Stephens, David: Pearls and Irritations nails it again and again: recent food for thought (but it’s not like the Main Stream Media)

David Stephens* ‘Pearls and Irritations nails it again and again: recent food for thought (but it’s not like the Main Stream Media)’, Honest History, 19 May 2023 updated Update later this day: Speaking of … there’s a nice piece in

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Beaumont, Joan: Australia’s Great Depression: How a Nation Shattered by the Great War Survived the Worst Economic Crisis it has Ever Faced

Joan Beaumont Australia’s Great Depression: How a Nation Shattered by the Great War Survived the Worst Economic Crisis it has Ever Faced, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2022; electronic version available How a nation still in grief from the Great War

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Wright, Claire EF: Australian resilience in 1929-32 has relevance to post-Pandemic Australia, as Joan Beaumont’s strong synthesis shows

Claire EF Wright* ‘Australian resilience in 1929-32 has relevance to post-Pandemic Australia, as Joan Beaumont’s strong synthesis shows’, Honest History, 5 September 2022 Claire EF Wright reviews Joan Beaumont’s Australia’s Great Depression: How a Nation Shattered by the Great War

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Fahy, Michelle: Australia captured: how the military-industrial complex has captured Australia’s top strategic advisory body

Michelle Fahy ‘Australia captured: how the military-industrial complex has captured Australia’s top strategic advisory body‘, Declassified Australia, 9 December 2021 Analysis of the compromised position of the allegedly independent Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) in

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Stuart Macintyre on Post-War Reconstruction: From the Honest History vault

In 2015, the late Professor Stuart Macintyre published a great book on Post-War Reconstruction, describing the work of politicians and bureaucrats in Australia during and after the Second World War.  Australia’s Boldest Experiment: War and Reconstruction in the 1940s won

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Cook, John with Jon Bauer: The Last Lighthouse Keeper: A Memoir

John Cook with Jon Bauer The Last Lighthouse Keeper: A Memoir, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2020; electronic version available In Tasmania, John Cook is known as ‘The Keeper of the Flame’. As one of Australia’s longest-serving lighthouse keepers, John spent

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Pender, Margaret: The lonely life of the last lighthouse keeper

Margaret Pender* ‘The lonely life of the last lighthouse keeper’, Honest History, 15 August 2020 Margaret Pender reviews The Last Lighthouse Keeper: A Memoir, by John Cook with Jon Bauer  The idea of lighthouses conjures up images of man battling

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Collaery, Bernard: Oil under Troubled Water: Australia’s Timor Sea Intrigue

Bernard Collaery Oil under Troubled Water: Australia’s Timor Sea Intrigue, Melbourne University Press, 2020; electronic edition available In May 2018 Bernard Collaery, a former Attorney-General of the Australian Capital Territory and long-term legal counsel to the government of East Timor,

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Broinowski, Alison: ‘A petroleum-intoxicated kleptocracy’: Bernard Collaery on Australia and Timor-Leste

Alison Broinowski* ‘“A petroleum-intoxicated kleptocracy”: Bernard Collaery on Australia and Timor-Leste’, Honest History, 4 August 2020 Alison Broinowski reviews Bernard Collaery’s, Oil under Troubled Water: Australia’s Timor Sea Intrigue ©Alison Broinowski 2020 In response to the ‘war on terror’, multiple

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Abjorensen, Norman: Before the triumphs and the tragedies

Norman Abjorensen ‘Before the triumphs and the tragedies‘, Inside Story, 2 June 2020 Review of Becoming John Curtin and James Scullin: The Making of the Modern Labor Party, by Liam Byrne. It was a time of intense political ferment [says

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Scrimgeour, Anne: On Red Earth Walking: The Pilbara Aboriginal Strike, Western Australia 1946–1949

Anne Scrimgeour On Red Earth Walking: The Pilbara Aboriginal Strike, Western Australia 1946–1949, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2020 The book is reviewed for Honest History by Rolf Gerritsen. Other reviews: Kathy Gollan in Newtown Review of Books; Jan Richardson in

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Gerritsen, Rolf: A tour de force investigation of Indigenous and labour history

Rolf Gerritsen* ‘A tour de force investigation of Indigenous and labour history’, Honest History, 12 May 2020 Rolf Gerritsen reviews On Red Earth Walking: The Pilbara Aboriginal Strike, Western Australia 1946-1949, by Anne Scrimgeour  This history is the product of

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Irving, Terry: The Fatal Lure of Politics: The Life and Thought of Vere Gordon Childe

Terry Irving The Fatal Lure of Politics: The Life and Thought of Vere Gordon Childe, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2020 Renowned Australian-born archaeologist and prehistorian Vere Gordon Childe (1892–1957) had a lifelong fascination with socialist politics. In his early life

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Holt, Stephen: A genuine Aussie digger: Vere Gordon Childe 1892-1957

Stephen Holt* ‘A genuine Aussie digger: Vere Gordon Childe 1892-1957’, Honest History, 19 April 2020 Stephen Holt reviews The Fatal Lure of Politics: The Life and Thought of Vere Gordon Childe, by Terry Irving The Honest History project, since it

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Myrtle, John: Rethinking Australian journalism in the 1960s: The 1966-67 work value case and the Sydney newspaper strike

John Myrtle* ‘Rethinking Australian journalism in the 1960s: The 1966-67 work value case and the Sydney newspaper strike‘, Honest History, 7 April 2020 This is a detailed study of two industrial relations events from more than 50 years ago. Journalists

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Inequality – and innovation – should be front and centre in today’s Australia: new book from Andrew Leigh MP and Joshua Gans

‘The fundamental issue’, according to Nicholas Stuart in the Canberra Times, ‘is that the economic and social problems Labor was formed to combat back in 1891 are no longer relevant’. This is, of course, nonsense if we are talking about

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Broome, Richard, Charles Fahey, Andrea Gaynor, Katie Holmes: Mallee Country: Land, People, History

Richard Broome, Charles Fahey, Andrea Gaynor, Katie Holmes Mallee Country: Land, People, History, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2019 Mallee Country tells the powerful history of mallee lands and people across southern Australia from Deep Time to the present. Carefully shaped and

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Myrtle, John: Weathering the Mallee over nearly two centuries

John Myrtle* ‘Weathering the Mallee over nearly two centuries’, Honest History, 8 November 2019 John Myrtle reviews Mallee Country: Land, People, History by Richard Broome, Charles Fahey, Andrea Gaynor and Katie Holmes  Mallee Country records a project on the ecological

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Lawrence, Susan & Peter Davies: Sludge: Disaster on Victoria’s Goldfields

Susan Lawrence & Peter Davies Sludge: Disaster on Victoria’s Goldfields, Black Inc., Melbourne, 2019 Everyone knows gold made Victoria rich. But did you know gold mining was disastrous for the land, engulfing it in floods of sand, gravel and silt

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Beggs-Sunter, Anne: Water and gold: a book about the environmental impact of mining

Anne Beggs-Sunter* ‘Water and gold: a book about the environmental impact of mining’, Honest History, 22 October 2019 Anne Beggs-Sunter reviews Sludge: Disaster on Victoria’s Goldfields, by Susan Lawrence and Peter Davies  Sludge – a very unpromising title for a

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Quiggin, John: Forget the generation gap – the gulf between rich and poor tells the real story of our times

John Quiggin ‘Forget the generation gap – the gulf between rich and poor tells the real story of our times‘, Guardian Australia, 26 August 2019 Commentary on a Grattan Institute study of the generation gap and ensuring a ‘fair go’

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Martin, Richard J.: The Gulf Country: The Story of People and Place in Outback Queensland

Richard J. Martin The Gulf Country: The Story of People and Place in Outback Queensland, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2019; electronic edition available With its great rivers, grassy plains and mangrove-fringed coastline, Queensland’s remote Gulf Country is rich and fertile

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Megarrity, Lyndon: Book on Queensland’s Gulf Country shows how people have lived and thrived in isolated communities

Lyndon Megarrity* ‘Book on Queensland’s Gulf Country shows how people have lived and thrived in isolated communities’, Honest History, 20 May 2019 Lyndon Megarrity reviews Richard J. Martin, The Gulf Country: The Story of People and Place in Outback Queensland

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Menzies, Pam: Port Kembla: A Memoir

Pam Menzies Port Kembla: A Memoir, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2019 Port Kembla: A Memoir is the story of a steel town and its movers and shakers like the entrepreneurial Hoskins and Ted Roach, the wharfies’ leader, who were part of

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Cahill, Rowan: A local history that captures the diversity of Australia

Rowan Cahill* ‘A local history that captures the diversity of Australia’, Honest History, 1 April 2019 Rowan Cahill reviews Port Kembla: A Memoir, by Pam Menzies  Visiting American-British travel writer Bill Bryson, after browsing Australian second-hand bookshops and seeing the vast

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McQueen, Humphrey: Born free: wage-slaves and chattel-slaves

