John Menadue ‘Our democracy is decaying from within‘, Pearls & Irritations, 16 September 2021 Former senior public servant and businessman calls for a summit of community leaders to help chart democratic renewal. With the loss of trust in our political…

Amy McQuire ‘If your child asks why Australia is celebrating a day of invasion, what will you tell them?‘, Guardian Australia, 26 January 2021 First Nations children are silenced even though the most brutal acts of colonisation were perpetrated and…

Doug Morrissey Ned Kelly: The Stringybark Creek Police Murders, Connor Court Publishing, Brisbane, 2020 Doug Morrissey presents the definitive account of the Stringybark Creek Police Murders. The ambush murder of three policemen at Stringybark Creek in October 1878 was Ned…

Frank Bongiorno ‘An obedient nation of larrikins: why Victorians are not revolting‘, The Conversation, 10 September 2020 Update 21 September 2020: Dave Milner in The Shot newsletter on the low-key Melburnian cope. Speculates about what (mostly supportive) Victorian attitudes to…

Celeste Liddle ‘Seeing the con in reconciliation‘, Eureka Street, 28 May 2020 Arrernte feminist writer on the annual disappointment of Reconciliation Week, which began on 27 May. Comments section is strong also. We don’t have ‘land rights’ [says Liddle], just…

Michelle Arrow The Seventies: The Personal, the Political and the Making of Modern Australia, NewSouth, Sydney, 2019; electronic version available In 1970 homosexuality was illegal, God Save the Queen was our national anthem and women pretended to be married to access the…

Paul Daley ‘As the toll of Australia’s frontier brutality keeps climbing, truth telling is long overdue‘, Guardian Australia, 4 March 2019 updated Major article on our continuing neglect of killings of Indigenous Australians from 1788 till at least 1928. Examines…

Shaun Crowe Whitlam’s Children: Labor and the Greens in Australia, MUP Academic, Melbourne, 2018; electronic version available Over the past three decades, progressive politics in Australia has undergone a gradual but unmistakable transformation. Where the Australian Labor Party once enjoyed…

Denise George Mary Lee: The Life and Times of a “Turbulent Anarchist” and Her Battle for Women’s Rights, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2018 Suffragist and social justice advocate Mary Lee was determined to leave the world a better place than she…

Frank Byrne with Frances Coughlan and Gerard Waterford Living in Hope, Ptilotus Press, Alice Springs, 2017 A memoir of boyhood by a man who was removed as a child – from country, from culture and language, from family, from his…

Jane Lydon & Lyndall Ryan, ed. Remembering the Myall Creek Massacre, NewSouth, Sydney, 2018; electronic version available The 1838 Myall Creek Massacre is remembered for the brutality of the crime committed by white settlers against innocent Aboriginal men, women and…

Shireen Morris ‘The Uluru Statement from the Heart: why I have hope‘, Legal Affairs (University of Melbourne), 19 July 2018 The Uluru Statement created a massive political opportunity that is not going away. The opportunity remains alive and growing –…

Julianne Schultz & Sandra Phillips, ed. Griffith Review 60: First Things First, April 2018 After more than two hundred years of largely unresolved disputes, Australia needs to hear the voices of Australia’s First Nations – and act on them. First…

Gemmia Burden ‘The violent collectors who gathered Indigenous artefacts for the Queensland Museum‘, The Conversation, 28 May 2018 Detailed examination of the links between frontier violence and museum collecting. While there is no evidence of the museum being directly involved…

Sue Taffe A White Hot Flame: Mary Montgomerie Bennett – Author, Educator, Activist for Indigenous Justice, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2018 Mary Montgomerie Bennett (1881–1961) is an important but under-recognised figure in Australian history. A member of a successful squatting…

Anita Heiss, ed. Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia, Black Inc., Melbourne, 2018 What is it like to grow up Aboriginal in Australia? This anthology, compiled by award-winning author Anita Heiss, showcases many diverse voices, experiences and stories in order to…

Paul Daley ‘Uluru, reconciliation and republic: a chance to reimagine Australia?‘ Guardian Australia, 4 April 2018 There is an awakening among constitutional progressives that perhaps the Australian republic ought not be so divorced from the cry out of Uluru last…

Marija Taflaga ‘The end of the era of mass politics?‘, Inside Story, 26 February 2018 Historical look at the trajectory of the major parties in Australia. Healthy or not, our parties are here to stay. The combination of the preferential…

Jack Latimore ‘The stolen generations apology anniversary should stand as a day of shame‘, Guardian Australia, 13 February 2018 The difficulty and reluctance in recognising the way this intergenerational trauma impacts upon the lives of First Nations people says a…

