The landscape of identity: This account about the concept of country in Australian Aboriginal cultures can be read in tandem with my three book reviews in this issue of Bonzer. These are Saltwater Fella by John Moriarty, Listening to Country by Ros Moriarty and Singing Saltwater Country by John Bradley on behalf of the Yanyuwa [...]
‘Australian Studies’
The Concept of Country in Aboriginal Law
Click the title above to read the complete post. Posted on Wednesday, September 1st, 2010Barangaroo: Woman-warrior and Partner to Bennelong
Click the title above to read the complete post. Posted on Sunday, August 1st, 2010In recent months, we have heard almost daily about Barangaroo. This is the name that has been given to the 22 hectare site on the eastern shoreline of Darling Harbour. After more than 100 years of industrial use, this part of the harbour and its foreshore will be returned to the community under the name [...]
Meanders around North Queensland
Click the title above to read the complete post. Posted on Thursday, July 1st, 2010There are stories connected to these remote places that are not apparent to those who want to get to where they’re going quickly.
Victory for the River Red Gum Forests of New South Wales
Click the title above to read the complete post. Posted on Tuesday, June 1st, 2010In the April issue of Bonzer, I wrote a story titled Save the River Red Gum. The story told how the NSW Government had announced that it was reconsidering its decision to establish the Millewa National Park (NP) near Echuca in southern NSW. At that time, the expectation was that the Millewa wetland would to [...]
Save the River Red Gum
Click the title above to read the complete post. Posted on Thursday, April 1st, 2010On 2 March 2010, the NSW Government announced that it was reconsidering its decision to establish the Millewa National Park near Echuca in southern NSW. This means that the Millewa wetland will probably be opened up to red gum logging. This story began in December 2009 when in his final act as NSW Premier Nathan [...]
Australia Day – the First of September
Click the title above to read the complete post. Posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010I believe that in the spirit of reconciliation, we should choose another date for Australia Day and I would like to nominate Wattle Day on the first day of September for that purpose.
Bidyadanga, Western Australia—exodus into saltwater country
Click the title above to read the complete post. Posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010by Paul W Newbury Bidyadanga (population 900) lies on the coast of Western Australia (WA) 200 km below Broome. This is the traditional country of the Karajarri People who had their native title acknowledged by the Federal Court of Australia in 2003.Bidyadanga (population 900) lies on the coast of Western Australia (WA) 200 km below [...]
In the Beginning: the First Peoples of Australia
Click the title above to read the complete post. Posted on Tuesday, December 1st, 2009By Paul W. Newbury In the last Australian Studies column, I wrote about the landing of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in January 1788 after a journey of nine months. In the telling of Australian history before 1970, the arrival of eleven vessels with a thousand people including 759 convicts at Sydney Cove in [...]
Convict Transportation and the First Fleet – 1
Click the title above to read the complete post. Posted on Sunday, November 1st, 2009by Paul W. Newbury This story is taken from Tom Keneally’s Australians: Origins to Eureka. It is a story in two parts. Convict Transportation and the First Fleet 1 Convict transportation was a long-term practice in Great Britain before 1788. From 1650 to the outbreak of the American War of Independence in 1773, as many [...]
Bennelong and Pemulwuy in Origins to Eureka
Click the title above to read the complete post. Posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009by Paul W Newbury This is a story taken from Australians: Origins to Eureka by Thomas Keneally. The continent Great Britain invaded was a patchwork of as many as 500 Indigenous tribal groups. Each had their language, rituals, mythology and bond with the land. Each had their Dreaming, then and now—a narrative that binds people, [...]