Humphrey McQueen ‘Born free: wage-slaves and chattel slaves‘, Honest History, 31 March 2019 To adapt Marx’s linking of cotton and slavery with capitalism to the civilising enterprise of the South Australian Company: “Without chattel slaves, the Angases have no mahogany

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Daley, Paul: Colonial Australia’s foundation is stained with the profits of British slavery

Paul Daley ‘Colonial Australia’s foundation is stained with the profits of British slavery‘, Guardian Australia, 21 September 2018 Riffs off recently published book, Island Off the Coast of Asia: Instruments of Statecraft in Australian Foreign Policy, by Clinton Fernandes. Fernandes

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Megarrity, Lyndon: Northern Dreams: The Politics of Northern Development in Australia

Lyndon Megarrity Northern Dreams: The Politics of Northern Development in Australia, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2018 Northern Dreams brings to life the passionate arguments about Northern Australia’s national significance and analyses the political debates that have periodically drawn the public’s

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Gerritsen, Rolf: An essential and well-timed volume on the development of northern Australia

Rolf Gerritsen* ‘An essential and well-timed volume on the development of northern Australia’, Honest History, 3 September 2018 Rolf Gerritsen reviews Lyndon Megarrity’s Northern Dreams: The Politics of Northern Development in Australia We are nearing the institutional fag end of

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Searle, Rick: Charles Ulm: The Untold Story of One of Australia’s Greatest Aviation Pioneers

Rick Searle Charles Ulm: The Untold Story of One of Australia’s Greatest Aviation Pioneers, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2018 Charles Ulm and Charles Kingsford Smith were two of the most important pioneers of Australian aviation. Together they succeeded in a

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Myrtle, John: Charles Ulm’s vision and determination made him a pioneer of Australian aviation

 John Myrtle* ‘Charles Ulm’s vision and determination made him a pioneer of Australian aviation’, Honest History, 20 August 2018 John Myrtle reviews Charles Ulm: The Untold Story of One of Australia’s Greatest Aviation Pioneers by Rick Searle More than 80

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Douglas, Bob: What will it take to restore governance to its rightful owners?

Bob Douglas ‘What will it take to restore governance to its rightful owners?’, Pearls and Irritations, 26 July 2018 Around the world, and also here in Australia, voters are turning away from the political process, alarmed at the capture of

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Keating, Michael: The future Budget outlook – a comment on the Parliamentary Budget Office report on trends affecting the sustainability of Commonwealth taxes

Michael Keating ‘The future Budget outlook – a comment on the Parliamentary Budget Office report on trends affecting the sustainability of Commonwealth taxes‘, Pearls and Irritations, 24 July 2018 The independent Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) has released a report on

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Whiteford, Peter: Good times, bad times

Peter Whiteford ‘Good times, bad times‘, Inside Story, 5 July 2018 Looks at recent evidence of growing inequality in Australia, mostly driven by gains among the highest earners. There is little doubt that inequality is worse now than it was

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Lambert, Michael: Review of Fair Share by Stephen Bell and Michael Keating: Part I; Part II

Michael Lambert ‘Review of Fair Share by Stephen Bell and Michael Keating; Part I; Part II‘, Pearls and Irritations, 28-29 May 2018 The coverage of topics [in the Bell-Keating book] is extensive. While its overall theme is exploring the mitigation

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80 years on since Pig Iron Bob: new documentary has contemporary relevance

November this year marks 80 years since the Dalfram dispute, wherein then federal minister, soon to be PM, Robert Menzies, earned the nick-name ‘Pig Iron Bob’ for what seemed his excessive eagerness to sell to Japan material which had a

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Keating, Michael: Why Australia needs a stronger revenue base

Michael Keating ‘Why Australia needs a stronger revenue base‘, Pearls and Irritations, 19 April 2018 Former senior public servant stresses the importance of boosting the revenue base through taxation. Fundamentally the reason for taxation is to pay for the services

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Waller, Mike: The real problem with our banks – “it’s leverage, stupid”

Mike Waller ‘The real problem with our banks – “it’s leverage, stupid”‘, Pearls and Irritations, 10 April 2018 Former Australian Public Service senior official and BHP economist writes about banking issues. We are more than a decade on from the

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Robison, Richard: Why the Coalition, conservatives and big business are terrified by Emma Alberici

Richard Robison ‘Why the Coalition, conservatives and big business are terrified by Emma Alberici‘, Independent Australia, 2 March 2018 update A further contribution to the debate on ABC economics correspondent Emma Alberici’s analysis of Australia’s corporate tax system. (Our post

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Stephens, David: How does the tax-paying record of large Australian companies square with our much-vaunted Australian egalitarian ethos?

David Stephens ‘How does the tax-paying record of large Australian companies square with our much-vaunted Australian egalitarian ethos?’ Honest History, 18 February 2018 updated The ABC’s chief economics correspondent, Emma Alberici, this week put out some articles on the tax

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Shield, John: All the Green Year: Don Charlwood between war and depression

John Shield* ‘All the Green Year: Don Charlwood between war and depression’, Honest History, 30 January 2018 When Honest History discovered the Australia Explained website and I turned to the books page thereon it gladdened my heart to see there

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The World Inequality Report 2018: latest word on an Honest History ‘special subject’

For the last three years, Honest History has tracked media (mainstream and not) articles and research-based reports on inequality, its multiple causes and manifestations. The Honest History Book also focused sharply on inequality, given what seemed to us to be

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Going deep into international taxation: these issues have been around for a long time

Many readers (and viewers) will have been following the recent publicity about the large companies who avoid paying much tax – or, in some cases, any tax. Most recently, Labor frontbencher, Andrew Leigh, weighed in, and before him there were,

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Eureka 163rd anniversary: resources on the Honest History site

Yesterday, 3 December 2017, was the 163rd anniversary of the Eureka stockade skirmish, which marked the end of a brief uprising of goldminers at Ballarat, Victoria. At least 20 miners and six soldiers were killed. The Honest History site has

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The Australian banking Royal Commission of 1935-37: a precedent unlikely to be followed

Update 27 February 2018: Nicholas Gruen in Pearls and Irritations dives deep into the issues. Update 3 December 2017: Greg Jericho in Guardian Australia looks closely at the terms of reference this time around. And so does Kevin Davis in

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Jones, Rebecca: Slow Catastrophes: Living with Drought in Australia

Rebecca Jones Slow Catastrophes: Living with Drought in Australia, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2017 Living with drought is one of the biggest issues of our times. Climate change scenarios suggest that in the next fifty years global warming will increase

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Tocsin magazine brings out another edition … and here’s an apposite poem from 1917

Honest History noted a little while ago the launch of Tocsin, a publication from the John Curtin Research Centre. The centre’s inaugural gala dinner happens to be tonight, addressed by the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten. Tocsin‘s second number

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Gapps, Stephen: Blackbirding: Australia’s slave trade?

Stephen Gapps ‘Blackbirding: Australia’s slave trade?‘ Australian National Maritime Museum blog, 25 August 2017 updated Update 30 October 2017: (Waskam) Emelda Davis, president of Australian South Sea Islanders, writes in The Conversation: “Blackbirding” comes from the African slave trade and

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Bowen, Chris; The case for engagement with Asia

Chris Bowen ‘The case for engagement with Asia‘ (speech to the Asia Society), Chris Bowen, 29 September 2017 updated Labor Shadow Treasurer says: Australia needs a step change in our economic relationship with Asia. Our economic relationship with Asia has

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Clark, Anna: Plenty of fish in the sea? Not necessarily, as history shows

Anna Clark ‘Plenty of fish in the sea? Not necessarily, as history shows‘, The Conversation, 3 October 2017 A look at the history of fishing in Australia, from pre-1788 and going back thousands of years, to now, with draft plans

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Whiteford, Peter: Income inequality ticks down as the rich see their incomes fall: ABS

Peter Whiteford ‘Income inequality ticks down as the rich see their incomes fall: ABS‘, Guardian Australia, 13 September 2017 Summarises the latest survey of Household Income and Wealth from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The richest 20% of the population

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Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (28): More on the 1917 Great Strike in Australia

‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (28): More on the 1917 Great Strike in Australia’, Honest History, 27 August 2017 Update 28 August 2017: Unions NSW advises of its exhibition on the Great Strike. See comment below – and three pictures

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Myrtle, John: Observing journalism for 80 years: The Arthur Norman Smith Lecture in Journalism

John Myrtle ‘Observing journalism for 80 years: The Arthur Norman Smith Lecture in Journalism’, Honest History, 18 August 2017 updated A paper in three parts: an introduction to Arthur Norman Smith and the endowed Arthur Norman Smith Lecture in Journalism;

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Observing journalism for 80 years: The Arthur Norman Smith Lecture in Journalism

John Myrtle[1] ‘Observing journalism for 80 years: The Arthur Norman Smith Lecture in Journalism’, Honest History, 18 August 2017 updated Introduction There are three parts to this paper: an introduction to Arthur Norman Smith and the endowed Arthur Norman Smith

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Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (26): Lest We Forget the Great Strike of 1917

‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (26): Lest We Forget the Great Strike of 1917’, Honest History, 7 August 2017 The ‘Divided sunburnt country’ series One hundred years ago this week, Australia confronted not only the horrors and privations of the

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Inequality is a much more complex issue than kneejerk political responses suggest: a dozen links

Honest History has had a special interest in inequality for more than three years. Under our homepage Inequality thumbnail we have collected a mass of links to resources – reports, comments, even some policy proposals from government – which track

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Cain, Frank: The Wobblies at War: A History of the IWW and the Great War in Australia

Frank Cain The Wobblies at War: A History of the IWW and the Great War in Australia, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2017; first published 1993 Driven by Marxist ideology, the Industrial Workers of the World sought to draw the Australian

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The Wobblies at War (review of Cain)

‘The Wobblies at War’ (review of Cain), Honest History, 11 July 2017 Rowan Day* reviews Frank Cain’s The Wobblies at War: A History of the IWW and the Great War in Australia This is a republication of Frank Cain’s 1993

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The Conversation on cancer, comrades and cyber warfare: helping Dear Reader to keep up

Honest History has often sung the praises of The Conversation because it provides readable, evidence-based material from people who know their stuff. We suspect that many of our readers also read The Conversation. But we still think it is worth

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Allen, Liz: Australia doesn’t have a population policy – why?

