Articles

Beating the khaki drum: how Australian identity was militarised | Paul Daley

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Becoming a top arms exporter fits neatly into a national narrative that has become hostage to ‘Anzac birthers’

A nation’s capital should be an outward looking place, a city that faces the world to convey the type of country it represents. What, then, might be the first thoughts about Australia of those who fly into Canberra as they traverse the arrivals hall and concourse at our national capital’s airport?

Australia Day's barbecue stopper is the same every year | Paul Daley

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By the time of the first formal protest in 1938, 26 January had already long been an Indigenous day of mourning

Irrespective of whether the politicians shift Australia’s annual orgy of self-congratulation from 26 January, it will always thrive for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and those who support betterment of their rights, as a national day of mourning.

I’ve had dogs for much of my life, but Nari found another league in my heart | Paul Daley

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Towards the end I pondered the mystery of man-dog emotional alchemy. When the moment came, I patted her silky ear and said ‘good girl’ for the last time

The other dog walkers who’d been asking me how she was doing are visibly upset when I explain that, after suddenly going blind and losing use of her hind legs, we had to put her down.

Magpies: how I learnt to grudgingly admire – and then love – the bird of the year | Paul Daley

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They’re feared for their fierce protection of sovereignty and dive-bombing trespassers, but all is forgiven listening to a pair of magpies warbling in a gumtree

Anodyne eastern suburbs Melbourne seemed less dangerous than any other place in the world when I was a primary school kid.

There was the creek with its tadpoles, turtles and occasional foxes. There was, inevitably, a local haunted house. And there was the path.

‘Every little thing we’ve won since, we’ve had to fight for’. Sol Bellear dies | Paul Daley

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The Aboriginal rights activist’s life ended way too early. But it made a difference to so many others and leaves a legacy as large as he was in life

Bundjalung man Sol Bellear had a dream that became a plan.

The artists saving traditional knowledge for the next generation

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Artistic collaboration between John Wolseley and Mulkun Wirrpanda will safeguard the practical and cultural significance of Indigenous food plants

English-born landscape artist John Wolseley and Mulkun Wirrpanda, a Yolngu bark painter from north-east Arnhem Land, may seem an unlikely alliance.

People might look at Wolseley, his lineage traceable to the Saxons, and Mulkun, the daughter of a murdered warrior, her Yolngu ancestors on this continent for tens of thousands of years before time held meaning, as coming from different worlds.

Finding Mungo Man: the moment Australia's story suddenly changed

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As the oldest known Indigenous remains are returned to country this week, the man who found them muses on the discovery

Late in his ninth decade and conscious the sands of his time may be too diminished to finish all he should, Jim Bowler speaks at night to the ancient Aboriginal person who has defined his life, Mungo Man.

Outrage will prevent a windfarm over the Bullecourt dead – but it's missing elsewhere | Paul Daley

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Where is the anger at Indigenous remains in museums after modern infrastructure disturbed traditional burial sites?

It is easy to find distinct order in the chiseled landscape of commemoration when you visit the world war one battlefields of the European western front.

Winding your way down bucolic country laneways or taking highways across the verdant expanses for which millions died, you’ll see hundreds of cemeteries with their blonde statuary, precise lawns and tended shrubs. They bring military structure to remembering.

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