Bain Attwood The Good Country: The Djadja Wurrung, the Settlers and the Protectors, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2017 A local history of the Djadja Wurrung people of Central Victoria, looking at the relationship between the people of this Aboriginal nation,…

Frank Bongiorno ‘On marriage equality, Australia’s progressive instincts have been crushed by political failure’, The Conversation, 18 September 2017 In the context of the forthcoming postal survey, the author looks at aspects of the history of sexuality in Australia. He…

Chris Graham ‘How we failed Elijah Doughty, and countless others‘, New Matilda, 23 July 2017 updated Riffs from the recent conviction and sentencing (to a relatively short time in gaol) of a West Australian man for running down and killing…

Rhondda Harris, ed. Ashton’s Hotel: The Journal of William Baker Ashton, First Governor of the Adelaide Gaol, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2017 South Australia was meant to be the perfect colony: free settlers, no crime, and no mental illness. But good…

Rosetta Flynn* ‘Politics‘, The Woman Voter, 11 May 1917 (Honest History document) ‘Father, what’s politics?’ the inquiring son demanded. ‘Um – well – er – er – it’s like this, my son. There are two boys, one’s name is Liberal…

Julia Gillard ‘John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library Anniversary Lecture, Perth‘, Beyond Blue, 28 June 2017 Former prime minister, now chairperson of a mental health organisation, Beyond Blue, speaking about another former prime minister who had mental health issues. Curtin’s determination…

Paul Daley ‘The legacy reverberates: how a repulsive image reminds us of our ugly past‘, Guardian Australia, 19 June 2017 Riffs off Every Mother’s Son is Guilty: Policing the Kimberley Frontier of Western Australia 1882-1905, by Chris Owen, the cover…

Sophie Russell & Eileen Baldry ‘Three charts on: Australia’s booming prison population‘, The Conversation, 14 June 2017 Ten years of ABS statistics on remand versus sentenced prisoner numbers (remand numbers going up more), Indigenous imprisonment rates (going up), women in…

Clare Wright ‘How Australia became a nation, and women won the vote‘, The Conversation, 6 June 2017 Article to mark the 120th anniversary of the Australasian Federal Convention in Adelaide (Queensland absent). Among the outcomes of the Convention was votes…

John Myrtle* ‘Vale David Biles: A pioneer of Australian criminology‘, Age, 6 June 2017 (an earlier, edited version appeared in the Canberra Times) ‘David Biles was a pioneer of criminology in Australia. Over many years he contributed to the development of…

Paul Daley ‘Five factors that will shape the outcome for “recognise” at Uluru‘, Guardian Australia, 24 May 2017 updated Surveys the state of play as the Uluru conference gets under way. The ‘five factors’: the lack of interest of many…

Gabrielle Appleby & Sean Brennan ‘The long road to recognition‘, Inside Story, 19 May 2017 updated Updated 24 May 2017: Paul Daley in Guardian Australia: Given the disparate experiences [says Daley] of delegates and their divergent views (on recognition versus…

Nicholas Biddle ‘First results from the 2016 Census paint a picture of who the “typical” Australian is‘, The Conversation, 11 April 2017 For the statistical agency of a supposedly diverse country to bother presenting a picture of ‘a typical Australian’…

Wendy Michaels ‘NSW parliamentary trailblazers: a fit place for women?‘ Vida! Australian Women’s History Network, 9 February 2017 Mentions women in the NSW Parliament over the last century and links to an exhibition in the NSW Parliament. The review is…

Mark Tedeschi Murder at Myall Creek: The Trial that Defined a Nation, Simon & Schuster, Sydney 2016 In 1838, eleven convicts and former convicts were put on trial for the brutal murder of 28 Aboriginal men, women and children at…

Elizabeth Tynan Atomic Thunder: The Maralinga Story, NewSouth, Sydney, 2016 How could a democracy such as Australia host another country’s nuclear program in the midst of the Cold War? In this meticulously researched and shocking work, journalist and academic Elizabeth…

Daphne Habibis, Maggie Walter & Penny Taylor ‘To move forward on reconciliation, Australia must recognise it has a race relations problem‘, The Conversation, 20 September 2016 updated Our research in Darwin [survey of 474] shows most Indigenous people feel judged,…

Williams, George ‘Australia needs a treaty and constitutional recognition for Indigenous people’, Sydney Morning Herald, 8 August 2016 Indigenous journalist, Stan Grant, claims in the video with this piece that Australia is the only Commonwealth country that lacks a treaty…

