Adam Shoemaker

'Don't Cry for Me, Diamantina': An Alternative Reading of Pauline Hanson

If being chosen as the target of a satire by the comedians of the Seven network’s Full Frontal is any indication, Pauline Hanson is now one of the highest-profile politicians in Australia. Her meteoric rise to prominence cannot be questioned: on many occasions over the past twelve months her weekly media coverage has exceeded that of the combined front bench of the government. Whether despised or adored, her name now commands instant recognition everywhere in Australia: no other politician has appeared on television programs as varied as Frontline, Burke’s Backyard and 60 Minutes in her first year of office; no independent federal MP has ever created a new political party which ... read more.
 

Paul Newman

One Nation: Who's to Blame?

The 1998 Queensland election campaign demonstrated significant support for the One Nation party. This support was not predicated on the articulation of detailed policies or a platform of any great coherence: as has always been the case, the popularity stemmed from Pauline Hanson’s ability to speak publicly on ‘certain issues’, and the community rebirth promised by her pledge to save Australia ‘for the Australians’. While the positioning of conservative politicians in response to the One Nation phenomenon has varied — recognition of the strength of Hanson’s support and the mythic capacity of her promises — Prime Minister John Howard has been ... read more.
 

Marty Branagan

'We Shall Never Be Moved': Australian Developments in Nonviolence

Within the Australian environment movement can be found a variety of modes of action, from the extremes of machinery sabotage to a strict or ‘orthodox’ nonviolence.1 ‘Orthodox’ nonviolence has been widely used and has produced a number of successful outcomes for campaigns. However, it has also been criticised for being imposed on grassroots activists from above, for being inflexible and dogmatic, and for being inappropriate in some situations. These critics have developed new forms of action in between the two extremes, forms that have also proven effective. This article discusses from an ‘emic’2 or insider perspective what these methods are, and why they ... read more.
 

Damien W Riggs

Understanding History as a Rhetorical Strategy: Constructions of Truth and Objectivity in Debates overWindschuttle's Fabrication

The history of Australia’s colonisation continues to be a contested site, wherein narratives of a ‘civilising mission’ challenge narratives of dispossession and genocide. Such struggles over representation demonstrate one of the key questions Keith Jenkins raises in his work on the discipline of history, namely, whose history counts?1 From this perspective, history may be understood not as an ‘objective truth’ arrived at by those who correctly study ‘the facts’ but, rather, as a meaningmaking practice that privileges certain groups of people over others, and which thus legitimates the worldview of particular groups to the exclusion and oppression of ... read more.
 

Barry York

Big Chief Little Wolf: Wrestling, Radio and Folklore in Australia

On Thursday 31 July 1980, the Melbourne Age carried a remarkable front page story. It reported that a professional wrestler and showman, who had not wrestled for twenty-two years, was returning to the United States.1 Other daily newspapers in Melbourne and Sydney carried the report (though not on the front page) and, four years later, the same newspapers prominently reported the wrestler’s death in the US. He had returned in 1980 in order to die in his homeland, and his wish had been fulfilled. The wrestler’s name was Big Chief Little Wolf. He was the most enduring matman in Australia’s professional wrestling history. 2 Little Wolf first wrestled in Australia in 1937. His ... read more.
 

Margaret Rogers

It’s a Fair Cop, Guv: Australian Fans of The Bill

The British serial The Bill holds a special position within the television police genre, not only because of its longevity in Britain and Australia but also due to its ability to adapt to the changing demands of industry and audience. Since its inception The Bill has continually renegotiated the boundaries of the television police genre through innovative production techniques, characterisation and the creation of an active fandom. First broadcast in Britain in 1984 as an example of the police procedural category of the television police genre, it was hailed by critics and audience for its authenticity and gritty realism. Twenty years and some 2,000 episodes later, The Bill incorporates ... read more.
 

Bill Thorpe

Thelonius Monk and Sergeant Pepper

This article puts forward an interpretation of popular music and its impact in Sydney, in the late 1950s through to the mid-to-late 1960s. This period covers what rock critic, Nik Cohn, has called the decline of 'classic rock',1 to the ascendancy of mainly British bands — most spectacularly the Beatles. I chose this title to convey a sense of certain features in the diverse popular cultural history of that time: one which encompassed Australian versions of surf music; the impact of particular, mainly overseas, musicians and singers; and the always ambiguous and tenuous relationship between jazz and rock music that came apart almost completely in the mid-1960s. What follows draws mainly ... read more.
 

Kylie O'Connell

'A Dying Race': The History and Fiction of Elizabeth Durack

On 25 May 2000, the eve of National Sorry Day and Corroboree 2000, painter Elizabeth Durack died, aged 84.1 Durack grew up on her family’s stations in the Kimberley, north Western Australia. She began her artistic career illustrating children’s storybooks written by her sister, the late Mary Durack, in the 1930s and 1940s. Elizabeth painted throughout her life, mainly depicting the Aborigines who lived on and around her family’s properties. She gained national focus in March 1997, when art historian Robert Smith revealed that she had invented the persona of ‘Eddie Burrup’, an emerging Aboriginal artist. At the time, many non-indigenous critics were sympathetic ... read more.
 

Christyana Bambacas

Thinking about White Weddings

This article aims to conceptualise how girls, brides-to-be and others interested in the bride and the wedding are invited — through what is commonly referred to in cultural studies as the practise of the everyday — to consume, produce and reproduce popular discourses on wedding traditions. It engages in and responds to existing dominant views that focus on weddings as a social institution — a celebratory cultural event between predominantly heterosexual couples. Weddings are significant as a cultural and social celebration but they also provide an important commentary on how they are constructed as rites of passage for girls. As well as revealing how popular and public ... read more.
 

John Chesterman and Heather Douglas

'Their Ultimate Absorption': Assimilation in 1930s Australia

You’re like the majority of people in Australia. You hide from this very real and terrifically important thing, and hide it, and come to think after a while that it don’t exist. But it does! It does! Why are there twenty thousand half-castes in the country? Why are they never heard of? Oh my God! Do you know that if you dare write a word on the subject to a paper or a magazine you get your work almost chucked back at you? (Xavier Herbert, Capricornia, 1938)1When Xavier Herbert’s Capricornia was finally2 published on Australia Day in 1938 it created instant controversy. It was described variously as ‘an Australian masterpiece destined to become a classic’,3 and ... read more.