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?

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 […]
The Trials of Portnoy: Michelle Arrow in conversation with the author, Patrick Mullins

The Trials of Portnoy: Michelle Arrow in conversation with the author, Patrick Mullins

The Trials of Portnoy: How Penguin brought down Australia’s censorship system has been published by Scribe.  Your previous book, Tiberius With A Telephone, was a widely-acclaimed work of biography, the winner of the 2020 National Biography Award and the winner of the 2020 Douglas Stewart Prize in the NSW Premiers’ Literary Awards. One aspect of The Trials of […]
Australia’s universities, Covid-19 and the future.

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?

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 […]
Merle Thornton urges younger feminists to ‘bring the fight’ in recent memoir.

Merle Thornton urges younger feminists to ‘bring the fight’ in recent memoir.

Merle Thornton’s Bringing the fight is published by HarperCollins. Autobiography is not new to the genre of feminist writing. As Margaret Henderson stated in Marking feminist times: Remembering the longest revolution in Australia, autobiography, memoir and ‘life-writing’ play an important role in ‘expanding and realigning the historical and literary record’. Furthermore, Henderson contended that the modes […]
Economic Rationalism and University Course Pricing 1989-2020

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 […]
Becoming John Curtin and James Scullin: A Q&A with the author, Liam Byrne.

Becoming John Curtin and James Scullin: A Q&A with the author, Liam Byrne.

Becoming John Curtin and James Scullin  is available through Melbourne University Publishing.  Your new book chronicles and analyses the early political development of two important figures in the twentieth century Australian Labor Party (ALP). Why did you decide upon a joint biography of Curtin and Scullin’s formative years? Curtin and Scullin are both well-known as […]
Why is the Confederate flag so offensive?

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

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

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

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, […]
Contemporary Histories Research Group Award in History and Policy Announcement

Contemporary Histories Research Group Award in History and Policy Announcement

APH and the Contemporary Histories Research Group are excited to announce the recipients of the inaugural Contemporary Histories Research Group Award in History and Policy.  This award provides $10,000 each to two early career researchers to undertake research in an area of history that relates to a significant issue of contemporary Australian public policy. Congratulations […]