Articles

A death threat stuck on a piece of rubbish? That's too much even for the trash detectives | Paul Daley

Until I saw the note stapled to a rusty old drying rack, I had thought my neighbourhood was quite safe

A few weeks ago when I was walking down near the ferry terminal, a peaceful place where I like to go with my labrador Ronda and watch the boats, I saw this message attached to a piece of discarded household junk.

If you don’t move your rubbish from here
I know where you live
and I will kill you

A U-turn on the road to redemption: Craig Minogue and the Russell Street bombing | Paul Daley

The 1986 fatal bombing of Melbourne’s police headquarters is taking centre stage in an electoral law and order tussle and raising potent questions

Thirty years ago this month, Craig Minogue, a 23-year-old on a hard criminal track, was convicted of murdering policewoman Angela Rose Taylor in the Easter 1986 bombing of Melbourne’s Russell Street police headquarters.

Turnbull's rise was inevitable. But a devil's deal meant so too was his fall | Paul Daley

When he toppled Abbott he bargained with the jackals of the right, and they stayed at his door

It was never going to end with a whimper.

The finale of Malcolm Bligh Turnbull’s political career was always going to happen with an explosive bang. And while the nation observes this week’s Liberal self-immolation with equal parts exasperation and morbid horror, the pyrotechnics have been characteristically Turnbull-ian as the PM audaciously demanded the mutineers unmask in return for his banishment.

White supremacy was the mainstay of Australian federation. Little has changed | Paul Daley

Fraser Anning, as well as sections of the media and parliament, continue a long tradition of racist rhetoric in Australia

It was heartening to see federal parliament roundly condemn the latest psephological boundary rider to demand national attention with an inflammatory Senate speech invoking the worst crimes of the Holocaust, praising the white Australia policy and proposing a ban on migration for Muslims.

I hope that by staying home I have shown my kids that there is another way | Paul Daley

The benefits of being my children’s primary carer have been large, but I’d be lying if I said they’d come easily

Back at my primary school only two dads ever came to pick their kids up.

They were conspicuous because they stood together, well away from the mums, even though they probably didn’t have anything much in common beyond the obvious fact they were always the only fellas waiting for their offspring at the school gates.

Life doesn’t feel easier than 20 years ago. And maybe that’s a good thing | Paul Daley

Ageing motivates me to strive with ever greater enthusiasm and urgency to be better at the things that are important to me

It came as a surprise to me that the midlife crisis is something of a myth and the less time I’ve got left the happier I’ll apparently become.

Australian soldier's skull taken from US museum and buried with remains in France

Private’s head had been taken to the US after he died from wounds sustained in the Battle of Polygon Wood in Belgium

The skull of an Australian first world war soldier who died of terrible facial wounds sustained on the European western front, before his head was removed and displayed in an American medical museum, has been buried in France with the rest of his remains.

When commemorating Captain Cook, we should remember the advice he ignored | Paul Daley

250 years ago, James Cook was told only to take possession of the land with the consent of Indigenous peoples

Just as centenary commemorations for the national foundation story that is Anzac end later this year, the government is gearing up to celebrate another yarn that often seems interchangeable – the imminent 250th anniversary of the arrival of Captain James Cook and HM Bark Endeavour.

Sometimes I fleetingly feel my parents' presence, as if they were still alive | Paul Daley

Children grow out of nursery rhymes and leave home, the toys go into boxes for the shed, favourite dogs die. That’s time

The older I get the sketchier my memories of my parents become.

Yes, their images remain frozen in the photo boards on our bedroom wall and in frames on mantelpieces about the house. For a time after they died my prosaic memories of them were so vivid; something of them continued on in the places where we’d shared so much life.

Pages