In an article published in the lead up to Australia Day, WA Liberal Party policy committee chairman Sherry Sufi said “native title can only exist if Australia was settled, not invaded”. Is that right?
A new survey asking Australians to rank the most significant events in their lifetimes show that same-sex marriage, September 11 and the apology to the Stolen Generations matter most.
Reconciliation between the Settler and First Nations populations is a self-evident prerequisite for Australia cutting the ties of colonial dependency with Britain to stand on our own.
As it becomes ever more entangled in battles over the meaning of our history, Australia Day will find it difficult to foster common belonging and social cohesion.
That colonial wars were fought in Tasmania is irrefutable. More controversially, surviving evidence suggests the British enacted genocidal policies against the Tasmanian Aboriginal people.
An exhibition at the Melbourne Museum tells the history of colonialism in East New Britain, PNG, from the perspective of the local people. This is history from the ground up, told through film, art and music.
Aboriginal missions were notorious for their austerity, but Christmas was a brief time of joy. While celebrations had a sinister assimilationist edge, Aboriginal people often adopted traditions into their own culture.
Australian women were once largely seen as reproducers, rather than lovers: sexual pleasure was suspect. Attitudes have changed, yet our culture is still troubled by female desire.
Wooredy and his second wife Truganini set off into the Tasmanian wilderness with settler George Robinson in 1830, on a “conciliatory” mission to find other original Tasmanians. Their stories bear witness to a psychological and cultural transition without parallel in modern colonialism.
The most popular history courses taught in Australian universities are still broad courses focused on significant historical events and periods, contrary to the recent IPA report.
Australian universities are teaching ‘identity politics’ at the expense of Western history, according to an Institute of Public Affairs report. But unis make decisions based on student demand, not politics.
George Hamilton published An Appeal for the Horse in 1866, a defence of animal welfare well ahead of its time. However, his compassion for Aboriginal people was conspicuously lacking.
The shipwreck of the Batavia and subsequent murders of 115 men, women and children have inspired many retellings. A new exhibition combines art and science to find new angles on an old tale.
Historically, Australians have been leaders rather than followers on progressing social issues. But more recently, our leaders have trailed behind public opinion.
The French La Pérouse expedition left Botany Bay in 1788, and then vanished, rumoured to be wrecked in the Solomon Islands. But an Indian newspaper article might reveal the fate of its survivors.
A Fremantle monument to three white explorers was revised in 1994 to acknowledge the violence committed against Indigenous owners. As Australia struggles to reconcile its racist past, perhaps this monument shows a way forward.
Many of our public commemorations honour people and incidents that brought great harm to others. We need to look at what that says about us, and how we build more inclusive public memorials.
Dame Roma Mitchell is remembered as Australia’s first female judge. But Queenslander May Lahey beat her to the punch when she became a judge in Los Angeles in 1928. Her lack of recognition is symptomatic of how Australia remembers expats, particularly women.
Anthropologist Percy Leason thought he was painting the extinction of Victoria’s Indigenous people in the 1930s. He was wrong, but his portraits, part of a new exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, are surprisingly sympathetic.