Carolyn Holbrook’s Address at the Ballarat Reform League Charter’s 170th Anniversary

Carolyn Holbrook’s Address at the Ballarat Reform League Charter’s 170th Anniversary

This is an edited version of a speech given by Associate Professor Carolyn Holbrook to the Ballarat Reform League Charter 170th Anniversary St Paul’s Church Ballarat, Monday 11 November 2024   Thank you very much for this invitation to address you on this important occasion of the 170th anniversary of the declaration of the Ballarat […]
The end of P&O cruises leaves a vacuum of soft diplomacy and cultural exchange between Australia and Papua New Guinea

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 […]
Threats and challenges to Australia’s democracy are well outlined in government report. Now for some  action

Threats and challenges to Australia’s democracy are well outlined in government report. Now for some  action

Carolyn Holbrook, Deakin University The Strengthening Australian Democracy report released by Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil this week provides a sophisticated diagnosis of the challenges facing democratic governance around the world. The report also offers a broad prescription of how Australia might meet those challenges. The Strengthening Democracy Taskforce, established by O’Neil in 2023, prepared […]
The making of the Australian Historical Studies 55:2 (2024) ‘Wan Solwara: Australia and Papua New Guinea’

The making of the Australian Historical Studies 55:2 (2024) ‘Wan Solwara: Australia and Papua New Guinea’

Helen Gardner,     Jonathan Ritchie and Brad Underhill   The most recent issue of Australian Historical Studies: Wan Solwara: Australia and Papua New Guinea, brought together scholars from PNG, Australia and the broader Pacific to reconsider the place of PNG in Australia’s national story.  Edited by Deakin University scholars: Helen Gardner, Jonathan Ritchie and Brad […]
Is Australia doing enough to respond to Papua New Guinea’s catastrophic landslide?

Is Australia doing enough to respond to Papua New Guinea’s catastrophic landslide?

Jonathan Ritchie, Deakin University and Brad Underhill, Deakin University The total number of people killed in the landslide in Papua New Guinea’s remote and mountainous Enga Province will probably never be known. Shortly after the entire hillside collapsed on Friday, it was speculated around 150 men, women and children had lost their lives. Such a […]
‘Groundhog Day’: 40 years of Australian government responses to domestic violence reveal a bumpy road to  change

‘Groundhog Day’: 40 years of Australian government responses to domestic violence reveal a bumpy road to  change

Above Left: Anne Summers working at women’s refuge Elsie. Elsie Conference, Lukas Coch/AAP Zora Simic, UNSW Sydney; Ann Curthoys, University of Sydney, and Catherine Kevin, Flinders University Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has declared a “national crisis” of domestic violence following an alarming spike in killings of women and a wave of protest rallies across the […]
Walking Towards the Führer. What Do These Neo-Nazis Signify?

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 […]
Medicare: A Forty Year Health Check

Medicare: A Forty Year Health Check

Healthcare experts diagnose fundamental problems with our health system – it remains oriented to acute and episodic illness and curative responses even though we are now in an age of chronic illness, which requires continuing and holistic care, and a more preventative approach. Not only does this disjunction between disease and service provision affect the […]
We’ve taken smoking from ‘normal’ to ‘uncommon’ and we can do the same with vaping – here’s  how

We’ve taken smoking from ‘normal’ to ‘uncommon’ and we can do the same with vaping – here’s  how

Carolyn Holbrook, Deakin University and Thomas Kehoe Vaping is a pressing public health issue. While adult smoking rates continue to fall, vaping rates are rising. Some 7% of adults now vape daily, up nearly three-fold since 2019. Most alarmingly, the rate of current vape use – on a daily, weekly or monthly basis – among […]
Setting a dangerous policy precedent: when digitisation leads to destruction

Setting a dangerous policy precedent: when digitisation leads to destruction

Dr Deborah Lee-Talbot   The libraries and archives of Europe have been described by the Australian researcher George Collinridge, as the ‘great centres and stores of knowledge’ (2018, p. 5). If that is so, the recent proposal to destroy records from Britain needs to be a concern for many. On 15 December 2023, as people […]
It was Greek to me: The historian’s obligation to communicate

It was Greek to me: The historian’s obligation to communicate

By Richard Trembath   Cassius: Did Cicero say anything? Casca: Aye, he spoke Greek. Cassius: To what effect? Casca: Nay, an I tell you that, I’ll ne’er look you I’ the face again: but those that understood him smiled at one another, and shook their heads; but for mine own part, it was Greek to […]
History Education for the Citizens of the Future – HTAV Conference, Melbourne 27 July 2023

History Education for the Citizens of the Future – HTAV Conference, Melbourne 27 July 2023

*This is an edited version of a speech delivered by Dr Carolyn Holbrook to the History Teachers’ Association of Victoria annual conference in Melbourne on 27 July 2023.   History teachers hold a special place in my heart.   Like many of you, I was drawn to study history because I had the privilege of […]