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Keywords: History

There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Searching for the truth about a wartime massacre

    • Juliette Hughes
    • 15 March 2024
    3 Comments

    Two books about a 1942 massacre of Australian nurses were released last year. One is reliable, the other is notable for factual omissions. If we leave something out, are we then guilty of censorship? Alternatively, if our truth-telling offends someone else, what is our justification for so doing?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    40 Days: Commonality

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 13 March 2024

    In the face of developments where the commons are intruded upon for private profit and economic efficiency, we need to treasure such unfashionable concepts as the commonwealth, the common good and the houses of commons – the places for deliberation and decision where what is in the common interest is given priority over the benefit of the few.

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  • EDUCATION

    Declining staff-to-student ratios reveal sorry state of higher ed

    • Erica Cervini
    • 06 March 2024
    2 Comments

    By 2012, when the federal government first started reporting on staff-to-student ratios in universities, there was one academic for every 20 students. The most recent data, from 2021, shows that figure had increased to 23. As Australian students return for the new academic year, it will surely come as no surprise to find that ratio has worsened.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Charity begins at the microphone

    • Barry Divola
    • 06 March 2024

    A documentary about the making of 1985’s We Are The World holds many surprises, while raising questions about charity singles. These stars were rich and privileged and largely out of touch with how most of the public lived. But at least they were using their fame for something good, and wasn’t that something to be encouraged?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The Rainbow and the Blue

    • Julian Butler
    • 04 March 2024
    2 Comments

    Having first marched with the Mardi Gras Parade in 1998, the NSW Police will march this year, albeit out of uniform. This decision comes amidst community distress following a tragic double homicide, sparking calls for the police's absence. However, those seeking to keep the police out of Mardi Gras may have missed the complexity of this case and the more nuanced status of identities in our contemporary context.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Why the choice revolution let us down: In conversation with Mark Considine

    • David Halliday
    • 28 February 2024
    1 Comment

    The main purpose of government is to promote the welfare of its people. And yet over the last few decades, through numerous inquiries, it’s become clear that the Australian government has failed to provide services for the Australian population as well as might be expected. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    When hope is not enough: Preparing for the next Black Saturday

    • Barry Gittins
    • 26 February 2024

    February marks 15 years since the Black Saturday fires in Victoria when some 400 fires raced through 78 locations, taking 173 lives, injuring hundreds more, destroying more than 2,020 homes and the entire township of Marysville. In a warming climate, that reality of loss is likely to be repeated ad infinitum.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Making sense of Taylor Swift

    • David Halliday
    • 26 February 2024
    1 Comment

    Taylor Swift does something transformative to people like my sister that other pop stars don’t. Other musicians have fans, Taylor has disciples. So what is it about Swift that evokes a sort of conversion experience? Is it just the music?

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Why we keep coming back to Groundhog Day

    • Paul Mitchell
    • 22 February 2024
    1 Comment

    Since its release, audiences, critics and philosophers have grappled with Groundhog Day’s take on time and eternity. Like all great art, Groundhog Day resists easy categorisation and is a story that, in a wonderful irony, we can go to again and again.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Power pop powers on

    • Barry Divola
    • 21 February 2024
    1 Comment

    A sparky, exuberant pop sub-genre with roots in the ’60s was meant to have died at the end of the ’70s, but its impact and influence are still being felt today. But what was it exactly and why does it matter?

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    On the anniversary of a poet's birth, a universal message to nations

    • Warwick McFadyen
    • 20 February 2024
    1 Comment

    ‘The loss of memory by a nation is also a loss of its conscience.’ As the loss of conscience grows with each succeeding generation, one day righting the boat on the sea of forgetfulness will become impossible. In the end, what people don’t know, they won’t miss. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Living with the death of the referendum

    • Brian McCoy
    • 14 February 2024
    1 Comment

    Months after the referendum, can we allow this referendum to die while preserving the essence of its vision and optimism? This is akin to our response to the loss of a loved one — we hold onto their memory, reluctant to let go. How do we keep the deeply treasured aspirations of the referendum journey alive while facing the reality of its death?

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