Liz Allen ‘Australia doesn’t have a population policy – why?’, The Conversation, 3 July 2017 updated Despite recommendations from inquiries over a number of years, Australia lacks a population policy. Includes key graphs covering decades and concludes as follows: A

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Gainsborough, Vance: Tocsin first and Meanjin latest: alarm bells at the bend in the river: review note

Vance Gainsborough* ‘Tocsin first and Meanjin latest: alarm bells at the bend in the river: review note’, Honest History, 2 July 2017 A ‘tocsin’ is an alarm bell or signal and ‘Meanjin’ is an Indigenous word for the bend in

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Hayes, Sarah: Gold Rush Victoria was as wasteful as we are today

Sarah Hayes ‘Gold Rush Victoria was as wasteful as we are today‘, The Conversation, 29 June 2017 Archaeological excavations across Melbourne have uncovered masses of rubbish dating back to the Gold Rush era of the 1850s and 1860s. Artefacts recovered

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Talking about The Conversation: five easy pieces in just a few days

Update 22 June 2017: and, lo, just as we ruled a line and settled on the headline, The Conversation came good again with: three charts on looming differential access to the National Broadband Network (digital divide, another form of inequality);

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Muller, Denis: Mixed media: how Australia’s newspapers became locked in a war of left versus right

Denis Muller ‘Mixed media: how Australia’s newspapers became locked in a war of left versus right‘, The Conversation, 19 June 2017 updated Historical view of the ownership and attitudes of Australian newspapers since the 19th century, though nowadays it is

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Patience, Allan: It’s time for new politics

Allan Patience ‘It’s time for new politics‘, Pearls and Irritations, 12 June 2017 Looks at the recent success of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn and detects the fall of old politics and the rise of new. Only by implication are

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Schultz, Julianne & Jerath Head, ed.: Griffith Review 56: Millennials Strike Back

Julianne Schultz & Jerath Head, ed. Griffith Review 56: Millennials Strike Back, April 2017 Millennials, those born in the final decades of the twentieth century, have had bad press for a long time. Now they are fighting back as they

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Munday, Bruce: Those Wild Rabbits: How They Shaped Australia

Bruce Munday Those Wild Rabbits: How They Shaped Australia, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2017 Those Wild Rabbits highlights not only the damage done but also Australia’s missed opportunities for real rabbit control. It recognises the bush’s paradoxical love affair with an

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Time-travelling millennials: Griffith Review 56

‘Time-travelling millennials: Griffith Review 56’, Honest History, 13 June 2017 Emily Gallagher* reviews Griffith Review 56: Millennials Strike Back There is no such thing as a normative childhood. Generations of children might share in a collection of culturally specific circumstances,

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Myrtle, John: How wild rabbits shaped the wide brown land (review of Munday)

John Myrtle* ‘How wild rabbits shaped the wide brown land’, Honest History, 13 June 2017 John Myrtle reviews Those Wild Rabbits: How They Shaped Australia by Bruce Munday It is strange but undoubtedly the fact that animals brought from Europe

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Taylor, Elizabeth & Andrew Butt: Three charts on: Australia’s declining taste for beef and growing appetite for chicken

Elizabeth Taylor & Andrew Butt ‘Three charts on: Australia’s declining taste for beef and growing appetite for chicken‘, The Conversation, 9 June 2017 Just what it says on the tin. ‘Australians were once world champion beef-eaters but now you’re much

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Australian Bureau of Statistics: GDP growth moderates as dwelling investment and exports detract from growth

Australian Bureau of Statistics ‘GDP growth moderates as dwelling investment and exports detract from growth‘ (Media release, 7 June 2017) Growth actually slowed in the March quarter (0.3 per cent) and the ABS presser was ‘just the facts’ but those

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Abjorensen, Norman: Ben Chifley’s botched attempt to nationalise Australia’s banks

Norman Abjorensen ‘Ben Chifley’s botched attempt to nationalise Australia’s banks‘, Canberra Times (Public Sector Informant), 6 June 2017 Against the background of another poke at banking power, this time by a conservative government, this is a concise summary of Chifley’s

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Five links from left field: communism, radicalism, war and peace, utopia, Tiananmen Square

Sometimes we like to post miscellanies of links – small collections that range reasonably widely but still have a theme. These five are from left field, if not entirely from the left-hand end of that rather glib and facile left-right

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Head, Mike: Australia’s billionaires celebrate a “wealth boom”

Mike Head ‘Australia’s billionaires celebrate a “wealth boom”‘, World Socialist Web Site, 29 May 2017 Useful analysis of this year’s Australian Financial Review (AFR) Rich 200 List. The article nicely captures the breathless style of John Stensholt’s original piece (which

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Robertson, Joshua: Australian convict pirates in Japan: evidence of 1830 voyage unearthed

Joshua Robertson ‘Australian convict pirates in Japan: evidence of 1830 voyage unearthed‘, Guardian Australia, 28 May 2017 An amateur historian [Nick Russell] has unearthed compelling evidence that the first Australian maritime foray into Japanese waters was by convict pirates on

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Lever, Susan: Reaping what was sown

Susan Lever ‘Reaping what was sown‘, Inside Story, 4 May 2017 A review of the book Like Nothing on this Earth: A Literary History of the Wheatbelt by Tony Hughes-d’Aeth. The book examines the clearing of land in Western Australia

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Jericho, Greg: Malcolm Turnbull’s myth of “middle Australia” ignores both gender and reality

Greg Jericho ‘Malcolm Turnbull’s myth of “middle Australia” ignores both gender and reality‘, Guardian Australia, 18 April 2017 Looks at taxation statistics to ‘highlight that middle Australia earns much less than the government would have you believe and that women

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Welcome to what? A note on immigration, multiculturalism and ‘Australian values’

Update 19 March 2018: proposal by Minister Dutton to bring white South African farmers to Australia is linked by Jon Piccini in The Conversation to a historic Australian whiteness trope. Update 19 October 2017: the Government’s proposed citizenship changes fail

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Gergis, Joelle: Northern NSW is no stranger to floods, but this one was different

Joelle Gergis ‘Northern NSW is no stranger to floods, but this one was different‘, The Conversation, 7 April 2017 Looks at the factors behind the most recent flood and compares them with some historical examples, notably 1954 and 1974. We

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Wilkie, Douglas: Duchene/Hargraves

Douglas Wilkie Duchene/Hargraves, Historia Incognita, Melbourne, 2016 This self-published book has the long sub-title or explanatory tag of ‘Alexandre Julien Duchene, Edward Hammond Hargraves and the discovery of gold in Australia, three or four days from Sydney’. This book looks

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Discovering the discovery of gold (review of Wilkie)

‘Discovering the discovery of gold’ (review of Wilkie), Honest History, 3 April 2017 Derek Abbott* reviews Duchene/Hargraves by Douglas Wilkie Generations of Australian school children are familiar from their history text books with the story of the discovery of gold

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Six snippets of The Conversation (six years old this week) have echoes in The Honest History Book (now available)

Honest History was pleased to send happy sixth birthday wishes to The Conversation; it has been a valuable resource for our website. There are other connections also: some articles in The Conversation this week explore themes which are also evident

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Brotherhood of St Laurence: Generation stalled: young, underemployed and living in poverty in Australia

Brotherhood of St Laurence Generation stalled: young, underemployed and living in poverty in Australia, Melbourne, 2017 In total [says the report] more  than 650,000 young people were unemployed or underemployed – defined as having some work but wanting more hours

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Multiculturalism statement stresses diversity, ‘fair go’ and equality but reality is different

Update 21 March 2017: Andrew Jakubowicz in The Conversation comments on the statement. Neroli Colvin and John Tons in New Matilda. The Prime Minister and two of his ministers have released the government’s multiculturalism statement Multicultural Australia: United, Strong, Successful.

