Author Archives: Nelle

9th January 2021 Comments (15) Peter O’Brien In a very well researched paper titled ‘Foragers or Farmers: Dark Emu and the Controversy over Aboriginal Agriculture’ published in  Anthropological Forum, ANU academic Dr Ian Keen, has brought some academic rigour to the debate over Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu. When I wrote Bitter Harvest, I did notContinue reading “Bruce Pascoe, Dumped Upon from a Great Height”

6th January 2021 Comments (11) Patrick McCauley Culture is defined by Wiki as “an umbrella term which encompasses the social behaviour and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.”  So you could apply that definition to just about everythingContinue reading “The ‘Indigenous’ Invasion of Aboriginal Australia”

An Australian Christmas: Henry Lawson Henry Lawson Quadrant Online 25th December 2020 Along by merry Christmas time they buy the aged goose,And boil the dread plum pudding, because of ancient use.But to sneer at old time customs would be nothing but a crime,|For the memory of the Past is all bound up in Christmas time.ThenContinue reading “An Australian Christmas”

21st November 2020 Comments (0) Anthony Daniels Columnist For many people, especially the educated, the word conservative is a term of derogation, except perhaps in relation to the preservation of giant pandas, carrying with it many negative connotations. Once a person or a policy has been described as conservative, he or it may safely beContinue reading “The Presumption and Promotion of Misery”

21st November 2020 Comments (5) Tony Thomas When I noticed that a top-tier federal-state education body is providing lesson materials for teachers, I decided to take a look. The body is Education Services Australia (ESA), a company set up by federal-state education ministers. ESA provides free supplementary online materials for teachers via 20,000-plus pages onContinue reading “Beware, Parents, Your Kids Are Being ‘Scootled’”

28th November 2020 Comments (29) Peter O’Brien The train wreck is not the war crimes alleged in the Brereton Report. The train wreck is the manner in which the government, and Defence in particular, is managing it. Prior to the release of the report, there was a general, and welcome, consensus among senior politicians, particularlyContinue reading “Military Justice, a Contradiction in Terms?”

We are the chosen. In each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and make them live again, to tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve. Doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing lifeContinue reading “To Genealogist Everywhere:”

22nd November 2020 Comments (23) The One Word We’re Not Hearing: ‘Alleged’Peter Smith Quadrant Online 22nd November 2020 To put it mildly, “alleged” is an all-important word and concept in Australian jurisprudence, as is its companion phrase, “the presumption of innocence.” Together they safeguard our very freedom. When those alleged to have committed a crimeContinue reading “The One Word We’re Not Hearing: ‘Alleged’”

26th August 2020 Tony Thomas Have Australian schools gone green-barmy or what? Yet another “teachers’ guide” is operative about would-be “Aborigine” Bruce Pascoe and his Dark Emu fantasy. This book has done well for him, selling more than 260,000 copies.  His fantasy involves pre-colonial Aboriginal agriculturalists. Pascoe isolates atypical facets, distorts explorers’ reports, and addsContinue reading “From ‘Angry Penguins’ to an Unquestioned ‘Emu’”

15/09/2020  |  Akos Balogh © Tuesday 15th September marks International Democracy Day, and there’s a lot of concern over the state of democracies both here and abroad. To reflect on this from a Christian perspective, TGCA spoke with John Anderson, a former Deputy PM, and now social commentator. (N.B. This is an edited version ofContinue reading “Christians in a Fragile Democracy: An Interview with John Anderson”