Author Archives: Nelle

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”

21st August 2020 Damien Richardson I was five years old when Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was sacked by Sir John Kerr on November 11, 1975 — too young to deal with the political upheaval the dismissal caused in my working-class family. I guess I absorbed and internalised that resentment, as it wasn’t until I enteredContinue reading “The Grievance Industrial Complex and Me”

Skara Brae or the “Scottish Pompeii,” the fascinating underground city discovered in 1850 Skara Brae is a prehistoric village that was in use between roughly 3100 B.C. and 2500 B.C. Located on the west coast of the main island of Orkney, in Scotland, what makes the site special is its good state of preservation. VisitorsContinue reading “Skara Brae”

17th September 2020 Comments (16) Peter Smith Frequent contributor At the Anglican service I attend each Sunday, my church currently draws only about only one-third the number of people as compared with pre-COVID times. Precautions are taken. There is ample space and pews are marked to ensure social distancing, procedures are in place (e.g., noContinue reading “The Future Flood of COVID Furphies”

27th September 2020 Comments (2) Christopher Heathcote The Victorian government has devised a new solution to mental health problems.  Using legislation under its “State of Emergency”, the police now arrest and fine persons suffering mental health problems who try to make any form of public outcry over their afflictions.  The premier, Daniel Andrews, has setContinue reading “Victoria’s Epidemic of Despair”