Australia
Australia’s the country I’ve been born and raised in, and I still live here, in Melbourne. The continent has been inhabited by Aboriginal peoples for at least 60,000 years, and colonised by the British since 1788 (the state governments in Australia are the direct continuations of the colonial regimes; the federal government came into existence when the colonies agreed to federate in 1901).
Despite Australia’s long history of openly racist policies (e.g. genocide of Aboriginal people; the White Australia policy), modern Australia is a diverse country with high immigration rates where 45% of the population have at least one parent born overseas, and a bit over 25% are POC. Our ruling class isn’t so reflective of this, and we also have other social problems stemming from our capitalist economic system like a housing crisis, wealth inequality and a large “precariat”.
Wiki
- : 🪴 Julian Assange: Julian Assange is the founder of WikiLeaks, a website that has famously published documentary evidence of governmental …
- : 🪴 Somerton Man: The Somerton Man is one of the most infamous unidentified bodies/unsolved murder investigations in Australia. A …
- : 💬 English: English is a Germanic language with approx. 373 million native speakers and 1.08 billion L2 speakers, making it the most …
- : 🪴 Communist Party of Australia: The Communist Party of Australia (CPA) was a Soviet-aligned communist party that existed in Australia for much of the …
- : 🏏 Shane Warne: Shane Warne (1969–2022) was an Australian cricket player, as infamous for his off-the-field scandals as he was legendary …
- : 🪴 ravens: There are three species called ravens found in Australia: the Australian raven itself, found largely in southern and …
- : 🪴 magpies: The Australian magpie is a very clever black-and-white bird, about 40cm long, which thrives in the urban environments of …
- : 🪴 Builders Labourers’ Federation: The Builders Labourers’ Federation was a trade union in Australia which represented construction workers. Although it …
- : 🪴 Juanita Nielsen: Juanita Nielsen was a Sydney activist-journalist from a wealthy family who was murderered in 1975. In life she was known …
- : 🪴 alcohol in Victoria: This page is a quick history of alcohol licensing laws in Victoria, and some of their social impacts. A number of these …
- : 🪴 King O’Malley: King O’Malley was a prominent politician in Australia in the first couple of decades after Federation. He is …
- : 💬 Australian English accents: Unlike North America, Britain or Ireland, we don’t really have regional accents (although some features are more …
- : 💬 Australian English: Australian English is the variant of English that I speak, obviously. Like a lot of people, I am interested in the …
- : 🏫 school funding: In Australia, school funding is extremely inequitable. Some of the problems are: Private schools, overall, are much more …
- : 🏟 football: When I talk about “football”, I’m referring to Australian rules football. The most prominent …
Posts
- : 🔍 Micro post: Via Reddit (external link): This is apparently a genuine proposal from 1838 as to how Australia could’ve …
- : 🇦🇺 Micro post: Well, Viv and I have voted in the Victorian state election. In the upper house I voted BTL, with the Victorian …
- : 🇦🇺 Micro post: The Victorian Liberals must be real nervous about the polling in their “blue-ribbon” seats in the lead-up to next …
- : 🏘 Micro post: The complete failure of Australia’s housing stock to be appropriate for living in during winter is in the news …
- : 🇦🇺 Quick Thoughts on the Election Results: We had a late night staying up to see as many of the results roll in as we could, and so today my mind is all ajumble …
- : 🇦🇺 The AEC and Early Voting Eligibility: The other day I discovered that according to the AEC, you’re still supposed to have a valid reason for voting …
- : 🇦🇺 Micro post: Why did I get a personally-addressed letter in the mail purporting to be from John Howard? And what’s more, why …
- : 🇦🇺 Zoe Daniel and the Teal Independents: In just under two weeks, Australia will be holding a federal election. We’ve had a right-wing Liberal/National …
- : 💵 Micro post: If you remember the rant I posted a couple of weeks ago about how bullshit official unemployment figures are, you might …
- : 💵 The Massaged Unemployment Rate: Actually so annoyed that the media (even the “impartial” ABC!) is playing along with the government’s …
- : 🏏 Micro post: Hope I don’t come across like a total asshole in this post but with the death of Shane Warne announced today, I …
