The heated debate around the Voice referendum demonstrated Australian history is still up for grabs. So Kate Fullagar’s new book, Bennelong and Phillip, is both critical and timely.
There’s been a long-standing debate over whether dingoes started out wild or domesticated. One thing is clear – they had a close relationship with First Peoples.
For over 100 years, the Victorian school curriculum has failed to give generations of students the chance to learn about Indigenous political movements.
In its early years, the Australian Women’s Weekly was careful to balance is political perspective, but played a role in raising awareness of important issues.
So showy and ubiquitous, jacarandas can be mistaken for natives, but they originate in South America, and were introduced to Australia in the 19th century.
The medieval is part of the mosaic of modern Australia. Our nation’s heritage on this island continent is full of it: in aesthetics, institutions, laws, languages, identities, moralities.
Across the continent, diverse, adaptable fishing practices, recipes and rituals were a cornerstone of Indigenous life at the time of first contact – and many remain so to this day.
When Doris Taylor became paralysed, her mother was advised to put her in a Home for Incurables. Instead, Doris helped elect a reforming South Australian premier and founded a national institution.
Clare Wright has spent ten years researching the history of these groundbreaking petitions. Though few Australians have heard of them, she writes, we can learn much from the story of their creation.
The Victorian Supreme Court has determined the descendants of Ned Kelly’s family are not a distinctive cultural group with the right to protections of their ‘intangible cultural heritage’.
Western music was often taught to Aboriginal people as preparation for assimilation into white Australian society – but Aboriginal people continued to play the violin even when not prescribed.