Last week saw national and international media attention on events unfolding in Parliament House. But another function in that magnificent building was arguably of much greater long-term importance — the…
The most recent edition of the OECD’s Education at a Glance released this week, is another report that has invariably been seen as a report card on Australian education. Australians want to know: how did…
The past decade has seen a large increase in Indian migration to Australia. In 2011-12, 29,018 Indians became permanent migrants, the highest such number from any one country. Fellow democracies with shared…
Many Indians still perceive Australia as a white, monocultural country, according to the authors of a major report that says relations between the two countries are on the mend but remain brittle. Despite…
Buried away in the correspondence columns of last week’s Sunday Age, a former history teacher’s letter “Where’s our history?” started an intense and confused debate about a “threat” by the national curriculum…
In 2009, I launched a book titled Drifting Apart: The Diverging Development Paths of Argentina and Australia, which I co-authored with Fernando Tohmé from Universidad Nacional del Sur in Argentina. We…
This week, San Diego is hosting the latest round of talks over the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Australia and New Zealand are at loggerheads over this secretive new trade treaty spanning the Pacific Rim…
In a symbolic move, Tourism Australia chose Shanghai to launch its new “There’s Nothing Like Australia” campaign. The classic advertising imagery returns us to the pre-Hogan era, before Paul invited prospective…
Suppose that in 1901 Australia’s founding fathers had designed the Commonwealth differently. The states were to retain all powers to tax and had to finance themselves (including health, education and social…
Welcome to the first essay in our series on how the Australian landscape has been described in literature. We start with an internationally recognised D. H. Lawrence scholar, Christopher Pollnitz, writing…
The idea of a shared currency between Australia and New Zealand is not new and has engendered discussion over the past two decades. It has recently come to the forefront as a result of our Prime Ministers…
The Convergence Review Final Report released yesterday appears at first blush to promise major changes to the Australian media landscape. The report flags the creation of a new communications regulator…
Local history is one of the most popular forms of history in Australia. Yet there is a yawning gap between the enthusiastic amateur and the academic historian. While some academic historians engage with…
What makes an Australian film truly Australian? Do there need to be Aussie characters? Aussie actors? Aussie subject matter? Australian humour? Australians are good at obsessing about what makes them different…
The first Australians hunted giant kangaroos, rhinoceros-sized marsupials, huge goannas and other megafauna to extinction shortly after arriving in the country more than 40,000 years ago, new research…
To some, the Queen and her royal family are dear to the heart. To others, there is nothing sillier than following the lives of individuals that parade themselves as royalty. And for many – if not most…
Some 224 years ago on January 26, the First Fleet arrived at Sydney Cove. Just 1500 people disembarked with nearly 800 of them convicts. The date saw the beginning of the British penal colony, then known…
One of the sharpest divides in attitudes to Australia Day celebrations is between those who think of Australia as a nation of migrants and those who regard Australians as a unique people and culture. For…
Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt University
Faculty Member, Asian Studies Program, Georgetown University; Visiting Fellow, Department of Pacific Affairs, Australian National University., Georgetown University