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Australia introduced professional education for social workers thirty years later than much of the developed world. It joined an international movement to set up the new profession and was helped by the well-established American and British social workers. As Australian social work education approaches its centenary in 2029, it is clear that much of the history of the profession has been forgotten or is merely shadowy memory, layered with gossip, cliché and stereotypes rather than facts. Verl Lewis, social work educator and historian, was right when he said that understanding their own history is essential for social workers' self-understanding and self-awareness. Who are the social workers today, and where have they come from? Are they doctors' handmaidens, because of their origins in almoning, or do their connections to the Settlement movement make them radical drivers of change? Perhaps their origins in the Charity Organisation Society mean that they are agents of social control. There is some truth in all these assertions, but the story of Australian social work education is both more complex and more nuanced than this. For Social Betterment tells, for the first time, the history of Australian social work - a story of a fight for standards and the tenacity of a group of women (and a few men) who were determined to improve care and conditions for those most vulnerable in our community. It also reflects on why the rights of women and First Nations peoples were overlooked for so long, and examines the future challenges for social work in Australia.

The trees around us - some we may walk past every day - tell a story. The mallee box by the twelfth hole of North Adelaide Golf Course evokes a time when Adelaide was clothed in mallee scrub and desert senna. Brisbane's remnant blue gum, growing by the botanic gardens, indicates a time when the city was once jungle. The river red gums of Melbourne bear the scars of Aboriginal craftmanship. Mangroves, Leichhardt trees, acacias, eucalypts, foxtails ... together, they inspire a narrative that jumps from Burke and Wills to sugar slaves, Empress Josephine to Johnny Flinders. Eucalypts reveal lost cultures and lost children. Cabbage palms tell of incomparable migrations. In the spirit of Bob Gilbert's Ghost Trees and Don Watson's The Bush, this book explores how our trees hold our history and reveal it to us.

In March 2020, schools and childcare centres across Australia were forced to close to control the spread of the recently arrived novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Families and carers suddenly had to adjust to long periods of home-schooling, disparities in the availability of technology, loss of social connections with friends and relatives, and an exhausting new balancing act of work, home and schooling commitments-- all in a confined environment. In the wake of the resulting emotional burnout, heightened by spontaneous lockdown measures and growing COVID-19 cases, we witnessed an exponential rise in youth anxiety, triggering a mental health crisis in children as young as those of kindergarten age. Three years later, what does the post-pandemic child look like? What does the future hold for the millions of young Australians whose formative years were so disrupted? And what help must we urgently provide to this generation of children who found themselves coping with a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic? In The Post-Pandemic Child, Kim Cornish takes us through the key challenges now faced by Australian children, including the return to in-person schooling and the ramifications of online teaching and missed years of social interaction. She also examines the short- and long-term consequences for this ' pandemic generation', and the priorities in enabling these children to regain what was lost during the early years of COVID-19.