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Turning the yellow South Australian hills green? Marian Quartly on a state of hope

‘Turning the yellow South Australian hills green? Marian Quartly on a state of hope’, Honest History, 21 March 2017 Marian Quartly* reviews Griffith Review 55: State of Hope Any collection of essays focussing on a single state of Australia will

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Schultz, Julianne & Patrick Allington, ed.: State of Hope: Griffith Review 55

Julianne Schultz & Patrick Allington, ed. State of Hope: Griffith Review 55, January 2017 As the industrial model that shaped twentieth-century South Australia is replaced by an uncertain future, now more than ever the state needs to draw on the

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Shorter hours and vigorous industrial action were all the rage 100 years ago, too

This week we heard the Greens leader, Senator Richard Di Natale, go hard for the need to debate shorter working hours. On Lateline, for example, he said this: We’ve got, in Australia, people here doing more hours than any other

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Leigh, Andrew: Why corporate Australia should care about inequality – Speech, Minerals Council of Australia Tax Conference, Friday 10 March 2017

Andrew Leigh ‘Why corporate Australia should care about inequality – Speech, Minerals Council of Australia Tax Conference, Friday 10 March 2017‘, Andrew Leigh MP Blog, 10 March 2017 updated Over the past generation [says Leigh], Australia has seen an increase

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Robertson, Joshua: $5bn used to safeguard Murray-Darling from drought largely in vain, says study

Joshua Robertson ‘$5bn used to safeguard Murray-Darling from drought largely in vain, says study‘, Guardian Australia, 2 March 2017 Reports on the political aspects of water planning in Australia. The [ANU] report, Water Reform and Planning in the Murray-Darling Basin,

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Clanchy, Michael: In search of ‘civilised’ capitalism: a non-neoliberal approach

Michael Clanchy ‘In search of “civilised” capitalism: a non-neoliberal approach‘, Independent Australia, 28 February 2017 Socialism is not the answer, as it tends towards totalitarianism, but the ills of neoliberal capitalism still need tackling. These include boom-bust, inequality, underemployment, climate

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West, Michael: Australia’s march towards corporatocracy

Michael West ‘Australia’s march towards corporatocracy‘, The Conversation, 20 February 2017 Looks at government reliance on external consultants, compared with the Australian public service. Such is the pervasive influence of corporations and consultants over government and the de-skilling of the

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Keeping up with The Conversation: wide selection as Parliament returns

Whether your problem is the return to school last week or the return of Federal Parliament this week, President Trump being erratic or AFLW making a splash, if one needs distractions there seems to be more to read at the

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Mackay, Hugh: The state of the nation starts in your street

Hugh Mackay ‘The state of the nation starts in your street‘, The Conversation, 2 February 2017 The Gandhi Oration at the University of New South Wales, 30 January. Mackay ranges widely from politics to personal happiness, the ‘fair go’ to

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Hochman, Zvi, David L. Gobbett & Heidi Horan: Changing climate has stalled Australian wheat yields: study

Zvi Hochman, David L. Gobbett & Heidi Horan ‘Changing climate has stalled Australian wheat yields: study‘, The Conversation, 25 January 2017 In this article, CSIRO researchers take a historical view of Australian wheat yields, concentrating particularly on the years since 1990.

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Evans, Kevin: Koalas are at the centre of a perfect storm. The species is slipping away

Kevin Evans ‘Koalas are at the centre of a perfect storm. The species is slipping away‘, Guardian Australia, 16 January 2017 Climate change threatens koala habitat, adding to their usual problems with fire and drought. But more to the point

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Economist Ian McAuley on Brexit, Trump and the Lucky Country: new series on Pearls and Irritations blog

The Pearls and Irritations blog is always worth following for thoughtful explications of current issues, ones which the mainstream media mostly no longer has the resources or patience to run. Today, P&I publishes nine articles (introduction plus eight) by economist

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Swain, Dave: Food for thought: the rise of Australia’s mighty Brahman

Dave Swain ‘Food for thought: the rise of Australia’s mighty Brahman‘, The Conversation, 8 January 2017 Historical view of the cattle industry of Northern Australia. Despite the successes of the Brahman breed, the challenge facing the north Australian industry remains

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Webster, Beth: Budget deficit hoo-ha is about 0.5% of GDP

Beth Webster ‘Budget deficit hoo-ha is about 0.5% of GDP‘, The Conversation, 20 December 2016 A useful corrective to the mainstream media-political class herd mentality that gives too much profile to deficit and surplus and not enough to what should

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Daley, John & Brendan Coates: Why every generation feels entitled

John Daley & Brendan Coates ‘Why every generation feels entitled‘, The Conversation, 15 December 2016 Refers to the Grattan Institute’s report Age of Entitlement, on age-based tax breaks, which concluded ‘senior Australians get tax breaks unavailable to younger Australians worth

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Scates, Bruce & Melanie Oppenheimer: The Last Battle: Soldier Settlement in Australia, 1916-1939

Bruce Scates & Melanie Oppenheimer The Last Battle: Soldier Settlement in Australia, 1916-1939, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2016 When Australian soldiers returned from the First World War they were offered the chance to settle on “land fit for heroes”. Promotional

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Settling for less (review of Scates and Oppenheimer)

‘Settling for less’ (review of Scates and Oppenheimer), Honest History, 13 December 2016 Michael Piggott* reviews The Last Battle: Soldier Settlement in Australia, 1916-1939 by Bruce Scates and Melanie Oppenheimer At last the book is out. Its official genesis dates

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Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (19) The 1916 coal strike

The Divided Sunburnt Country series ‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (19): The 1916 coal strike’, Honest History, 13 December 2016 ‘The strikes and upheavals, political and industrial, we see around us are the manifestations of a deliberate policy which aims at destroying

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Edwards, John: The plight of the right

John Edwards ‘The plight of the Right‘, Inside Story, 5 December 2016 A long, thoughtful review of an expensive book of essays published in July, following a conference in Perth in 2014 of ‘conservative’ economists and journalists. The book is

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Eureka 162 years on: resources on the Honest History site

Tomorrow, 3 December, is the 162nd anniversary of the attack on the Eureka Stockade at Ballarat. Honest History has a number of resources on the site, links to lectures by Andrew Leigh MP and historian Humphrey McQueen, a post about

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Productivity Commission: Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indicators 2016

Productivity Commission Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indicators 2016 This comprehensive report card measures where things have improved (or not) against 52 indicators across a range of areas including governance, leadership and culture, early childhood, education, health, home and safe and

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Haigh, Gideon: Basic income for all: a 500-year-old idea whose time has come?

Haigh, Gideon ‘Basic income for all: a 500-year-old idea whose time has come?‘ Guardian Australia, 11 November 2016 Long article under the heading ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’, with links to other relevant material. Haigh looks at ‘the potential of ideas such

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Frankopan, Peter: The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

Frankopan, Peter The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2015 For centuries, fame and fortune was to be found in the west – in the New World of the Americas. Today, it is the east

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The Silk Roads to everywhere (review of Frankopan)

‘The Silk Roads to everywhere’, Honest History, 21 October 2016 Derek Abbott reviews Peter Frankopan’s The Silk Roads: A New History of the World ‘Europe is but a molehill, all the great reputations have come from Asia’ (Napoleon Bonaparte, 1797).

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Thomas, Nelly: Understanding Pauline

Thomas, Nelly ‘Understanding Pauline‘, New Matilda, 9 October 2016 ‘I come from Hanson country’, says the author, ‘working class, socially conservative, racist, homophobic, xenophobic Australia’. The article looks at Hansonism in class terms. The first thing to know about Hanson

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Honest History highlights reel: Nick Dyrenfurth’s Mateship: A Very Australian History

‘Honest History highlights reel: Nick Dyrenfurth’s Mateship: A Very Australian History’, Honest History, 11 October 2016 updated Update 22 October 2021: A survey on mateship throws up some interesting results. ***  Nick Dyrenfurth’s book Mateship: A Very Australian History, was

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Burgess, Rob: The banks didn’t save Australia – they ate it

Burgess, Rob ‘The banks didn’t save Australia – they ate it‘, New Daily, 6 October 2016 Analysis in the context of the appearance of banking CEOs before a parliamentary committee, which was followed by a proposal for a banking tribunal

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Lyons, Tim: The Labour Movement: my part in its downfall

Lyons, Tim ‘The Labour Movement: my part in its downfall‘, Meanjin, Spring 2016 (vol. 75, no. 3, pp. 85-92 in hard copy) Works backwards from the demise of the resources super profits tax in 2010 to make some important points

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Port of Melbourne pictures just the tip of the photographic iceberg

Photo credit for home page, 23 September. The port of Melbourne has been leased for a lot of money. This provoked the Melbourne Age to run a set of photographs of the port, dating back well into the 19th century.

