Dry River Writings
It was a few days before the Referendum and I was wearing my badge when someone asked me, ‘So, why are you voting Yes?’ Well, after all those months I had a whole catalogue of answers to choose from, depending on the circumstances, the time I had, the demeanour of the person, the mood I…
A Melbourne cryptocurrency trader is placing AI-generated Facebook ads with an AI-generated, brown-skinned avatar pushing the ‘No’ vote. Far-right US Christian groups are funneling money into the ‘No’ campaign, despite all major Australian faith groups declaring a resounding ‘Yes’. Independent fact-checkers have found multiple instances of misinformation in the ‘No’ side of the official Referendum…
Three main Voice campaigns have coalesced as we approach the Referendum. There’s the ‘Yes’ campaign, supported by the Federal Government and all State and Territory governments, all major Australian faith groups, many sporting codes and a few large corporates. There’s the ‘Conservative No’, also known as the ‘Racist No’, supported by the Federal Opposition and…
At the Referendum meeting at Well Thumbed Books on 6 June, a participant cited some friends of hers, Wiradjuri elders. These women were concerned that with a Voice to Parliament, First Nations peoples would be ceding sovereignty. Leading constitutional lawyers, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, disagree. But what exactly is sovereignty?
Since the government released the wording of the constitutional amendment we’ll be voting on later this year, we’ve been hearing the word ‘details’ a lot. How can we add something to the Constitution when we don’t know the details? This question was one that came up in the conversation at Well Thumbed Books, Cobargo on…
At a referendum later this year we’ll decide if a few sentences will be added to our Constitution so that First Nations peoples will be able to form a body – a Voice – that will advise the Australian Parliament of the day on ways that upcoming legislation affects them. At this stage there are…
Eight scam phone calls yesterday. Time to dump the landline, it seems. No-one uses it these days. No-one with friendly intentions, anyway. Meanwhile, I have set myself a challenge: if I have the time, and inclination, I consider it a victory when the scammer hangs up on me. Script One Scammer: Hello, madam. I am…
‘It could be worse. You could be waiting for a doctor in an Indian hospital with patients gasping all around you.’ This was a friend – a real friend – on Facebook Messenger last Saturday. An Australian, he’d made a home in Tiruvannamalai, South India, twenty years ago. And when Covid hit he’d decided to…
‘We had no idea what we were doing. We had no books, no bookshelves. No cash reserves to speak of. And none of us really wanted to work.’ That was Heather O’Connor, remembering a planning meeting in May 2010. Someone had ‘some damn-fool idea’ of a second-hand bookshop in Cobargo, and five women – Heather,…
I wheeled down to the road at 5.30 am, moved by the concept of the ‘driveway dawn service’. I wasn’t sure if my Bermaguee Street neighbours would be partaking, and when I reached the street, mine was the only light. So I headed up to the cenotaph in case there’d been a social-distancing rebellion –…