OK, so people know what social justice is, but one suggestion simply replaced one slogan by another: a fair go for all. What is a fair go? How would you achieve it in practice? Why do you think what you propose is fair? Fair to whom? Why them? And so on.

Just try a little policy implementation, and not just chant. See how far you can get.

Social justice used to be about equal opportunity.

Now Social justice is about equal outcomes whether one is smart or as thick as soup, hardworking or lazy, etc.

There are no free passes in life.

ttbn using one example from that doyen of (no) credibility, A Current Affair, as some sort of evidence to back up the as usual non-existent argument. Priceless.

Don asks a very relevant question: what do we, each of us, mean by social justice ? Of course, it relates to ongoing discussions about what our values might be, or what values do we prefer.

Maybe we could try this from a different angle: what values do we oppose, feel disgust for, wouldn't have a bar of ? What constitutes a lack or denial of social justice ? What would we consider UNjust ?

Of course, surely (?), the mistreatment or confinement of children or women or the elderly or gays etc. would be something that Australians generally would oppose ? Why's that ? Because we are appalled when people, otherwise defenceless, get mistreated. Isn't that part of our notion of social justice ? Part of our value system ?

We generally believe that, on the whole, everybody should have more or less equal opportunity to achieve, to do something with their (one and only) lives, that barriers shouldn't be put in their way ? Usually for some of the same groups as above ? Don't our notions of fairness relate closely with our underlying beliefs in social equality ?

Generally, Australians oppose the silencing of opinion, and the threat against anybody expressing themselves. Doesn't this say something about how we value an open society, open discussion, a belief that teasing out issues is healthy and, probably, can't be suppressed in any case ?

Of course, one Australian 'value' is reticence: an unwillingness to have to spell out what our values actually are, although we are all quick to condemn something vile like the Manchester murders - perhaps because we take our values so much for granted, in ourselves and in each other, that it's sort of offensive to have to remind anybody of what we think are right and wrong, as if they're idiots.

In other words, we know what we like, even if we can't put it into nice-flowing prose. But probably we need to make the implicit, explicit.

Thanks for raising this issue, Don. This is its time.

Joe