- : 🎾 Thoughts on Novak Djokovic: So I woke up this morning to the news that, after 11 days of legal conflict and confusing news reports, male tennis no. …
- : 🦠 Anxiety About Omicron: I know for the sake of their mental health, a lot of people are choosing to avoid reading any more than necessary about …
- : 🦠 “Freedom Day”: It’s “freedom day” in Melbourne today – after something like four months in lockdown, we no longer …
- : 🏟 Micro post: Currently watching the AFL Grand Final (or the half-time entertainment) with Viv – the second year in a row that …
- : 🦠 Micro post: Victoria’s lockdown restrictions will be easing slightly from this weekend (external link) as we hit 70% of …
- : 🇺🇸 Twenty Years Since 9/11: I’m writing this post on September 12, but that’s accurate actually, because by the time the 9/11 attacks …
- : 🇦🇺 Micro post: Vivian told me he bet 50¢ on WA seceding from Australia… 🤦🏻♀️ What gets me, though, is that the amount he’d get …
- : 🇦🇫 Micro post: There’s a lot that could be said about the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, but one that gets me is just how many …
- : 🦠 Micro post: Whaaaat. I feel like going from “zero cases” to “week-long lockdown” in under 24 hours has to be …
- : 🇦🇺 Privacy and the 2021 Census: In just over two weeks, it’ll be Census night in Australia – that time every five years when every household is …
- : 🦠 Micro post: According to the ABC, some guy in Perth tied sheets together and threw them out the window to escape from his hotel …
- : 🦠 Micro post: For some reason they had Jeroen Weimar give a whole press conference where he didn’t announce any lockdowns, and …
- : 🦠 Micro post: This (external link) makes me think that Victoria is shortly to go back into lockdown… again. Eight new cases and …
- : 🔬 Micro post: In other news, apparently there’s a malady called Christmas eye (external link) that occurs near …
- : 🇦🇺 Photo post: We’ve arrived back home unscathed, although Viv copped a warning from NSW Police for speeding on the Hume 🤦🏻♀️ …
- : 🌈 Photo post: We had dry weather this morning, but rain set in again over the afternoon. I went to the National Museum, we both …
- : 🚊 Micro post: I feel like it is a bit of a flaw that to catch a bus in Canberra I first have to walk 45 minutes to a newsagents that …
- : 🪦 Photo post: The government wants to redevelop the Australian War Memorial (external link) for some reason (ahem, they want to …
- : 🏛 Photo post: Our first stop today was Old Parliament House, now hosting the Museum of Australian Democracy. For a building that was …
- : 🇦🇺 Micro post: Viv and I have arrived in Canberra, after a very lengthy drive! Shout out to the ACT and NSW who are still letting …
- : 🇦🇺 Micro post: Vivian’s got a job interview in Canberra late next week, so he wants us to travel up there together (driving, in …
- : 🦠 Micro post: So schools are set to reopen on Friday, even though teachers under the age of 40 are still not eligible for Covid-19 …
- : 🦠 Back Into Lockdown (Again): As of 11:59pm tonight, Victoria will be heading back into lockdown (again). What was an outbreak of four cases three …
- : 🦠 More Covid-19 in Melbourne: Apparently there have been four new Covid-19 cases in Melbourne today – local cases, not cases in hotel quarantine. The …
- : 🎉 Reviewing Victoria's Public Holidays: For those who are unaware, today (Sunday, 25 April) is the public holiday of Anzac Day, which commemorates a campaign …
- : 👮 Micro post: This (external link) is an important article for Australians who are outraged by US police murders of Black …
- : 🦠 AstraZeneca, blood clots and Australia: Australia has followed the lead of a few European countries in curtailing the rollout of AstraZeneca vaccines, due to …
- : ⏰ Melbourne Time: Tonight we set our clocks back to return to standard time, and as such here’s a discovery I made through Twitter: …
- : 💬 The Evolution of Canadian, Australian and NZ Englishes: On Quora, I once answered a question about why Australian and NZ English sound more like “British English” …
- : 🎬 On the 1979 Sydney Luna Park Fire: Over the past couple of weeks I’ve appreciated the ABC’s Exposed documentary series on the 1979 Luna Park …
- : 🏘 Micro post: It is truly awful that a town can have a homelessness crisis while 30% of properties there lie vacant (external …
- : 🇦🇺 Micro post: So it’s 9:45 on a Friday night… my partner gets a call from an unknown number… it’s a recording urging him …