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McQueen, Humphrey: Time and Bob Menzies’ essence: lifting the cover on Australia 1960

McQueen, Humphrey ‘Time and Bob Menzies’ essence: lifting the cover on Australia 1960′, Honest History, 30 August 2016 When Humphrey McQueen first wrote this article in 2000 he had this to say: ‘Forty years ago this week, Time presented a

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Time and Bob Menzies’ essence: lifting the cover on Australia 1960

Humphrey McQueen ‘Time and Bob Menzies’ essence: lifting the cover on Australia 1960’, Honest History, 30 August 2016 Note: this article includes a photograph of an Indigenous Australian who has died Time magazine ‘Indignation’ and ‘hilarity’ jostled each other through

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Many facets of inequality revealed in online sources: Honest History miscellany

A current article in Guardian Weekly wonders if the abundance of online sources is killing memory. We don’t need to remember anything because we can look it up. Maybe. The upside is the ease of finding information online – information

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Schultz, Julianne, ed.: Our sporting life: Griffith Review 53

Schultz, Julianne, ed. ‘Our sporting life’, Griffith Review, 53, August 2016, available online to subscribers Collection of essays on something which, we are told, ‘lies at the heart of what it means to be Australian’. At a time when sport

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Many codes, many circuses, much money: Griffith Review 53: Our sporting life

‘Many codes, many circuses, much money: Griffith Review 53: “Our sporting life”’, Honest History, 9 August 2016 A review by Derek Abbott* of the latest Griffith Review, published 1 August 2016. Griffith Review always presents a collection of writings that

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Sheil, Christopher & Frank Stilwell: Land of the ‘fair go’ no more: wealth in Australia is becoming more unequal

Sheil, Christopher & Frank Stilwell ‘Land of the “fair go” no more: wealth in Australia is becoming more unequal‘, The Conversation, 9 August 2016 Yet another piece to add to our collection under the thumbnail, ‘Inequality’. Reports and analyses continue

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McQuire, Amy: 200 years of trauma through a CCTV lens (Don Dale and after)

McQuire, Amy ‘200 years of trauma through a CCTV lens‘, New Matilda, 3 August 2016 The best piece that we have seen on this issue. Darumbul journalist, Amy McQuire, looks behind the Royal Commission kneejerk reaction. Aboriginal affairs moves at

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AHRC Working Group: Leading for Change: A Blueprint for Cultural Diversity and Inclusive Leadership

Australian Human Rights Commission Working Group Leading for Change: A Blueprint for Cultural Diversity and Inclusive Leadership, The Commission, Sydney, 2016 The Working Group was chaired by Tim Soutphommasane, Race Discrimination Commissioner, and included Greg Whitwell, Rae Cooper, Ainslie Van

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Sparrow, Jeff: The greyhound ban and the working man: what exactly does “working class culture” mean?

Sparrow, Jeff ‘The greyhound ban and the working man: what exactly does “working class culture” mean?‘ Guardian Australia, 21 July 2016 Explores the idea that the proposed ban on greyhound racing in New South Wales will particularly affect something called

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HILDA tells an Australian story about wealth and poverty – and there is an international angle as well

HILDA stands for the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey and it has been run by the Melbourne Institute since 2001. It is one of many surveys and studies reporting on inequality in Australia. Honest History has been

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Fielding, Victoria: The big election story the media missed

Fielding, Victoria ‘The big election story the media missed‘, New Matilda, 7 July 2016 PhD student writes on the lack of attention during the election campaign to growing inequality. (The Honest History website has collected extensive resources on inequality.) She

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Megarrity, Lyndon: Northern Dreams, National Realities: The Life and Times of Dr Rex Patterson

Megarrity, Lyndon Research Report 46: Northern Dreams, National Realities: The Life and Times of Dr Rex Patterson, TJ Ryan Foundation, Brisbane, May 2016 Rex Patterson (1927-2016) was Australia’s first minister for portfolios specialising in Northern Australia. After a career in

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Midwinter (almost) Miscellany from Honest History (info-brokers to the gentry)

Illness has cut a swathe through the Honest History engine-room this week so the remaining HH elves have been forced to bundle some useful links together below. The bundling exercise also warmed us up in an unusually cold Canberra early

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Honest History Miscellany of the June Long Weekend

Some of our Honest History software fell over late on Thursday last week. Thanks to some sleuthing by our indefatigable Webmaster we got it back on track by late Saturday but it meant there was a buildup of new posts

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Which bank do you know? Some notes from Humphrey McQueen on Australian banking history

‘Which bank do you know? Some notes from Humphrey McQueen on Australian banking history’, Honest History, 7 June 2016 and updated [*] The distinguished Australian historian, Humphrey McQueen, has sent Honest History extensive notes distilling his recent research on the

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Leigh, Andrew: Markets, monopolies and moguls: the relationship between inequality and competition

Leigh, Andrew ‘Markets, monopolies and moguls: the relationship between inequality and competition: John Freebairn Lecture in Public Policy, University of Melbourne, 19 May 2016‘, Andrew Leigh MP website, 20 May 2016 Like a large tree that overshadows the saplings around

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Jericho, Greg: Myths of the neoliberal economic model

Jericho, Greg ‘It’s time to expose the myths of the neoliberal economic model‘, Guardian Australia, 30 May 2016 Election commentary which takes a broad historical sweep. The writer looks at trend figures for GDP growth going back 20, 30 and

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Salvation Army: Out of Reach: National Economic and Social Impact Survey 2016

Salvation Army Out of Reach: National Economic and Social Impact Survey 2016, Salvation Army Australia (Southern Territory and Eastern Territory), Melbourne and Sydney, 2016 The survey of 1600 Salvation Army clients found: Respondents affected by family violence were most affected

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Bright, Denis: The income divide in Australia: The return of class-based politics?

Bright, Denis ‘The income divide in Australia: the return of class-based politics?‘, Australian Independent Media Network, 19 May 2016 Gets beyond the politics of campaigning to look at some statistics – some of which have been used previously in the

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Pascoe, Bruce: Dark Emu: Black Seeds, Agriculture or Accident?

Bruce Pascoe Dark Emu: Black Seeds, Agriculture or Accident? Magabala Books, Broome WA, 2014 (and later editions) Dark Emu argues for a reconsideration of the “hunter-gatherer” tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians and attempts to rebut the colonial myths that have

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Commonwealth Budget 2016 and the size and direction of government

‘Commonwealth Budget 2016 and the size and direction of government’, Honest History, 5 May 2016 updated There has been lots of Budget analysis. Honest History wishes only to note the specifically commemorative elements and pick out some other aspects that

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McAuley, Ian: How the deficit obsession is eroding the budget’s usefulness

McAuley, Ian ‘How the deficit obsession is eroding the budget’s usefulness‘, The Conversation, 21 April 2016 Over many years the budget has morphed from an economic statement explaining how the government allocates resources, to a fiscal statement. The emphasis has

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Kaine, Sarah: State of the union(s): perfect storm weakened workers’ voices

Kaine, Sarah ‘The state of the union(s): how a perfect storm weakened the workers’ voices‘, The Conversation, 21 April 2016 The author says that, given the current political focus on unions, an observer would think Australian unions were at the

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Twenty-five years since Deaths in Custody Royal Commission: Honest History miscellany

‘Twenty-five years since Deaths in Custody Royal Commission: Honest History miscellany’, Honest History, 15 April 2016 Taking a line through the dozen or so news reports and pieces of commentary below, we do not attempt any summing up other than

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Stephens, David: Bill Shorten’s Royal Commission proposal: Labor and banks go way, way back

Stephens, David ‘Bill Shorten’s Royal Commission proposal: Labor and the banks go way, way back‘, Pearls and Irritations, 9 April 2016 and updated Update of some earlier material on the Honest History site about the history of Labor’s relations with

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Labor call for banking Royal Commission has historical echoes aplenty

Update December 2017: a Royal Commission of a different feather is announced. Update June-September 2016: more from Humphrey McQueen and others. Update 9 April 2016: updated article on Pearls and Irritation website. ______________ Opposition Leader Shorten has called for a

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Jabour, Bridie: Boomers and millenials: not intergenerational but class warfare

Jabour, Bridie ‘Boomers and millenials: this is not intergenerational warfare, it’s class warfare‘, Guardian Australia, 6 April 2016 Talk about intergenerational conflict is really about class conflict, based on differential access to capital, particularly housing. Some millenials can rely on

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Colebatch, Tim: Australia’s urban boom: the latest evidence

Colebatch, Tim ‘Australia’s urban boom: the latest evidence‘, Inside Story, 5 April 2016 Sometime over the next three months, Sydney’s population will reach five million. If Melbourne keeps growing at its current pace, by 2020 it too will have five million

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Brennan, Frank: Deja vu for Timor as Turnbull neglects boundary talks

Brennan, Frank ‘Deja vu for Timor as Turnbull neglects boundary talks‘, Eureka Street, 21 March 2016 Looks at the history of and recent developments in the boundary dispute between Timor Leste and Australia. Oil and gas lies beneath the sea

