Category Archive: Australian History
Asked and Answered, Malcolm
On Thursday evening, 8 November 2018, former MP and PM Malcolm Bligh Turnbull appeared, jauntily jacketed, sans necktie, to “face” the nation (well, the carefully screened Q & A audience, one of whom, in a priceless moment, addressed him as ‘Tony’) in ABC’s Ultimo studios. He knew his enemies. Like the Nixon Administration, Turnbull-in-Exile has drawn an Enemies List. The enemies include Mathias Corman, News Limited (Rupert Murdoch), Peter Dutton, Radio 2GB, Right-wing extremists (see ‘Tony Abbott’ below), Sky News, Tony Abbott. This is not an exhaustive list. Perhaps Malcolm will release a complete one in due course, just before the next Federal Election. Yes, he knew his…
Continue Reading →“Utter Carnage”
7 August 1858: The First Game of Australian Rules Football is played. Victoria’s Cricket Captain, Tom Wills, is credited as the main inventor, developer and driver of the Australian Game. (He wanted something to keep the cricketers fit during the winter off-season). On 7 August 1858, the first ever recorded match was played between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College, held (appropriately) at the Richmond Paddock. The game ended in a draw (a goal apiece). One hundred and fifteen years later, of course, the ne plus ultra of the sport would play out in Adelaide… It has become something of…
Continue Reading →Villers-Bretonneux re-taken: a century ago
Gouache by A. Forestier
24, 25 April, 1918 A bloody, senseless slaughter, with superior tank support, had left the town occupied by a German Spring Offensive. Foch and Rawlinson ordered the town to be re-taken. This meant a night attack (zero hour, 10 pm) against fortified enemy positions, including machine guns. The Australian 13th and 15th Brigades struck, using bayonets like stilettos, the so-called ‘peaceful penetrations,’ and despite being well-outnumbered and incurring heavy losses, took Villers-Bretonneux. It was a charnel house, but the objective was achieved, within the ambit of Clausewitz’s dictum to ensure that the gain should always outweigh its cost. The allied forces…
Continue Reading →Shame
On 13 February 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made the following statement in the House of Representatives, Canberra: “I move: That today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history. We reflect on their past mistreatment. We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations—this blemished chapter in our nation’s history. The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future. We apologise for the laws and policies…
Continue Reading →The Cars That Ate Reason
Mitsubishi folded car manufacturing in Australia in 2008. Last year, Ford closed. This October, Holden closed its plant at Elizabeth, with stacks of local workers shown the door and associated industries going to the wall. It is not as if we made crap cars. It wasn’t from lack of an enthusiastic local market for Holdens and Fords. And it’s not as if the good old Aussie taxpayer hadn’t stumped-up its fair share of subsidised cash to keep the embers glowing. Market forces are many and varied. But they tend to follow immutable, organic, rules. When organised car-making started up in…
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