Tributes
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DEAN BAKER. Mark Zuckerberg is a Rich Jerk (Counter Punch 5-11-19)
Last week, New York Times columnist Timothy Egan had a piece headlined “Why Doesn’t Mark Zuckerberg Get It?” The piece then goes on to document how Facebook has become a medium for spreading lies and nonsense all over the world, that many ill-informed users have come to believe. Continue reading »
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Vale Paul Francis Patrick Whelan
Bob Carr Tribute to Paul Whelan October 31, 2019. Former New South Wales Premier Bob Carr paid tribute to his Police Minister Paul Whelan for his achievement in implementing the Wood Royal Commission recommendations to reform policing in NSW. Continue reading »
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Thanks to guest editor, Ramesh Thakur.
During our three weeks holiday in the UK, Ramesh Thakur has been guest editor for Pearls & Irritations. Susie and I greatly appreciate his contribution. In considering the future of Pearls & Irritations, we may find that guest editorship provides a possible way forward. Guest editorship provides a means of continuing the broad direction of Continue reading »
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ANTHONY ALBANESE. Tribute to Graham Freudenberg (House of Representatives 10 Sep 2019)
Graham Freudenberg climbed inside the soul of the Australian Labor Party in search of the words that lay there. He came back to us with an entire language. When Freudy said the Labor Party was built on speeches, the identity of the master builder was never a mystery to the rest of us. He spoke Continue reading »
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LIONEL ORCHARD. Don Dunstan in Perspective: A Review
ANU historian Angela Woollacott has written a major biography of Don Dunstan reflecting on his place in the pantheon of reforming Australian Labor politicians. A review of the biography follows. Continue reading »
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On the Middle East, Tim Fischer was a man of courage and integrity
Tim Fischer belongs to a unique generation of politicians we are farewelling fast; a generation such as Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke. A generation which whether you agreed with their ideology or not you could not but respect. Continue reading »
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Hail & Farewell
To Australian Catholics the date 3 December is a holiday. In the Calendar of Saints this date marks the feast of Australia’s ‘patron saint’, sixteenth century Spanish Jesuit and companion of St Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, colloquially Jesuits, Francis Xavier. Continue reading »
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RACE MATHEWS. Graham Freudenberg.
When I heard the news of Graham Freudenberg’s death last week I wept. Not just for the passing of this generous, passionate, erudite and supremely eloquent man, but for the dreams and hopes that were shared by those of us who worked for Gough Whitlam as Leader of the Opposition from 1967 to 1972. Continue reading »
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BRUCE THOM. Climate Change and Relativity—Some Parallels.
Science can be incomprehensible to many, yet it requires others to help communicate and apply great works such as those of Albert Einstein. Climate change science is also quite complex and those in this field are facing similar difficulties to those who sought to explain relativity to the broader public. It is irresponsible of decision-makers Continue reading »
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SUSAN CHENERY. A Repost: The Scribe: portrait of Graham Freudenberg, author of the speech that changed Australia (The Guardian 9 October 2018))
Legendary Labor speechwriter Graham Freudenberg was at the centre of power for more than 40 years. A new film sheds light on the man who wrote the script. (This outstanding documentary will be telecast on the ABC on Sunday night July 14 ,2019 at 9.35 John Menadue) Continue reading »
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ROSEMARY O’GRADY. Lost leaders.
The first words addressed by the Hon David Hurley AC as Governor-General were to the Australian First People and their successors, including, specifically, ‘future leaders’. Continue reading »
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BRIAN HOWE. Vale Bob Hawke
It was my great honour to serve as a cabinet minister and Deputy Prime Minister under R J Hawke. He was a courageous, compassionate and disciplined leader who had the great political gift of wanting to be engaged with people, and for Bob, it was always a two-way conversation. Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. The bodgie.
Bob Hawke did not suffer from false modesty. He always knew he was the smartest person in the room – and, unlike many egoists, he was usually right, which is saying something, given the stellar ministry over which he presided for most of is time as prime minister. Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. Bob Hawke: A larrikin, chairman and nation builder (Canberra Times 17.5.2019)
Bob Hawke’s lasting monument is the Australian society of today. A modern open economy, which he skippered out of sheltered waters, for good or ill, mostly good, into the open sea. Reformed national institutions, some now, sadly, in poor shape again. Continue reading »
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IAN DUNLOP. The Best of 2018: The Monash Forum – of Coal & Horses.
