January 2019

Why Blackburn’s whip is a shocking reminder of Australia's history | Paul Daley

Submitted by Paul Daley on

The whip is the only surviving documented wooden artefact from the first fleet’s encounter with Aboriginal people

If a single item could encapsulate the clash of Indigenous and European cultures and laws that began with the arrival of the first fleet, it is almost certainly one held in the collection of the South Australian Museum.

Celebrating nationhood on 26 January has become a gratuitous act of hostility

Submitted by Paul Daley on

Until Australia deals with the unfinished business of Aboriginal sovereignty there will be no appropriate date to celebrate a supposedly unified nation

Another year passes and as Australia emerges from its summertime slumber so, too, does the now predictable “debate” about 26 January, rearing its head like some perennial Jabberwocky to the elites of media and politics.