- : 🇦🇺 Micro post: So a Rio Tinto chairman and a board director are to resign after the company willfully destroyed 46,000-year-old …
- : 🇦🇺 Micro post: Ahh, can you tell WA is holding an election in 11 days? Their premier is now talking about keeping up border …
- : 🚗 Micro post: Just read this article (external link), proposing the closed Holden factory in Adelaide be repurposed to build …
- : 🇦🇺 Micro post: For anyone out there who was following the saga: the Australian government has indeed backed down (external link) …
- : 🇦🇺 On the AusGov vs Google/FB Stoush: So, the House of Representatives has passed a bill (external link) requiring Google and Facebook to pay money to …
- : 🇦🇺 Micro post: Wow, they’ve gone and done it. While Google has tried to reach a compromise with commercial news outlets, Facebook …
- : 💷 Micro post: Random fact: the reason an Australian dollar has long been worth approx. half a British pound is decimalisation. In both …
- : 🦠 Micro post: So Melbourne had like two local Covid-19 transmissions yesterday meaning that obviously South Australia felt obliged to …
- : 💬 On Australia's Devaluing of Foreign Language Learning: Suffering from the pandemic and decades of government policy, many Australian universities are axing programs in …
- : 📚 Native Australian Crops: Earlier this year I read Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu (external link), which is a pretty interesting primer on …
- : 🇦🇺 Micro post: Last night I watched an item on this Sri Lankan family in Kempsey who are facing deportation because their father …
Links
- : 👮 Link: “Jail sentence overturned for climate change activist who blocked Sydney Harbour Bridge”
- : 📦 Link: “There is a decision being made about you in this box, but you’re not allowed to look inside”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Violet Coco: Climate activist’s jailing ignites row in Australia”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “‘Proud of my community’: youth crime drops dramatically in Groote Eylandt”
- : 🏫 Link: “The push and pull of cheating at university: ‘No one knows what cheating is any more’”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Home Affairs department ‘accidentally’ sent letters telling asylum seekers to leave Australia, minister says”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Cairns family facing deportation after son is diagnosed with autism”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Boys handcuffed, held down by guards and sat on in dangerous youth detention ‘folding’ restraint”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Australia could free a third of its prisoners with little risk to community, new research finds”
- : 👮 Link: “NSW police ‘Strike Force Guard III’ formed to silence threats to fossil fuel driven political order”
- : 👮 Link: “Leaked audio reveals Queensland police staff in racist conversations, joking about violence to black people and protestors”
- : 🌳 Link: “Court orders threaten native timber logging in Victoria, industry says”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “The company that bulldozed this sacred Aboriginal site had a year to apologise. It didn't”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “I’d like apologies for robodebt, but I really want Australia to abandon punitive welfare”
- : 📺 Link: “ABC statement on Doctor Who”
- : 🏟 Link: “Hawthorn racism review to allege that former coaches separated First Nations players from families and demanded a pregnancy termination”
- : 💵 Link: “Australia’s Unemployment System Is a Marketized, Bureaucratic Nightmare”
- : 📚 Link: “What it really means to work in the book industry”
- : 🐶 Link: “Farewell Fooey: Guardian of the ABC's PNG bureau, a friend to correspondents and an enemy of stray cats”
- : 👮 Link: “Blockade Australia climate activist can’t use encrypted apps, must let police access phone”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Melbourne’s Fitzroy hides a past as a hub for the Aboriginal civil rights movement”
- : ♿️ Link: “Half of Australian managers have never hired a person with disability, survey shows”
- : 🤰🏾 Link: “Women’s business”
- : 👮 Link: “Police failed to adequately investigate deaths of four Indigenous women, former officer says”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “How Australia’s version of Roe v Wade, a little-known court case, set a national precedent for reproductive rights”
- : ✈️ Link: “What would a flying-free world look like?”