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Half the world away at home (review of Connor, Stanley & Yule)

‘Half the world away at home’ (review of Connor, Stanley & Yule), Honest History, 15 March 2016 Derek Abbott* reviews The War at Home: The Centenary History of Australia and the Great War Volume 4, by John Connor, Peter Stanley

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Bentley, Tom & Jonathan West: Time for a new consensus

Bentley, Tom & Jonathan West ‘Time for a new consensus: fostering Australia’s comparative advantages‘, Griffith Review 51 supplement, March 2016; available as pdf and electronically Australia has emerged from a spectacular resources boom without any clear approach to achieving growth

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Cox, Eva: Feminism has failed and needs a rethink

Cox, Eva ‘Feminism has failed and needs a rethink‘, The Conversation, 8 March 2016 The author says women achieved formal legal equality ‘but moving past that into wider social equity changes seems definitely to have stalled’. Partly due to neo-liberalism,

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Wilkie, Douglas: La Trobe’s decision to postpone gold exploitation until after 1851

Wilkie, Douglas ‘Ten thousand fathoms deep: Charles Joseph La Trobe’s decision to postpone gold exploitation until after Separation from New South Wales in 1851‘, La Trobeana, 14, 1, March 2015, pp. 6-14 The beginning of the Victorian gold rushes and

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Decimal currency came in 50 years ago and some of us have never got the song out of our heads

‘On the fourteenth of February, 1966 …’. The TV advertisement which softened us up for the change. That wretched song and a didactic dollar bill (the tune is ‘Click go the shears’ for those who do not recognise it). Someone

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It’s a system, dammit, not a horse-race (review of Griffith Review 51)

‘It’s a system, dammit, not a horse-race’ (review of Griffith Review 51), Honest History, 2 February 2016 David Stephens reviews Griffith Review 51, ‘Fixing the system’, edited by Julianne Schultz and Anne Tiernan  Once upon a time gentlemen who made

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Schultz, Julianne, Anne Tiernan, et al.: Fixing the system

Schultz, Julianne, Anne Tiernan, et al. ‘Fixing the system‘, Griffith Review, 51, January 2016, available online to subscribers Collection of nearly thirty essays on how to foster ‘a society that really works’. Authors include the editors, Carmen Lawrence, Chris Wallace,

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Headon, David & John Uhr, ed.: Eureka: Australia’s greatest story

David Headon & John Uhr, ed. Eureka: Australia’s Greatest Story, Federation Press, Sydney, 2015; electronic version available Papers from a conference held in Canberra, December 2014, plus some additional papers. The editors of this book boldly proclaim that Eureka is

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Wilkie, Douglas: Melbourne reacts to Bathurst gold discoveries, 1851

Wilkie, Douglas ‘Exodus and panic: Melbourne’s reaction to the Bathurst gold discoveries of May 1851‘, Victorian Historical Journal, 85, 2, December 2014, pp. 189-218 Sober consideration of the evidence confirms what was known at the time – that reactions to

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Eltham, Ben: for a new thing, innovation has been around for a while

Eltham, Ben ‘Malcolm “Boom Boom” Turnbull is an old ideas man‘, New Matilda, 10 December 2015 Anyone older than 40 should be able to remember at least three ‘innovation statements’ by Australian governments. They may also have a shelf of

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Three essays on the Cronulla riots 10 years on

Update 14 December 2015: the World Socialist Web Site weighs in with some detailed analysis of the court decision on the proposed Cronulla commemorative barbecue by the Party for Freedom. WSWS has also sent us a link to its 2006

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Powell, Graeme with Stuart Macintyre: Land of opportunity (Post-War Reconstruction archives)

Powell, Graeme with Stuart Macintyre Land of Opportunity: Australia’s Post-War Reconstruction, National Archives of Australia, Canberra, 2015 This is 336 pages (30 chapters) of guidance to the files of the National Archives of Australia on a crucial decade of Australia’s

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Whiteford, Peter: is welfare sustainable?

Whiteford, Peter ‘Is welfare sustainable?‘ Inside Story, 22 November 2015 Looks at recent government statements about social services expenditure then moves on to detailed historical consideration of the issue. Most of the graphs go back to 1995 and cover, for

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Eureka 161 years on: Honest History miscellany

‘Eureka 161 years on: Honest History miscellany’, Honest History, 1 December 2015 Thursday this week, 3 December, is the 161st anniversary of Eureka. Honest History has collected resources on Eureka over the last couple of years and here are links

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Bongiorno, Frank: The Eighties: Decade that Transformed Australia

Bongiorno, Frank The Eighties: The Decade that Transformed Australia, Black Inc, Collingwood, Vic, 2015; hardback and electronic It was the era of Hawke and Keating, Kylie and INXS, the America’s Cup and the Bicentenary. It was perhaps the most controversial

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The eighties in nine chapters (review of Bongiorno)

‘The eighties in nine chapters’ (review of Bongiorno), Honest History, 1 December 2015 Janet Wilson* reviews The Eighties: The Decade that Transformed Australia by Frank Bongiorno __________________________ Among the words and phrases that entered the lexicon in the 1980s are

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Do we really have an ‘egalitarian, fair-go culture’?

Last night the prime minister told Leigh Sales on 7.30 that Australia had a ‘strong, egalitarian, fair-go culture’ and that whatever was done with tax reform had to fit with that culture. Is the prime minister too boffo about our

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Bottoms, Timothy: Cairns: city of the South Pacific

Bottoms, Timothy Cairns: City of the South Pacific: a History 1770-1995, Bunu Bunu Press, Cairns, 2015 The township of Cairns was established in the wake of the Palmer River Gold rush of 1873, and established as a port for the

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Smith, Evan: Australia and the fascist idea of Greater Britain

Smith, Evan ‘Australia and the fascist idea of Greater Britain‘, Imperial & Global Forum, 9 November 2015 Guest blog by an Australian scholar. Shows how important to Oswald Mosley’s 1930s British Union of Fascists (BUF) was to the maintenance of

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Inequality becoming a bigger issue for Australians

We noted the latest Scanlon Foundation Social Cohesion Survey report. There was an interesting result on this question at page 44 of the report: ‘In Australia today, the gap between those with high incomes and those with low incomes is too large’. Of respondents

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Hudson, Marc: 25 years of emissions cuts history

Hudson, Marc ‘25 years ago the Australian government promised deep emissions cuts, and yet here we still are‘, The Conversation, 9 October 2015 Looks at ‘the largely forgotten history’ of the 25 years since the then minister brought Australia’s first

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Inequality news keeps breaking over our ‘egalitarian’ homeland

The excellent online publication The Conversation provides an opportunity for academics of sprightly mind to engage in evidence-based public debate and get their views to a large, mostly non-academic audience. (Audience figures here are not too shabby, with a claim

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Jericho, Greg: poorest will go under as living standards ebb

Jericho, Greg ‘As the “rising tide” of living standards starts to ebb, the poorest will go under‘, Guardian Australia, 19 September 2015 Close summary analysis of the NATSEM report recently released. See also our collection of material on inequality, with

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Beams, Nick: PM Turnbull and China

Beams, Nick ‘Foreign policy dilemmas confront new Australian PM over China‘, World Socialist Web Site, 18 September 2015 Long article dissecting the new prime minister’s attitudes to China taking note of some key speeches. A useful addition to whatever analysis

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Phillips, Ben: living standard trends in Australia

Phillips, Ben Living Standard Trends in Australia: Report for Anglicare Australia, NATSEM, University of Canberra, September 1915 The report compares the living standards of different household types across the country: how they have changed since 2004 and how they are

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Inequality – six of the best from Andrew Leigh MP: highlights reel

‘Inequality – six of the best from Andrew Leigh, MP: highlights reel’, Honest History, 1 September 2015 updated Inequality has been a special interest of Honest History, as we have noted the procession of reporting organisations confirming Australia’s growing reputation

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Review note: Stuart Macintyre’s Australia’s Boldest Experiment

‘Review note: Stuart Macintyre’s Australia’s Boldest Experiment‘, Honest History, 19 August 2015 updated World War I is far enough back for spruikers of a particular view of it to extract bits selectively from, say, the ambivalent Charles Bean and impress

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Glover, Dennis: unmaking of Australian working class

Glover, Dennis ‘The unmaking of the Australian working class – and their right to resist‘, The Conversation, 3 August 2015 An edited extract from the author’s book, An Economy is Not a Society: Winners and Losers in the New Australia.

