Australia has a racist constitution. It gives the Federal Parliament power to make laws for ‘The people of any race, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws’. Deemed necessary, that is, by the Parliament itself. (more…)
Category: History
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An Australia Day worth celebrating – how might we do it?
As is now usual around Australia Day, commentators from all sides of the argument weigh in to suggest new dates on which we might celebrate the founding of the nation. Henry Reynolds, for instance, has made a case for not celebrating on 26 January and in response in these pages David Havyatt has wondered whether we need a national day at all. So questions are arising here: do we need an Australia Day and if so when should it be? (more…)
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Australia Day: a long perspective from 65,000 BCE
‘Australian history does not read like history but like the most beautiful lies.’ – Mark Twain, 1897 (more…)
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Truth telling and lamentation before celebration
When one group of people takes the land of another by military force, ‘invasion’ is the most accurate term. We would hardly speak of Germany ‘settling’ France in 1940. (more…)
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Don’t change the date, just the name
In noting that debate about Australia Day began early this year, Henry Reynolds has made a very strong case for not celebrating on that day. That case is well made, however, the simple problem remains that 26 January 1788 remains the single most significant day in Australian history. (more…)
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Japan is not the most warlike nation in history
Jimmy Carter called the US ‘the most warlike nation in the history of the world,’ and said that ‘peaceful’ China is ‘ahead of us in almost every way’. (more…)
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Historically, it’s Japan, not China, that invades other countries
With Japan just having taken over the presidency of the Group of 7 at the beginning of 2023, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has wound up a six-day visit to Britain, France, Italy, Canada and the United States. (more…)
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Monument of shame
Anzac Parade in Canberra is Australia’s major ceremonial avenue, a grand boulevard commemorating (heroic) service and sacrifice. Yet at least one of its monuments represents war crimes, racism, torture and murder. (more…)
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How the UK is developing the characteristics of a failed society
A new book about Birmingham and its role in shaping modern Britain illuminates how the UK moved from the world’s first industrialised nation to financialisation and deindustrialisation to many of the characteristics of a failed society. (more…)
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As time goes by: eighty years since the premiere of Casablanca
It was 1942. Across the Atlantic, vast, troubled swathes of Europe were occupied by the Wehrmacht. Millions of its civilians were displaced; millions more would pack up their belongings and flee as World War II continued to unfold. (more…)
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Give thanks and rejoice: reflections for ST Therese’s Parish centenary mass
Last weekend’s Faith column in The Sunday Age provided a nostalgic reflection on what might be called ‘Old Time Catholicism’ and ‘Catholic Culture’, which I well remember, looking back on growing up in St James’s Parish Gardenvale, in the 1950’s and 60’s. (more…)
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Ukraine: The other side of the story
It appears that wherever one looks or reads there are calls for Russia to withdraw from Ukraine: no other event is called for; in other words, capitulation by Russia. (more…)
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The Queen’s coup and the role of King Charles
‘I wanted you to know that I appreciate what you do and admire enormously the way you have performed in your many and varied duties. Please don’t lose heart. What you did last year was right and the courageous thing to do.’ (Prince Charles) (more…)
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How did Dag Hammarskjöld die? The CIA and Indonesian connection
More than six decades after his plane crashed it remains the great Cold War mystery: Was UN secretary-general (1953-61) Dag Hammarskjöld killed by sabotage, a technical fault, pilot error or air attack? If he was assassinated who was the mastermind? (more…)
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Australia is addicted to fighting other people’s wars
How do we explain that half the Australian community thinks we should go to war with China? After twenty years of conflict in the Middle East, will our addiction to war and our insouciance about its consequences finally catch up with us in an American war over Taiwan? (more…)
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A plan for Australia worthy of our wartime heroes
In the desperation of WWII, Australia established a department of post-war reconstruction that drove far reaching change in how the country was governed. After the jolt of the pandemic, a similar department could be an engine room of a new type of government. (more…)
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In Ukraine, Australia has forgotten the lessons of Iraq, Afghanistan
When a new Labor government was elected in May of this year there was a degree of optimism that their reform agenda would extend to foreign policy. Those hopes were not to be realised. The last Labor government to show a measure of independence in its foreign policy was the Whitlam government that ruled from 1972 to 1975. Among its brave foreign policy initiatives was to withdraw Australian troops from the Vietnam war. (more…)
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Startling events at the Australian War Memorial
Small but significant metaphorical explosions have reverberated recently around the building that some Australians know as our most sacred site. (more…)
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Ukraine: Western missteps lead to something much worse
When even our media of conscience lose interest in the details of emerging East West crises the results can be tragic. (more…)
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Queen Elizabeth II: The palace is winning the propaganda war
Queen Elizabeth II is dead and ‘the Palace’ is working assiduously to shore up her legacy and the institution of Monarchy. Polls show they are winning the hearts and minds in a propaganda war, with the mass media complicit in its hyperbolic, adulatory, blanket coverage. Debates about the Monarchy are cancelled, demonstrators in the UK moved on by police, politicians universally agreeing it is not the time to question what the Monarchy represents. ‘Tomorrow is another day’ as Scarlett O’Hara famously said. Meanwhile the Queen’s persona is emerging as heroic and mythical. (more…)