- : 🇺🇸 Link: “I Should Be Able To Mute America”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Clarke and Dawe - The Energy Market Explained”
- : 🏘 Link: “Freezing indoors? That’s because Australian homes are closer to tents than insulated eco-buildings”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “In Australia’s Election, Rupert Murdoch Was a Surprise Loser”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Why is Australia's parliament so white?”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “The Parable of the Amen Snorter and the Rotten Fish” by James Ley
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Want to make art? You better be rich: how Australian culture locked out the working class”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Allow yourself to dream, Australia. Morrison may be at his end”
- : 🦠 Link: “COVID-19 infections in Australia hit worldwide highs — and experts predict another Omicron variant spike is coming”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Spit hoods still used in Australian immigration detention centres” by Denham Sadler
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “‘Just embarrassing’: Young people have lost all confidence in politicians, survey shows”
- : 💵 Link: “‘Dole bludger’ narrative has always been destructive and that's why some people like using it”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Sales of anti-Scott Morrison bin stickers surge after Liberal council threatens rubbish services”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “The Greens’ liveable income guarantee is a serious idea the major parties won’t touch – yet”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “To Rebuild a Universal Welfare State, We Need to Scrap Means-Testing”
- : 🔍 Link: “Never on a Sunday: Western Australia’s long history of banning fun”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “The marvel of the Pilbara cooperative movement”
- : 🪶 Link: “Magpies face bleak future as heat rises with climate change”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “It could be last drinks at famous John Curtin Hotel as owners put iconic pub up for sale”
- : 👩🏻🏫 Link: “NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet wants to shake up school hours — this is what it could look like”
- : 🎮 Link: “Teaching Humans and Machines to Listen to Arrernte, an Indigenous Language of Central Australia”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “People Share Their Worst Experiences With Centrelink On Twitter”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Pacific nationals working on Queensland farms claim they are barely making enough money to survive”
- : ⛺️ Link: “Aboriginal Tent Embassy — ‘the guys who woke up Australia’ — marks its 50th anniversary”
- : 🦠 Link: “Right-wing politics is cancerous to democracy, society, and human life” by Greg Larsen
- : 🦠 Link: “COVID supply chain crisis shows what's really at the heart of the economy — healthy humans”
- : 📉 Link: “Antiwork Reddit: Australians join ‘Great Resignation’ over Covid-19 rules”
- : 🦠 Link: “Are official COVID-19 case numbers now useless?”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Lachlan Macquarie was a slave owner and he wasn't the only one. It's time to update the history books”
- : 👩🏻🏫 Link: “Why we are going on strike”
- : 💵 Link: “Robert Menzies wouldn’t recognise the Liberal Party's employment policies today”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Larrikins, bogans and bullshit artists: is Australia ripe for a blue-collar revolution?”
