg. "We don't have a problem with prostitutes. We have a problem with men who buy sex."

A while back a reader-let's call her Sharon-contacted me for help. Her story was confusing and hard to follow, so she directed me a website she had set up to publicise her cause. She also sent me some documents, which I committed to read with the view, if I could possibly make it work, of writing a column on her case. I wanted to help.

On Tuesday, Crikey broke a story about conservative magazine Quadrant's publication of an essay on scientific criticism by Sharon Gould. Gould is described as having a PhD in Applied Science (biotechnology) and being employed as a biotechnology informatics consultant.

Ethical talk about the dead usually focuses on rights. The rights of the dead to have their last wishes carried out, and their bodies treated with respect.

Tune out or wise up. Late December and January is the season for think-tanks and institutes. The time where the lack of action on the government and university fronts leaves a hole in the news agenda that third-party mouthpieces for political, industrial or religious interests are more than happy to fill.

It's that time of the year again. No matter what we believe or commemorate, December offers most of us a few days off work. A chance to reflect on what really matters in our complex, crowded lives, and how it can be nurtured so more will grow.

Defenders of torture are fond of the ticking bomb scenario. It describes a terrorist who has planted bombs around a city that are set to blow, but who refuses to tell authorities where they are. The implicit claim of the scenario is clear. That in some cases, in particular where lives are at stake and time is running short, torture may be justified.

How much do you know about your genes? Does your genetic profile match that of a sprinter, or is it more like an endurance athlete? Are you lactose intolerant, malaria resistant, possessed of wet or dry ear wax or at an increased risk, compared to others with similar ancestry, of breast cancer, Crohn's or Parkinson's disease?

For years, we've been tied up in knots, unsure how to protect the rights of women in male-dominated religions and cultures.

Leslie discusses the recent decriminalisation of abortion in Victoria in an article by Stephen de Tarczynski on the Inter Press Service News Agency

There were a lot of contenders for this week's column. The inevitable arrival of paid maternity leave on the list of scuttled government initiatives because of the global economic crisis was one. Minister Stephen Conroy's decision to capitulate to the demands of the religious right and censor everyone's internet access was another. And there's a piece inside me just screaming to get out about what former government leaders must really think about the quality of reporting on the ABC given their decision to participate in The Howard Years, the first episode of which screened on ABC TV this week.

Catch Leslie and a whole range of diverse families in this new educational DVD by the Victoria Educational Association. More information about this resource might be available on their website http://www.vea.com.au/. Or contact vea@vea.com.au.

The Bali Bombers are dead. When news of the executions came over the wireless I found it hard to shed tears. These men were murderers and tears are evidence of compassion. My opposition to the death penalty is motivated by more principled and practical concerns.

Catastrophic climate change is the moral issue of our time. If we flub it, it is our children who will be denied their most basic inheritance - a habitable and sustaining planet.

Hear Leslie and medical doctor Brigid Mckenna, the policy officer for the Sydney Catholic archdiocese's Life, Marriage and Family Centre on SBS World View Forum.

This week, in a rare moment of bi-partisanship, the Federal Government and Opposition joined forces to reject Speaker Harry Jenkins's call for a debate on whether the Lord's Prayer should continue to be said at the start of each parliamentary day.

In an article in the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, academic lawyer Kate Gleeson takes Leslie to task for comments she made on radio regarding the importance of reforming Victoria's abortion law. In this article, in the same edition of the Journal of Bioethical inquiry, Leslie replies to Gleeson's criticisms.

In Australia, men's mobilisation around paternity fraud has led to numerous father-favouring changes to family law. Despite this, feminists have been slow to interrogate discrepant paternity discourse. In this paper, I analyse and respond to the empirical and normative assertions contained in the paternity fraud charge.