The Department of Immigration was central to Australia’s post-World War II recovery. What role might it play in Australia’s recovery from COVID 19?

On May 3 Kristina Keneally, the federal opposition Immigration and Home Affairs spokesperson, wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald that ‘As a result of COVID-19, Australia will soon have an opportunity to do something we have never done before: restart a migration program’. Kenneally has a point. The COVID 19 crisis presents challenges commensurate with […]

Australia’s universities, Covid-19 and the future.

In our latest opinion piece, John Doyle and Scott Doidge survey the effect of COVID on the university sector, and urge the higher education sector to use this crisis to reinvigorate its broader mission as a pillar of civic society. As 2020 dawned, Australia’s university sector was anticipating another prosperous year, notwithstanding perennial concerns about […]

Could Thatcher and Reagan inspire Australia’s economic recovery?

A recent editorial in the Australian Financial Review declared that after devising Australia’s biggest ever stimulus package, the Government now needs to develop a sweeping ‘supply-side reform program’ to drive recovery from the economic downturn caused by the global response to COVID-19 (AFR 2020). The Government has said that it is devising a supply-side policy […]

Economic Rationalism and University Course Pricing 1989-2020

The Morrison government recently announced plans to overhaul the pricing structure for university courses (Duffy 2020). The government’s proposal can be understood as operating at four levels: first, the ideological level where abstraction hides the personal significance and social impact of the proposed changes; secondly, the level of the political-economic theory that provides the basis […]

Why is the Confederate flag so offensive?

Clare Corbould, Deakin University Most Australians — aside from a few groups dedicated to reenacting American Civil War battles and history buffs including Bob Carr and Kim Beazley — were not familiar until recently with the charged history of the flag of the Confederate States of America. Now the flag is in the Australian news […]

What Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods gets wrong about veterans returning to Vietnam

Netflix Mia Martin Hobbs, University of Melbourne Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, out now on Netflix, tells the story of five Black US veterans who return to Vietnam to hunt for gold and recover the remains of their lost squad leader. Beginning with the reunion of five old “Bloods”, and peppered with flashbacks to […]

Vaccine, Cure and Trust: COVID-19 and Those People in White Coats

‘Why sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’ The White Queen in Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (1871). I write as confirmed cases of the COVID-19 virus in Victoria have risen sharply, dashing the hopes of the more optimistic that the epidemic had peaked in Australia. […]

When black lives really did not matter

Edward Colston had some estimable virtues, as his philanthropic gifts to making Bristol a better town suggests. But those virtues were based on a vice we no longer find bearable. He got his money from participating in the slave trade. It is right that his statue has been torn down. The commentary about him, however, […]

The fury in US cities is rooted in a long history of racist policing, violence and inequality

Omer Messinger/Sipa USA Clare Corbould, Deakin University The protests that have engulfed American cities in the past week are rooted in decades of frustrations. Racist policing, legal and extra-legal discrimination, exclusion from the major avenues of wealth creation and vicious stereotyping have long histories and endure today. African Americans have protested against these injustices […]

Ever-present possibilities and the status quo.

This piece is part of the Urgent Histories forum which has been organised by the Australian Historical Association. Klaus Neumann has written an engaging response to the articles in this forum, which can be found in History Australia. Humankind needs to tackle climate change. Urgently. Historians may want to reconsider their professional practices in light of this […]

Opinion Pieces