November 2016

Can Indigenous culture ever coexist with urban planning?

Submitted by Paul Daley on

A new book examines what actually happens when urban planning meets the claims and struggles of Indigenous people in Australian and Canadian cities

In Australia the acknowledgement of Indigenous land ownership, of custodians past and present, is now pretty much mandatory at official functions.

“This is Indigenous land,” you’ll often hear a non-Indigenous speaker say, sometimes after a prominent Aboriginal person or Torres Strait Islander has spoken a welcome to country. “Always was, always will be.”

Thank you, Liz Jackson, for your candour and courage in facing a bastard of a disease | Paul Daley

Submitted by Paul Daley on

My father had Parkinson’s disease but never said the words. Liz Jackson’s decision to talk about it is heartbreaking, but remarkable for its humanity

“Parkinson’s disease” – my father never spoke these words before he died eight years ago from pneumonia associated with his decades-long endurance of this dreadful affliction.

My mother, who saw him through the worst of it until she could no longer do so, never said them. Neither did the doctors – not to his children at least.

'Lying in wait for your next chapter': the Sydney real estate nightmare | Paul Daley

Submitted by Paul Daley on

There’s a special place in real estate heaven (hell to the rest of us) reserved for people who write advertising copy to sell residential property

If you’re a Sydney real estate agent you might want to stop reading here.

Even though I’d really like you to finish it.

Related: A design-led property boom could help solve Australia's housing affordability crisis | Tim Ross

Abbott wants to be Indigenous affairs minister? Well, he ain’t qualified for the job | Paul Daley

Submitted by Paul Daley on

As the so-called, self-appointed ‘prime minister for Indigenous affairs’, Tony Abbott was hopeless and offensive. He shouldn’t be appointed minister

Well, you’ve got to give Tony Abbott’s supporters their dues for loyalty, I suppose. Inside and outside the parliamentary Liberal party they’re calling for him to be brought back into the fold as Indigenous affairs minister, echoing, apparently, the sentiment of the man himself.