Articles

Under Turnbull, a republic could be back on the table. First step, change the flag | Paul Daley

Submitted by Paul Daley on

A change to Australia’s awful colonial flag could be justified as an act of Menzies-style pragmatism by a new leader of the Liberal party, couldn’t it?

When it comes to questions of Australian national identity few topics raise such heat and fury as our national flag. The current Australian flag, with its dominant British union jack, is an anachronistic colonial throwback that ought to be ditched along with Prince Philip’s knighthood.

It’s time to forge a national day to unite original and new Australians | Paul Daley

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There’s plenty to celebrate about being Australian, and there’s plenty not to celebrate too. A national day should acknowledge all of it

Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s I was, typically for many Australian children, usually at the beach when most Australia Days rolled around.

I can’t remember my family and friends ever making much of a fuss about it.

He renounced Australia and lives solely by tribal law. Now Murrumu is hitting the road | Paul Daley

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Murrumu Walubara Yidindji gave up Australian money, his citizenship, and now he drives under Yidinji tribal law. For the authorities, it’s a novel situation

For the past week or so a black 2001 Ford Ka has been cruising Canberra’s streets. It’s a modest, unimposing car that would, except for its distinctive number plates, elicit little attention.

The black and gold plates read: “ Yidindji - YID-001 - Pursuant to Yidindji Tribal Law.”

Crowdsourcing is our latest weapon against nationalism and 'Anzackery' | Paul Daley

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A new project asks the public to help sift through thousands of pages of wartime material. Doing so helps us to see war free from political appropriation

Almost 50 years ago historian Geoffrey Serle conjured a prescient description for the nationalistic hyperbole that had attached, limpet-like, to Anzac.

Anzackery. What a word.

My Brother Jack at 50 – the novel of a man whose whole life led up to it

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George Johnston’s faintly disguised autobiography about a boy growing up amid the dull sprawl of interwar Melbourne and men damaged by the first world war has become a classic Australian novel, but at the time it was a daring challenge to cosy assumptions of national character and virtue

Sydney siege: Australia has been struck by the act of terror it feared | Paul Daley

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Sydney’s summer languor has been shattered by Man Haron Monis’s attack. Moments like these test the resolve of our leaders
• Follow continuing live coverage here
• Sydney siege ends as tactical response police storm Lindt Cafe and hostages run out

Black Digger: a challenge to Australia's reverence for a white Anzac legend | Paul Daley

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Redfern’s controversial mural poses questions to the next generation of Australian leaders – and to the War Memorial, where it could easily belong

Late last April the street artist Hego spent seven hours carefully pasting a mural of an Indigenous Australian world war one serviceman onto a wall in inner-Sydney Redfern.

The stain on Australia's soul: is Abbott ready to tackle Indigenous disadvantage? | Paul Daley

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Abbott’s pronouncements on Aboriginal Australia coincide with his waning political will to amend the constitution so it meaningfully recognises Indigenous Australians

On the way to government, Tony Abbott vowed he’d be a special prime minister for Indigenous Australians. He said:

It is my hope that I could be, not just a prime minister, but a prime minister for Aboriginal affairs. The first, I imagine, that we have ever had.

First Contact review: precious moments and epiphanies in reality TV that just might prove its worth | Paul Daley

Submitted by Paul Daley on

Six Australians have their first encounters with Indigenous Australia and push the red-hot buttons of race and fear and envy
• Monica Tan: I’m 31 and only had my ‘first contact’ with Indigenous Australia this year

Racism stems from ignorance.

And ignorance has many complexions. It can be naive. It can be willful.

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