Bennelong Papers

Pilger alert! Pilger alert! Pilger alert!

by Philippa Martyr

May 17, 2013

Round up the usual suspect cliches, the dubious documentarian will need them all by the time he has turned his camera on pallid Australia's oppression of Aborigines. He'll be so busy, ib fact, he may have no more than a few moments to be feted on Q&A and other ABC programs

When the horrific is mundane -- Part IV

by Tony Thomas

May 9, 2013

Sexually mutilated infants, toddlers raped, children sodomised, women so badly beaten they come to envy dogs. Stripped of cant and buck-passing, beyond a patronising and indulgent judiciary, remote Indigenous communities are being eaten alive by the cancers of grog, misogny and endemic violence

A blacked-out past -- Part III

by Tony Thomas

May 8, 2013

One hears much of Aboriginal suffering from those who would pin the blame on "invaders". Politically expedient as those excuses may be, they omit a richly documented record of appalling sexual violence and mutilation

The long history of Aboriginal violence -- Part II

by Tony Thomas

May 7, 2013

It is fashionable to excuse the current and appalling levels of Indigenous violence on dispossession and oppression, but the unpalatable truth is that it has been a feature of Aboriginal culture since long before the First Fleet

'Yabbered' to death -- Part I

by Tony Thomas

May 6, 2013

Death, disease, degradation -- that is what the enormous expenditure "close the gap" is buying. That and a bureaucracy which wraps its failures and waste in the management-speak

Cue the applause for a tall tale of black oppression

by Roger Franklin

March 4, 2013

Despite its improbable plot, critics are hailing a semi-autobiographical play by "emerging" Indigenous artist and grant recipient Nakkiah Lui. What a pity she didn't omit the tired cliches of black victimhood and simply tell her own story

The Monthly's nasty little hatchet job

by Stephanie Jarrett

March 3, 2013

By all accounts, The Monthly's John van Tiggelen was a picture of gentlemanly decorum at the launch of Stephanie Jarrett's brave new book on the roots of Indigenous violence. Back at the office, however, the bile poured forth

A program so good it had to be stopped

by Ian Mitchell

February 18, 2013

Few now remember the Indigenous Family Resettlement Scheme, an astonishingly successful pilot program to help Aboriginal families start new lives in urban centres. Billions of squadered dollars after opponents of assimilation saw it scrapped, the simple and cost-effective scheme is well worth reconsidering

Rousseau shouldn't re-write our Constitution

by Sebastian Tombs

February 15, 2013

Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott agree our nation's foundation document needs tweaking  to recognise Indigenous Australians. Having found common ground at last, they are both on the wrong side

Indigenous violence and its enablers

by Stephanie Jarrett

January 28, 2013

A frank and distressing exchange with author and academic Stephanie Jarrett, whose book, Liberating Aboriginal People from Violence, voices a ground-breaking demand that policymakers abandon their fuzzy cliches and patronising indifference and implement realistic remedies

The Nova Peris medicine show

by Roger Franklin

January 24, 2013

Senator-to-be Nova Peris may be better qualified than many of her detractors believe. After all, what better training for Canberra than a series of lucrative and well-intentioned contracts that did very little to achieve their goals?

She'll always have Peris

by Roger Franklin

January 23, 2013

To understand where Nova Peris stands on matters political, one place to start is Andrew Denton's 2003 Enough Rope interview. Her reluctance to say anything against ATSIC's scandal-plagued leadership must surely be a comfort to our Prime Minister

Paleface Dreamtime

August 15, 2012

Dallas Scott: “I watched young, white identifiers roundly proclaim their connection to, and knowledge of, their 'culture', then turn around not five minutes later and abuse Aboriginal culture by speaking over an Elder.”

Saint Mabo, not

by Andrew Bolt

June 13, 2012

The rewriting of Eddie Mabo as a saint in a saintly cause is a gross rewriting of history, if the 1990 findings of facts in the Mabo case by Justice Moynihan are our guide.

Can we check that?

by Michael Connor

May 15, 2012

It may be the debate we are not allowed to have, but are they claims we are not allowed to check?

Grateful for NASCA?

May 7, 2012

Anita Heiss: "I am incredibly proud to be part of a thriving organisation and to lend my name and time to NASCA, which is fully governed by an all-Aboriginal board. From what I understand, we are the only organisation in the field who can claim that."

It’s not about being black

by Caroline Overington

April 11, 2012

The issue is whether those benefits designed to assist Aboriginal people out of their desperate poverty should be more sharply targeted at those with a genuine need.

What if?

by Michael Galak

March 30, 2012

Except for the missing warfare, the relationship between these two towns is eerily similar to the animosity between Israel and Gaza.

Hasluck versus Coombs: eBook

February 20, 2012

An important book now available in an electronic edition with a new introduction to the 2012 edition by Gary Johns.

Sceptical thoughts on customary law

by Kenneth Maddock

February 15, 2012

Should Australia recognise Aboriginal customary law? In this clearheaded essay the late Kenneth Maddock explores a subject which has grave implications for modern Australia.