Documents and Papers

"Advance Australia Fair" was the national anthem proclaimed as Australia's National Anthem by the Governor-General on 19th April 1984. 'Advance Australia' and 'Fair' are the key words and title of their anthem, and it appears that they were extracted from the 'White Australia March' songbook which materialised a few years after Federation in 1901. The information with the White Australian March sheet music stated; 'Of the National Policy Song, and is intended to express the life, character, and aspirations of the Australian born, depicting in musical form the patriotic spirit of the race ...' [node:read-more:link]

BOOK REVIEW: Hannah McGlade bravely addresses the complex issue of Aboriginal child abuse, arguing that Aboriginal child sexual assault has been formed within the entrenched societal forces of racism, colonisation and patriarchy, yet cast in the Australian public domain as an Aboriginal ‘problem’. She believes that we should be guided by Indigenous human rights concepts and international Indigenous responses. In doing so she believes that we can help to stem the harm to our future generations. [node:read-more:link]

Maria Giannacopoulos, a lecturer and researcher in Socio-Legal Studies believes that Frank Brennan's recently published conservative position on Constitution reform, leaves us with a flawed structure and giving us only superficial changes.

Even though the problem Brennan seeks to address is racism, Brennan argues for leaving a racist structure undisturbed. Giannacopoulos believes he may have done this, because he does not view the Constitution through the larger lens of colonisation. [node:read-more:link]

The WA Police Commissioner must explain where he sourced statistics used to support claims of widespread sexual abuse in remote Indigenous communities, the Opposition says. The Opposition's Aboriginal affairs spokesman Ben Wyatt told Parliament the figures were used in a newspaper opinion piece authored by Commissioner O'Callaghan in March. In it, O'Callaghan backed claims by Barnett of sexual abuse in remote communities, quoting statistics from an unnamed publication. [node:read-more:link]

A comprehensive Timeline for the history of First Nations people in Tasmania. Also incded are some copies of John Glover's landscape paintings, including the Last Muster of Tasmanian Aborigines at Risdon. This painting tells the story of the last group of innocent Tasmanian Aborigines that remains in the Risdon Area before they were deported to Flinders Island. Glover thought the Tasmanian Aborigines would be extinct by that period of time, and when he died in 1849, there were only about 40 Tasmanian Aborigines still alive. [node:read-more:link]