‘Mr Whitlam’s style’ – Part I
“I had no contemporary political heroes. I preferred Labor values to Liberal ones. I believed in a mixed economy. I disliked the people who’d got us into the Vietnam war. I was grateful to those who’d got us out. I admired Gough Whitlam, but not as much as he did.”
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7 November 2025
The press and the Dismissal – Part III
Television had come to the fore in elections during the Whitlam campaign of 1972 when increased funds were spent on advertising with slogans (It’s time was backed by a catchy jingle) and mainly short television grabs for the news.
6 November 2025
The press and the Dismissal – Part II
Following the Dismissal on 11 November 1975, the editors of the major newspapers understood the national mood was volatile.
6 November 2025
Venezuela and Trump’s war to save the old order
“The past is not dead; it is not even past.” William Faulkner was right: past events continue to inform and shape our world.
5 November 2025
The press and the Dismissal – Part I
On the morning of 15 October 1975, most major newspapers advocated in their editorials that the Labor Government should go.
5 November 2025
108 years since the Balfour Declaration – a promise written in ink, fulfilled in blood
On 2 November 1917, Britain wrote with the ink of politics what it had no right to write with the ink of history.
4 November 2025
Ambush and deceit
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3 November 2025
The pearling past and the multicultural present: A story of connection and contribution
In the late 1990s, during a field study in Wyndham, a remote town in Western Australia, I met a small tourism operator whose story has stayed with me ever since.
23 October 2025
To avert war, the West must shatter the mirror by which it views China
The concept of the Thucydides Trap, predicting conflict between China and the US, projects the West’s conquest-driven history onto Chinese civilisation.
21 October 2025
The armistice of 1918 and the 'ceasefire' of 2025
Remembrance Day is coming. More accurately it is Armistice Day. The armistice between Germany and the Western Powers was signed at Compiègne in France on the morning of 11 November 1918, after four years of war. Sadly, there are heart-chilling parallels to today.
20 October 2025
As Gaza starts to rebuild, what lessons can be learned from Nagasaki in 1945?
At first, there might not seem to be any immediate similarities between a devastated Nagasaki after the US atomic bombing in 1945 and Gaza today, aside from massive destruction.
18 October 2025
One more betrayal of the Palestinians
The history of the Palestinians is a history of betrayal. In the wake of World War I, Britain and France redrew the map of the Middle East to suit their own ends.
9 October 2025
A century of deceit: Towards a new understanding of the colonisation of Palestine
Political and media commentary on the Hamas killings of October 2023 have been preoccupied with claims that these were not only the worst terrorists but that their actions were without precedent.
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