Ghosts in the Archives: Australian institutions still hesitate to tell the story of the atomic veteran

Max Billington on the anniversary of the Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests in Australia and what is still hidden from historians, veterans, and their families. This week marks 41 years since the Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests in Australia began. Between 1952 and 1963, over 8,000 Australian defence personnel took part in British […]

Friday essay: ‘War has made me a pacifist’. Why are we so reluctant to acknowledge Australia’s anti-war veterans?

Friday essay: ‘War has made me a pacifist’. Why are we so reluctant to acknowledge Australia’s anti-war veterans? Mia Martin Hobbs, Deakin University “I have seen enough of the horrors of war, and want peace. War has made me a socialist and a pacifist,” announced Gallipoli veteran and Victoria Cross winner, Hugo Throssell, on Peace […]

The end of P&O cruises leaves a vacuum of soft diplomacy and cultural exchange between Australia and Papua New Guinea

Dr Deborah Lee-Talbot P&O Cruises, one of Australia’s most well-known travel companies, will cease trading in March 2025. Folding into its parent company, Carnival Australia – itself a subsidiary of the American company Carnival Corporation – the end of P&O cruises leaves behind decades of soft diplomacy and cultural exchange between Australia and Papua […]

Walking Towards the Führer. What Do These Neo-Nazis Signify?

By Richard Trembath, Ballarat. Let’s be precise. On Sunday 3 December last year, my wife and I were having lunch, next to one of the large windows in our living room. I looked out and then informed Anne Marie that, if she cared to view the street, she would see a group of about […]

Will a preoccupation with party unity destroy the Liberal Party?

Cover image: Lukas Coch/AAP Carolyn Holbrook, Deakin University and James Walter, Monash University Such has been the turmoil over the Liberal Party’s recent decision to join the National Party in campaigning against the forthcoming referendum on the Voice to Parliament that even some of the most reliable supporters in the media have remarked on the […]

Not Neglecting, Strangling: A Short History of a Most Inefficient Policy

By Joshua Black Executive Summary The efficiency dividend has been applied to Australia’s public sector agencies for thirty-five years, and in the case of the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries Archives and Museums) sector, with particularly devastating effects The efficiency dividend has helped to destroy the formerly first-class service provision of Australia’s national cultural institutions […]

Speakers, Deputies and the Clerks: the Revealing Light of Biography?

The Biographical Dictionary of the House of Representatives shines a historical light on the men and women who have served as Speaker, Deputy Speaker, or Clerk of the House since Federation. This includes providing a better idea of what sorts of individuals have typically filled these offices and how the speakership, instead of adopting Westminster […]

In Godwin We Trust: Debunk[er]ing the Hitler/Trump Analogy

Academics have been busy in the last few years calling out ham-fisted analogies between Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler, and the contemporary United States and 1930s Germany. It’s easy to laugh at clumsy historical references, but harder to make informed judgements about the validity or otherwise of these references. In our latest article, Dr Mathew […]

APH in NYC

Our director, Carolyn Holbrook, was invited to participate in an international panel about history and policy at the recent American Historical Association conference in New York, with Dane Kennedy from the National History Center and Charles Kraus from the Wilson Center in Washington DC and Andrew Blick from History and Policy in London. The panel […]

Sir Paul Meernaa Caedwalla Hasluck

First, a few facts. Sir Paul Meernaa Caedwalla Hasluck was born on 1 April 1905 in Fremantle, the second of four surviving children to dedicated Salvation Army officers Ethel Meernaa Hasluck and Patience Eliza Hasluck (née Wooler). After entering the Commonwealth Department of External Affairs in 1941 and rising rapidly, he became a central figure […]

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