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Heaton, Barbara Carol: coal miners during World War II

Heaton, Barbara Carol* ‘A history of unrest and turmoil: coal miners during World War II’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 An examination of coal mining in wartime, drawing heavily on resources collected by former mining official, Jim Comerford, and now

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Coal miners during World War II

Barbara Carol Heaton* ‘A history of unrest and turmoil: coal miners during World War II’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 Controversy continues over the role of militant unions in Australia during World War II. While the sharpest focus has been

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ACOSS: inequality in Australia

ACOSS Inequality in Australia: a Nation Divided, Australian Council of Social Services, Strawberry Hills, NSW, 2015 Summary of key findings Income Inequality Inequality in Australia is higher than the OECD average – a person in the top 20% income group

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Bosler, Danae: Australian novels by radical women

Bosler, Danae ‘Labour in vain: the forgotten novels of Australia’s radical women‘, Overland, 16 June 2015 Brief survey of novels by Betty Collins, Jean Devanny, Dorothy Hewett, Amanda Lohrey and others. These novels are seminal Australian texts because of their

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Buckley, Ian: Learning from Adam Smith

Ian Buckley ‘Learning from Adam Smith: help at hand today‘, Honest History, 9 June 2015 Buckley contests the view that Adam Smith argued ‘that unalloyed selfishness aimed solely at the maximisation of production, trade and profit is in the best

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Dyrenfurth, Nick: Mateship

Dyrenfurth, Nick Mateship: A Very Australian History, Scribe, Brunswick, Vic., 2014 In the first book-length exploration of our secular creed, one of Australia’s leading young historians and public commentators turns mateship’s history upside down. Did you know that the first

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OECD: In it together: why less inequality benefits all … in Australia

OECD In It Together: Why Less Inequality Benefits All … in Australia, OECD, 21 May 2015 This is the Australia-oriented summary takeout from a broader OECD project. The material at the link includes graphs on income inequality trends and a

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Batt, Peter J. et al: pillars of the economy

Batt, Peter J. et al ‘Five pillar economy,’ The Conversation, 27 April-11 May 2015 The articles take up a 2013 theme of prime minister Abbott (‘the five pillar economy’) and look at agriculture (Batt), education (Michael Coelli), mining (Anne Garnett),

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CEDA: entrenched economic disadvantage in Australia

Committee for Economic Development of Australia Addressing Economic Disadvantage in Australia, CEDA, Melbourne, 2015 This report was released on 21 April 2015. It was described as ‘a policy perspective examining issues associated with the economics of disadvantage’. In other words,

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Keating, Michael & John Menadue, ed.: Fairness, opportunity and security

Keating, Michael & John Menadue, ed. ‘Fairness, opportunity and security: a policy series‘, Pearls and Irritations, 11 May 2015 (updated) Update 27 May 2015: There have been 20 or so papers already on democratic renewal, the role of government, foreign

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McAuley, Ian: Australia’s ‘big government’ myth

McAuley, Ian ‘Busting the myth that Australia has “big government”‘, The Conversation, 8 May 2015 The reality is that Australia’s public expenditure, as a percentage of GDP, has shown no discernible upward trend for the last 35 years, and that

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Wise, Nathan: Anzac Labour

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Anzac Labour reviewed

‘Anzac Labour reviewed’, Honest History, 14 April 2014 Paddy Gourley reviews Nathan Wise’s book Anzac Labour: Workplace Cultures in the Australian Imperial Force during the First World War If most books about the military in war concentrate on the description

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What is the state for?

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Denniss, Richard: Economists and Manning Clark

Denniss, Richard ‘What economists can learn from Manning Clark: 2015 Manning Clark lecture, Australian National University, Canberra, 3 March 2015‘, Manning Clark House This is an audio of the lecture plus a separate audio of questions and answers. It may

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Gregory, Mark: Australian working songs and poems

Gregory, Mark Australian Working Songs and Poems: a Rebel Heritage, Ph. D. thesis, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong, 2014 The thesis analyses 150 poems and songs about work and working conditions, with an emphasis on rights,

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Military-industrial complex has suburban reach: Honest History Factsheet

Update 20 June 2016: Canadian example of how an arms manufacturer manipulates the local employment angle. __________________ Since the days of muskets and Gatling guns Australian forces have used weapons built somewhere else. In the modern era, being locked into

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McQueen, Humphrey: Australian women in the early 1980s

McQueen, Humphrey ‘The hand that pours the gin’, Gone Tomorrow: Australia in the 80s, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1982, chapter 8 (pdfs of out-of-copyright material made available by the author) The chapter uses the medium of women’s magazines to show

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Tiffen, Rodney: Strategic omissions: Howard on Menzies

Tiffen, Rodney ‘Strategic omissions‘, Inside Story, 29 January 2015 A review of John Howard’s The Menzies Era: the Years that Shaped Modern Australia. The greatest appeal of the book is that it is written from the perspective of an experienced

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Howard, John: Menzies era

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Jakubowicz, Andrew: Nine race riots that made Australia

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Bengsen, Andrew: Rabbits of Christmas past

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McQueen, Humphrey: From Eureka stockades

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Stephens, David: Does the banker still hold all the cards?

Stephens, David ‘Does the banker still hold all the cards?‘ Honest History, 24 November 2014 and updated A historical view of some aspects of banking policy, inspired by a recent piece from The Australia Institute targeting the concentration of banking

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Does the banker still hold all the cards?

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Watson, Don: The Bush

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Questions from a worker who reads

Who built Thebes of the seven gates? In the books you will find the name of kings. Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock? And Babylon, many times demolished. Who raised it up so many times? In what houses of gold-glittering

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Highlights reel: ACOSS Poverty Report 2014

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Henry, Ken: Public policy and economic reform

Henry, Ken ‘Public policy resilience and the reform narrative‘, ANU News, 18 September 2014 A lecture delivered at the Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU, 16 September 2014. The lecture focuses on two questions: how should one assess the wealth

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Wesley, Michael: Meaning of China

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Cahill, Damien & Frank Stilwell. ed.: Australian economic boom

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Humphrys, Elizabeth: Birth of Australia

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Honest History list: inequality by the dozen

You can now find our inequality resources linked from here. 14 November 2015

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Chubb, Ian: No free rides to science future

Chubb, Ian ‘There are no free rides to the future: Australia’s Chief Scientist‘, The Conversation, 13 August 2014 and updated Speech mapping current state of play in science – Australia is in only the middle of the pack = and

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Masanauskas, John: Melbourne pictures

Masanauskas, John ‘Haunting images of the streets that were once home to Melbourne’s slums‘, Herald-Sun, 11 August 2014 Photo essay of slum streets 1936-83. The piece links to similar essays on other aspects of Melbourne life, including series for each

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Water, water not everywhere

Talking of what has shaped our national destiny (as we inevitably do when centenaries loom), H2O deserves a close look. Plunging into Michael Cathcart’s 2010 book The Water Dreamers we find a quote from German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (‘History

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Political pledges

We are not free to break our word, abandon our principles, desert our party, betray our constituents. But the pledge cannot prevent us doing any one or all of those things if our inclination lies in that direction. (William Morris

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Class War 1930

I … a member of the working class do hereby solemnly swear to protect the working class against armed and other aggression of our capitalist class enemy… should I betray the trust imposed upon me I will receive the scorn

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Primordial state

The early circumstances of New South Wales were against its rapid growth. Founded as a receptacle for convicts, a system akin to slavery soon took root. Such of the early settlers as were neither gentlemen nor convicts belonged to the

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If equality returns

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Richardson, David & Denniss, Richard: Income and wealth inequality

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Grosjean, Pauline & Rose Khattar: It’s raining men

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Bongiorno, Frank: Labour and Anzac

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McQueen, Humphrey: Anzac: a class struggle

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Highlights reel: HB Higgins on the yellow peril

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Hoskins, Ian: NSW coast

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Douglas, Bob et al: Inequality in Australia

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Leslie Jauncey writes to a grieving Amy O’Malley (12 June 2014)

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Rundle, Guy: Culturestate

Rundle, Guy ‘The Culturestate’, Meanjin, 69, 2, Winter 2010, pp. 56-63 The author examines the increasing and increasingly complex relationship between the state in Australia and cultural and artistic production. By examining the history of both Australian literary production and

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Burnside, Sarah: Alternatives to Anzac Day

Burnside, Sarah ‘What would alternatives to Anzac day look like?‘ Guardian Australia, 23 April 2014 Discusses an ‘alternative national story’ derived from social democratic reforms prior to the Great War, which were interrupted by the destruction and disruption of the

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Lake, Marilyn: Minimum wage

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Whiteford, Peter: Income and wealth inequality

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Leigh, Andrew: Battlers and billionaires

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Cain, Frank: Wobblies and World War I

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Young, Linda: Subversive jewellery

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Bongiorno, Frank: Dirty work

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Leigh, Andrew: Eureka Lecture 2013

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Murphy, DJ: TJ Ryan biography

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Starr, Michelle: Best Aussie inventions

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Colebatch, Hal GP: Australia’s secret war

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McQueen, Humphrey: Eureka Dinner 2013

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McCalman, Iain: Barrier reef

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Masters, Chris: Years that made us

Masters, Chris The Years That Made Us, ABC Video, 2013 (shown on ABC TV, June-July 2013) In Australian mythology nationhood was forged in the slaughter of Gallipoli in 1915. But in The Years That Made Us Chris Masters introduces a

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Hillier, Ben & Tom O’Lincoln: Capitalism in Australia

Hillier, Ben & Tom O’Lincoln ‘Five hundred lashes and double irons: the origins of Australian capitalism‘, Marxist Left Review, 5, Summer 2013 Thoroughly researched and theoretically grounded view of the first 30 years of the colony of New South Wales.