Graham, Chris Update 4 August 2016: Calla Wahlquist in Guardian Australia on Indigenous incarceration rates. Thalia Anthony in The Conversation on the same subject. Update 1-3 August 2016: Take 2: Commissioner No. 1 steps down and Commissioners Nos 2 and…

Sarra, Chris ‘We Indigenous people are stronger than we believe, and smarter than we know‘, Guardian Australia, 10 July 2016 Address after Dr Sarra received NAIDOC 2016 Person of the Year award. In the course of it, he supports negotiation…

McQuire, Amy ‘More Aboriginal MPs shouldn’t let the major parties off the hook‘, New Matilda, 5 July 2016 Darumbul journalist, Amy McQuire, notes the election of Wiradjuri woman, Linda Burney, ALP, as the first Indigenous woman in the House of…

Coombs, Anne ‘It seems like a good time to ask: what are governments for?‘ Guardian, 24 June 2016 This piece was re-run in the latest Guardian Weekly (1-7 July) where it earned the additional headline: ‘We give them power to…

Davey, Melissa ‘Australia’s gun laws stopped mass shootings and reduced homicides, study finds‘, Guardian Australia, 23 June 2016 Over 500 comments on this piece which reports a longitudinal (20 year) study by Sydney and Macquarie University researchers. The original article…

Venturini, VG (George) ‘The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott Government experiment (Parts 1-5)‘, Australian Independent Media Network, 2-6 June 2016 First of a planned multi-part series by this veteran commentator. The other parts will link from Part 1. With…

Daley, Paul ‘25 years of reconciliation and what do we have to show for it?‘ Guardian Australia, 3 June 2016 Written in Reconciliation Week, the article argues indicators are going backwards, gaps are widening and sovereignty is unacknowledged. And, after…

Muldoon, Paul & Adrian Little ‘Indigenous reconciliation is hard, it re-opens wounds to heal them‘, The Conversation, 11 May 2016 First of a series, linking from this article, about the issues surrounding reconciliation (or treaty), starting from the assumption that…

Daley, Paul ‘Lachlan Macquarie was no humanitarian: his own words show he was a terrorist‘, Guardian Australia, 5 April 2016 Discusses the strategy employed towards Indigenous Australians by New South Wales Governor (1810-22) Lachlan Macquarie. Macquarie is perhaps the most…

Wahlquist, Calla ‘It took one massacre: how Australia embraced gun control after Port Arthur‘, Guardian Australia, 15 March 2016 Twenty years on from the Port Arthur massacre (35 dead, 23 wounded), the article traces how Prime Minister announced a package…

Liddle, Celeste ‘Looking past White Australia and white feminism‘, New Matilda, 9 March 2016 updated Update 17 March 2016: Liz Conor writes in New Matilda (excerpt from forthcoming book). Includes cringe-making cartoons and advertisements depicting Indigenous women. _______________ Arrernte woman…

Marshall, Daniel ‘Does Australia need a Queer History month?‘ The Conversation, 3 March 2016 In the wake of the Safe Schools controversy and just after the NSW Parliament and NSW Police apologise for the treatment of Gay and Lesbian marchers…

Abjorensen, Norman ‘The meaning of John Howard‘, Inside Story, 1 March 2016 updated Written to mark the 20th anniversary of the coming to power of the Howard Government. Abjorensen is the doyen of the rise and fall of prime ministers,…

Walter, James ‘A liberal leading the Liberals: can Turnbull manage the ultra-conservatives?‘ The Conversation, 24 February 2016 Comments on the government decision to inquire into Safe Schools, an education program supporting gender-diverse children. Conservatives have claimed the program leads to…

Browne, Peter ‘Postwar boomer‘, Inside Story, 18 January 2016 Long essay looking back from Sir Robert Menzies’ retirement 50 years ago to the events of his 16-year reign (and even glances at his earlier time in office in 1939-41). Menzies…

Latimore, Jack, Allan Clarke, Paul Daley, Amy McQuire, and Steve Hodder Watt ‘New News 2015: From the ground up: New Media and Indigenous reporting’, Wheeler Centre, 10 October 2015 One hour video of panel discussion, chaired by Latimore, who is…

Woolombi Waters, Marcus ‘Whether you’re listening or not, Australia is a nation of white privilege‘, The Conversation, 17 November 2015 The author is a Kamilaroi man who has recently returned from travelling overseas for work. This article received more than…

Jakubowicz, Andrew ‘How national multicultural legislation would strengthen Australian society‘, The Conversation, 5 November 2015 The author looks at 40 years of history of how governments, state and federal, have dealt with multiculturalism. He finds they have lacked ‘the courage…