‘Why them?’ is a question being thrown around lately. Why do our Indigenous people need a Voice? Isn’t Australia a democracy where everyone has equal access to power? I’m tempted here to say, well, yes, we’re a democracy – but like democracies the world over, money speaks and some people have access more equal than…
Desert Island Discs
Something a bit lighter for now – some memories inspired by a ‘Desert Island Discs’ writing prompt. Yes, I was a Countdown tragic. Guilty as charged. 1975, Mrs Lumsdaine in No. 11 has a record player, and my neighbour Cathy and I sit on her sofa listening to Billy Don’t be a Hero on Explosive…
The Voice: what exactly is ‘sovereignty’?
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?
The Voice: it’s all in the details … or is it?
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…
The Voice: let’s talk
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…
My years of living pedantically
September 2003 at the Cobargo pub, the first AGM of The Triangle community newspaper. The committee was celebrating a year of publication and there was a general air of happy incredulity: that it was still a goer; that the community had welcomed the paper and were reading it and contributing stories in increasing numbers; that…
Trials and tribulations
In December 2021 I heard that an exciting clinical trial for progressive MS was enrolling participants again. ATA188 was the work of Professor Michael Pender at the University of Queensland, a study I’d been following for years. In fact I’d enquired about taking part in the Phase 1 trial about 12 years ago, but it…
Surya is no more
On a chilly Melbourne morning in September 1998 a bunch of us gathered around a long table at the Tin Pot Café for Surya’s wedding breakfast. Of course, he wasn’t there – he was getting married in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, India. So those of us who couldn’t be in Tiru marked the occasion in Fitzroy…
Hello, madam, and the death of the landline
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…
Armageddon and subterfuge at Bega Hospital Casualty
‘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…