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Every day, right across Victoria, young people from refugee and newly-arrived migrant backgrounds are quietly making wonderful contributions to their communities. It is unfortunate then, that our attentions are often afforded to incidents like the gang violence seen in Melbourne's CBD last month.

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Deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents are largely preventable. Road safety is no accident. The developed world has shown that through a combination of funding, legislation, and education, these horrifying figures can be reduced.

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How is it possible that 10 percent of high school students report having no sex education at school? Worse still, of those high school students who did receive some form of school-based sex education, 50 percent report being 'significantly dissatisfied', citing irrelevance to their real lived experiences.

Constance Hall

Sitting here being amazing I started to think my relationship with my body. I haven't always known how to love it. In my younger years I actually used to throw up after eating.

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Too many of the top .1 of the one percent, who already have every advantage over everyone else in the world, have become so greedy and so utterly amoral that they are fundamentally eroding our society's democracy, government and sense of morality.

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Despite the success of renewable energy, the reality is that current Government policy in Victoria isn't going to make this transition happen any time soon. Until we have a serious plan to eliminate coal from our electricity system, there's little hope for large-scale renewables taking off in Victoria.

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Not only do I completely reject the idea of LGBT kids trying to physically do violence upon their bullies, the idea that violence is somehow "conditioning" for harder knocks in life further perpetuates this ham-fisted Antipodean belief that if you're given "the bash", it's your duty to bash back.

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Maybe you didn't quit that stressful job, buy the boat, and sail away into the sunset. But maybe, while your bucket list was shoved unwillingly aside, you ended up doing the very things you were meant to do. The things that shaped who you are and how you affected the other people in your life.

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When I tell people I visited Kabul for eight days, the reaction tends to be pretty stock standard. Eyebrows raise, bottom lips drop, a small noise of surprise is made. They probably envision me standing around in the blood and chaos of a war zone. But it wasn't like that at all.

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Ask anyone what they enjoy most about work, and there's a good chance it won't be emails. In the conversations I've had with many clients, emails (along with crappy meetings) are consistently identified as the biggest thing that gets in the way of great work.

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Let's have a chat about our health. It's a topic we guys tend to shy away from. But the time to make some positive changes to our diet and lifestyle is now. Our hearts depend on it.

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Even though I've always made a point to talk to all three of my kids about my work at the Gates Foundation and my commitment to advocating for women and girls, this conversation felt special. Jenn asked great questions, touching on everything from my experience balancing work and being a mom to whether I'd ever treated my son Rory differently than my daughters.

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The Government has repeatedly ridden roughshod over motions carried by Senate majority whenever it hasn't suited the LNP's political agenda.

I subscribe to the old theory that if you really want to know what's going on in our United States -- if you want to understand the hearts and minds of a large segment of America at any given moment -- listen to country music and you'll know.

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The judges approach my cake at the bake off and are immediately impressed by the presentation, not to mention my schmaltzy story about discovering a heart-shaped cake tin in my grandmother's kitchen.

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I implore airlines to implement a zero-tolerance policy on backdoor belches, with ejector seats activated for passengers who play the trouser tuba, not to mention use corny fart euphemisms.

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He shouldered that heavy burden for all of us. He unintentionally started a discussion we didn't know we were ready to have. He's made all of us have a think about what sort of behavior it is as Australians we're willing to accept and what we're not. He's made people who have been sitting on the fence for 200 years choose a side, racism or reconciliation.