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Armstrong, Mick: Riots in Australia

Armstrong, Mick ‘Disturbing the peace: riots and the working class‘, Marxist Left Review, 4, Winter 2012 In this article [Mick writes] I want to look at the long and proud history of riots in Australia and take on the arguments

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Wright, Clare: Forgotten rebels of Eureka

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Macintyre, Stuart: The Reds

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Faulkner, John & Stuart Macintyre, ed.: True believers

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McMullin, Ross: Light on the hill

McMullin, Ross The Light on the Hill: The Australian Labor Party 1891-1991, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, Vic., 2nd revised edition 1993; first published 1991; later editions Centenary history commissioned by the party and making use of party records. Looks

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McMullin, Ross: So monstrous a travesty

McMullin, Ross So Monstrous a Travesty: Chris Watson and the World’s First National Labour Government, Scribe, Carlton North, Vic., 2004 We were leading the world [the author said in a lecture about his book]. It might be hard to imagine

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Isaac, Joe & Stuart Macintyre, ed.: New province

Isaac, Joe & Stuart Macintyre, ed. The New Province for Law and Order: 100 Years of Australian Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge & New York, 2004 Commemorating the centenary of the Australian system of settling industrial disputes –

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Megalogenis, George: Australian moment

Megalogenis, George The Australian Moment: How We Were Made for These Times, Viking, Melbourne, Vic., 2013 [The author] examines how we developed from a closed economy racked by the oil shocks, toughed it out during the sometimes devastating growing pains

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Knox, Malcolm: Boom

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Blainey, Geoffrey: Rush that never ended

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Australian Council of Trade Unions: 75th anniversary

Australian Council of Trade Unions 75th Anniversary Commemorative Booklet, ACTU, Melbourne, 2002 Basic illustrated history of union activity from the viewpoint of the peak body.

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Australian National University: Noel Butlin Archives

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Gallop, Geoff & Greg Patmore, ed.: Social democracy and business

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Murray, Georgina & Jenny Chesters: Wealth and power

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Hearn, Mark & Greg Patmore, ed.: Working the nation

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Gollan, RA: Radical and working class politics

Gollan, RA Radical and Working Class Politics: A Study of Eastern Australia, 1850-1910, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 1960; later editions Like Ward’s Australian Legend, a pioneering work which set up a particular image of Australian society and politics which

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Ward, Russel: Australian Legend

Ward, Russel The Australian Legend, Oxford University Press, Melbourne & New York, 1958; many later editions Origin of a particular myth of bronzed Australian bushmen, rural labourers of the 19th century, claimed by Ward and others to epitomise Australia, or

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McLean, Ian W: Why Australia prospered

McLean, Ian W Why Australia Prospered: The Shifting Sources of Economic Growth, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2013; electronic versions available Ian McLean argues that Australia’s remarkable prosperity across nearly two centuries was reached and maintained by several shifting factors.

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Evans, MDR & Jonathan Kelley: Australian economy and society

Evans, MDR & Jonathan Kelley with Peter Dawkins, et al Australian Economy and Society 2001: Education, Work, Welfare, The Federation Press, Annandale, NSW, 2002 The book provides data for the later decades of the 2oth century on six broad areas,

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Cochrane, Peter: Industrialization and dependence

Cochrane, Peter Industrialization and Dependence: Australia’s Road to Economic Development, 1870-1939, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Qld, 1980; downloadable Shows how Australian industrial development in these years was built on close economic integration with Britain.

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About The sweat of our brows

Click here for all items related to: The sweat of our brows In this section there is material on how Australians have earned a living in different ways for themselves and their families, how they have succeeded and failed, how

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Broomhill, Ray: Australian economic booms

Broomhill, Ray ‘Australian economic booms in historical perspective‘, Journal of Australian Political Economy, 61, June 2008, pp. 12-29 Part of a special issue on The Australian Economic Boom 1992-? including a number of articles relevant to economic and social policy

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Leigh, Andrew: Brief economic history

Leigh, Andrew What Do We Eat after the Low-Hanging Fruit? A Brief Economic History of Australia, with Some Lessons for the Future, Speech to the McKell Institute, 18 May 2012 (audio, text and Q & A) The low-hanging fruit were

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McLean, Ian: Australian economic growth

McLean, Ian Australian Economic Growth in Historical Perspective: A Survey for the Economic Record, School of Economics Working Paper 2004-01, University of Adelaide, May 2004 Combines traditional interpretations and insights from recent growth analysis. Extensive bibliography. Australia’s (modern) economy was

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Robertson, Paul L.: Resource based or resource cursed?

Robertson, Paul L. Resource Based or Resource Cursed? A Brief (and Selective) History of the Australian Economy since 1901,  Australian Innovation Research Centre, University of Tasmania, AIRC Working Paper Series WP/0108. November 2008 (Pdf accessible from ecite.utas.edu.au) Discusses Australia’s historical

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Haig, Bryan: Australian GDP

Haig, Bryan ‘New estimates of Australian GDP: 1861-1948/49‘, Australian Economic History Review, 41, 1, March 2001, pp. 1-34 Surveys statistics from the earliest days of their collection. Useful bibliography to 2001. Suggests that national accounting data are of little use

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Australian Medical Association: More than just a union

Australian Medical Association More Than Just a Union: A History of the AMA, AMA, Canberra, 2012; downloadable A brief history, describing the development of the profession, changes in medicine and the role of the AMA in politics. 10 October 2013

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Higgins, Winton: Standards Australia

Higgins, Winton Engine of Change: Standards Australia since 1922, Brandl & Schlesinger, Blackheath, NSW, 2005 Traces the history of the national standards body and the contribution of standards to our standard of living and quality of life. Without standards, virtually

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ASHET multiple authors: Engineering history

ASHET multiple authors Australian Society for History of Engineering and Technology Links to material about aspects of this sector, including articles on aviation, locomotion, bridges, telephones, frozen meat and sheep shearing.

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Australia: Australian inventions

Australia Australian Inventions Portal site linking to many resources about the history of Australian inventing. Australian inventions have assisted with everyday activities such as hanging out the clothes to dry on a rotary washing line, putting food into the fridge

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Irving, Terence H & Sean Scalmer: Labour intellectuals

Irving, Terence H & Sean Scalmer ‘Labour intellectuals in Australia: modes, traditions, generations, transformations‘, International Review of Social History, 50, 1, 2005, pp. 1-26 The labour movement has been replete with educators, readers, advocates, stirrers, brokers, editors, writers, painters, theorists,

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Dyrenfurth, Nick, Mark Hearn & Harry Knowles, ed.: Fisher

Dyrenfurth, Nick, Mark Hearn & Harry Knowles, ed. ‘The Fisher Labor Government, 1910-13‘, Labour History, 102, May 2012 Collection of articles to mark the centenary of the first majority Labour government anywhere in the world. Hearn and Dyrenfurth set the

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Lake, Marilyn: This great America

Lake, Marilyn ‘“This great America”: HB Higgins and Transnational Progressivism‘, Historical Studies, 44, 2, June 2013, pp. 172-88 Australian history has not always been about our need to retain great and powerful friends. There have been times when the rest

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Martinez, Julia T.: Questioning White Australia

Martinez, Julia T. ‘Questioning “White Australia”: unionism and “coloured” labour, 1911-1937‘, Labour History, 76, pp. 1-19 The “White Australia” policy is associated with the Immigration Restriction Act in 1901 and the exclusion of “coloured” labour from Australia. After 1901, however,

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Jupp, James: White Australia to Woomera

Jupp, James From White Australia to Woomera: The Story of Australian Immigration, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2nd edition, 2007; first published 2002 [S]urveys the changes in policy over the last thirty years since the seismic shift away from the

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Lake, Marilyn & Henry Reynolds: Global Colour Line

Lake, Marilyn & Henry Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men’s Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2008; e-book and print on demand available Places Australia’s late 19th and early 20th century

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Lake, Marilyn: Getting equal

Lake, Marilyn Getting Equal: The History of Australian Feminism, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 1999 Getting Equal is the first full-length history of the movements – and their feisty, ebullient, determined leaders – who fought for women’s political and economic rights,

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Whiteford, Peter: Poverty

Whiteford, Peter ‘Poverty in a time of prosperity‘, Inside Story, 15 September 2013 Over the past forty years the economic fortunes of Australian households have fallen into two fairly distinct periods. In the “disappointing decades” of the 1970s and 1980s,

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Waterhouse, Richard: Vision splendid

Waterhouse, Richard The Vision Splendid: A Social and Cultural History of Rural Australia, Curtin University Books, Fremantle, WA, 2005 Describes how ‘the Bush’, where most Australians do not live, has played an important part in shaping national identity. This is

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Robin, Libby & Tom Griffiths: Environmental history

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