- : 🦠 Link: “Gladys Daily Presser Cancelled After Poorly Received First Season”
- : 🇨🇱 Link: “Declassified documents show Australia assisted CIA in coup against Chile’s Salvador Allende”
- : 🏏 Link: “Afghanistan Cricket Board accuses Australia of ‘knee jerk’ reaction over threat to cancel Hobart Test, makes no mention of fate of female players”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Australia: Unprecedented surveillance bill rushed through parliament in 24 hours.”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Cold war breaks out between soup kitchen communists and department chief over ‘conflict of interest’ claim”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Juanita Nielsen’s suspected killer Eddie Trigg confessed the murder to an undercover agent inside jail”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Afghan refugee may lose permanent residency in Australia – for supplying identity document”
- : 🦠 Link: “Australians who live overseas now unable to leave country if they return for visit”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Juanita Nielsen's suspected murder brought Arthur King back to Kings Cross after his terrifying ordeal”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Climate change: What we can learn from our reaction to AstraZeneca”
- : 🦠 Link: “Australia makes world-class mess of its vaccine rollout”
- : 🦠 Link: “Trust and Terror” by Omar Sakr
- : 🌏 Link: “Plans of four G20 states are threat to global climate pledge, warn scientists”
- : 🚊 Link: “A bunch of mayors wanted better trains, so they won Brisbane the 2032 Olympics”
- : 🔍 Link: “Cockatoos in Sydney learning from each other to bin-dive for food, study finds”
- : 🇱🇰 Link: “DFAT urged to retract 'inaccurate' report saying Sri Lankans face low torture risk, following UK court finding”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Biloela family asylum-seeker girl evacuated from Christmas Island with suspected septicaemia”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “‘Devil devil’: The sickness that changed Australia”
- : 👮 Link: “NSW Police pushed for Black Lives Matter mural on private property in Redfern to be removed, recordings reveal”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “A new flagship coal plant failed spectacularly - but it won't be the last time”
- : 🏳️🌈 Link: “Michelle Telfer has been a lifesaving advocate for hundreds of trans children. But her work doesn't come without controversy”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Carceral feminism and coercive control: when Indigenous women aren't seen as ideal victims, witnesses or women”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “‘Inconceivable’: why has Australia’s history been left to rot?”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “New law allows Australian government to indefinitely detain refugees”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “How the Myths of “Progressive Neoliberalism” Hollowed Out Australia’s Left”
- : 💬 Link: “Is your kid studying a second language at school? How much they learn will depend on where you live”
- : 🏘 Link: “Just 1.2 per cent of rental properties in Australia are affordable for minimum wage earners, analysis finds”
- : 👮 Link: “More than 5,500 people get NSW police record after strip searches which found nothing illegal”
- : 🏟 Link: “Is Aussie rules booming at rugby’s expense?”
- : 💵 Link: “If Australia was more democratic, would its economic policies be better?”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Australian politics should be as diverse as its people”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “The Australian-born children the government wants to deport because they have a disability”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “If Australia’s Unions Don’t Organize Unemployed Workers, They’re Digging Their Own Graves”
- : 🏳️🌈 Link: “Phyllis Papps and Francesca Curtis came out on national TV in 1970. Their actions changed Australia forever”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “The children of gods: how power works in Australia”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “SDA Facts - Retail and Fast Food Workers Union”
- : 🦠 Link: “Cracks emerged in digital contact tracing system days before five-day lockdown”
- : 💵 Link: “Why jobseeker is stuck ‘in the early 90s’ and leaving Australians behind”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Sky News Australia is tapping into the global conspiracy set – and it’s paying off”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “‘Destruction by a thousand cuts’: the relentless threat mining poses to the Pilbara cultural landscape”
- : 💵 Link: “Economics professor Ross Garnaut says Australia voluntarily keeps hundreds of thousands unemployed”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Ask a policy expert: why is it so hard to get on the disability support pension?”
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “Queensland's Public Trustee accused of profiting off people who lack capacity to manage own affairs”
- : 💵 Link: “Workers Should Take Back Control of Their Pension Funds”
- : 🏟 Link: “Former Collingwood player Leon Davis: 'We don't want our kids to have to go through the bullshit'” by Amy McQuire
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “A new online safety bill could allow censorship of anyone who engages with sexual content on the internet” by Zahra Zsuzsanna Stardust
- : 🇦🇺 Link: “The Government Just Got Rid Of The Family Court With The Help Of One Nation & Crossbenchers”
Interactions
Book Reviews
Jessica Smith is a socialist and a feminist who loves animals, books, gaming, and cooking; she’s also interested in linguistics, history, technology and society.