Sir John Monash was a visionary engineer, military leader and much more, who succeeded in spite of the prejudices of the conservative Melbourne establishment (read: The Coalition right wing), to become, in Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery’s view, “the best general on the Western Front” in WW1. Monash was renowned for his vision and innovation. In Continue reading »
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ANNETTE GORDON-REED : What We Lost. Martin Luther King
“Well, they killed King.” The matter-of-fact statement hung in the air of the kitchen where a roomful of women—including my mother (I was the lone child)—had gathered on that April day in 1968 to learn to make hot tamales for sale at church fund-raisers. Our herald, the adult son of the kitchen’s owner, delivered the Continue reading »
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JENNY HOCKING. The Best of 2018: Royal distortions of history: why the Queen’s secret “Palace letters” about Gough Whitlam’s dismissal should be released.
The long-running ‘Palace letters’ case over the Queen’s secret correspondence regarding the 1975 dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam heads back to court on Wednesday 28 November, with an appeal hearing before the full bench of the Federal Court in Sydney. Continue reading »
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Peter Drake- Vale FRANK HAMBLY AM.
Francis Sutherland Hambly, the doyen of university education in Australia, died in Canberra on 21 November 2018, aged 83. Frank served the universities as Director and Secretary of the Australian Vice-Chancellor’s Committee (AVCC) from 1966 to 1996; indeed he personified the AVCC. Continue reading »
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PAUL DALEY. The moment that forever changed my perspective on Anzac mythology (The Guardian).
The Surafend massacre shows that the core business of good history must always be the preservation of memory. Continue reading »
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CECILIA MERRIGAN.“Is That an Advent Wreath?”
An Advent tale about a small father-less family from South West Africa that has been granted asylum in Australia. This is their first Advent in a new country. Continue reading »
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IAN BURNET. ‘Friends in Australia’ – a message from Sutan Sjahir, the Prime Minister of the newly declared Republic of Indonesia, November 1945.
On 17 August 1945 and two days after the Japanese surrender, Soekarno and Hatta unilaterally declared Indonesia’s Independence and became the first President and Vice President of the Republic of Indonesia. Continue reading »
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ADAM WAKELING. Tokyo Trial: how an Australian judge sentenced a Japanese leader to death (ABC NEWS).
“Accused Hideki Tojo, on the counts of the indictment of which you have been convicted, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East sentences you to death by hanging.” Continue reading »
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GEOFF DAVIES. Lest We Also Forget.
The women who tried to stop the slaughter; the vibrant young nation crushed; that a nation’s soul cannot be sponsored by arms manufacturers; the Australian war. Continue reading »
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JOHN HANNON. What is good leadership? Lest we forget.
Can’t we see parallels in leadership today, both in the Church and in society, where it can easily get more enmeshed in its own self-importance and self-interest, than in the rights and the good of the ordinary people, whom they are meant to serve, rather than command, control and oppress. Leadership by example, in service Continue reading »
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ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS. Lest We Remember.
Lest We Remember traces the history of how Australia was drawn into wars by the British and the Americans, and looks at how poorly the strategies had been thought out and how poorly the troops themselves have been treated. The hype and hoopla of the centenary of the end of the First World War will Continue reading »
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WILLIAM BRIGGS. A century of remembrance days: will the guns ever fall silent?
One hundred years ago ‘the guns fell silent’ or at least WWI ended. Since the end of the war to end all wars, however, 120 million more people have died as a result of armed conflict. Well might we remember, but what are we remembering and what have we learned along the way? Continue reading »
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DAVID WOLPE. The Japanese Man Who Saved 6,000 Jews With His Handwriting.
What the astonishing Chiune Sugihara teaches us about moral heroism. Continue reading »
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TONY STEPHENS. Freda Whitlam: educationalist passionate about her girls.
Freda Whitlam, a formidable educator and church leader, was principal of a prominent Sydney private girls school, helped establish the University of Western Sydney and the University of the Third Age, and became Moderator of the Uniting Church of Australia. She died on Wednesday, May 30, at the age of 97. Continue reading »
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CAROL SUMMERHAYES. At a tribute to Graham Freudenberg.- A REPOST from June 8 2017
Graham revealed in his memoir that he wrote his first speech in Brisbane in May 1945, aged 10, at the time of VE Day, and delivered it to his mother. In 1946 he scored a job with ABC Radio reading scripts of school broadcasts – “I learned a lot about the use of English written Continue reading »