'Variation' is a term that embraces difference, and is core to the excitement and uniqueness of art practice. This book gives much-deserved attention to the work of artists with exceptional and varied lived experiences - including neurodiversity, diverse mental health, incarceration, and refugee, migrant and Muslim backgrounds - to transform how we understand contemporary visual art. The book's goal is recognising, appreciating and analysing artistic variation - a process in which artists' voices are central to their stories, including how their lives and works are presented, discussed, framed and theorised. The essays, profiles and images in this hardback, lavishly illustrated volume have been co-produced, and in many cases co-authored, with artists and writers who have direct lived experience of social and cultural variation. These profiles include short texts, many written by the artists themselves, accompanied by high-quality reproductions, to ensure the text is accessible to a range of readers. Interspersed between these profiles is a series of longer texts, co-authored by artists and writers, to provide a layered understanding of the contexts in which the works might be understood. These include essays and interviews that address questions of structural and social marginalisation, while exploring the important role of collectives, supported studios and arts organisations. To understand art-making in Australia, it is essential to listen to the voices of artists who live complex forms of social diversity. Engagingly written and beautifully produced, this book introduces readers to a new picture of contemporary Australian art. Some of the artists featured include: Melbourne-based Lisa Reid is one of over 150 artists at Arts Project Australia, a supported studio that has been working with neurodiverse artists since 1974. Reid's painting and drawing, characterised by humour and a highly distinctive graphic style, has attracted attention from private collectors as well as institutions, including the National Gallery of Victoria and Canberra's National Gallery of Australia. Safdar Ahmed is a Sydney-based artist, musician and academic, and a founding member of the Refugee Art Project. This organisation was initially founded to facilitate art workshops for people incarcerated in Villawood detention centre and to amplify their voices through exhibitions and self-published zines. Colombian-born Javier Lara-Gomez began making architectural models out of salvaged materials while incarcerated at Sydney's Long Bay Correctional Complex during the 1990s. As the artist noted, as he worked, he was ' bringing to life the dream that goes through my mind always when I think about my lovely family' . Geelong-born, Sydney-based artist Wart explores the experience of diverse mental health and the impact of institutionalisation in her art. Of the expressionistic works in her 2019 exhibition, ' Unravelling Moments in a Torn Mind', Wart explained: ' they're showing totally how screwed up you can be through colour and shape and mis-forming that shape.' Helen Sheferaw, who came to Australia from Ethiopia, has worked as a printmaker and designer with the support of not-for-profit printmaking studio The Ownership Project and The Social Studio, a fashion social enterprise. Her work documents the hope and trauma of the refugee migration experience, along with a celebration of her Ethiopian culture, from a deeply Christian perspective. Kamilaroi artist Frances Castles was taught by her grandmother in Walgett, New South Wales, to harvest and weave local river grasses. When Castles began working with The Torch, an organisation that supports Indigenous ex-offenders to connect with their culture and create art, she began to nourish knowledge and teach younger Indigenous women how to weave. With her woven baskets and textiles Castles wants a broader audience to ' get a sense of what this country is and what the culture is really about' .

Courts aren't just there to settle divorces, sentence law-breakers and resolve corporate disputes. A healthy legal system, one that ensures access, transparency and accountability, is fundamental to democracy. When the system works, the courts act as a check on government power, holding our politicians and bureaucrats to account. In Courting Power, Isabelle Reinecke, founder of Grata Fund, Australia's first strategic litigation funder and incubator, takes us through some of the public interest cases she has helped bring about-- from one launched by Torres Strait Islanders to establish the federal government's duty of care regarding climate change, to a High Court case on remote housing rights in the Northern Territory, and Doctors for Refugees' successful challenge to government gag laws. In a world of spin and puff, inattention and information overload, media deregulation and TikTok, evidence and accurate information have never been so important. The courts are perhaps the last remaining place where facts are primary and hyperbole is ignored. Courting Power is a timely reminder of how ordinary people can rely on them to keep the powers that be accountable.

For over fifty years, Australia has maintained its own rock press - a vibrant, passionate, sometimes volatile industry of dozens of papers and magazines committed to the coverage of the country's robust music scene. From the glossy and glamorous to the punk and pernicious, these publications were the medium that brought Australian music culture to international attention and launched the careers of countless musicians, as well as writers, editors, publishers and photographers. Go-Set started it all; the Australian Rolling Stone, RAM and Juke defined their eras; music newspapers such as Beat and Inpress brought indie music to the streets; and sites like Mess+Noise, Tone Deaf and Junkee harnessed the digital age. Drawing on comprehensive research and scores of interviews with key figures including Molly Meldrum, Lily Brett and Phillip Frazer, journalist Samuel J. Fell captures the vibrancy of music journalism in Australia with colourful anecdotes and rollicking stories. Full Coverage is the tale of how the Australian rock press was born, grew and evolved to become an integral part of Australian culture.

My father, political activist Samuel Mark Goldbloom, was my hero and my nemesis all the days of his life. Sandra Goldbloom Zurbo grew up in thrall to her father, a prominent socialist and covert member of the Communist Party. From an early age, she adopted his political beliefs, becoming a supporter of the Soviet Union and an anti-war advocate. She travelled with him, meeting figures such as Indonesian president Soekarno, and greeting Paul Robeson and North Korean delegates at home. But Sam could be withholding and difficult. He had a fierce temper and a sharp backhand and was not always a faithful family man. When Sandra entered adulthood and began to navigate a patriarchal world of work and relationships, she came to question aspects of her father's worldview. As the communist ideals of the Left were tested and faltered over the Soviet Union, the mood of the times gradually shifted to embrace the counterculture. Sandra, working in the artistic swirl of Melbourne's Pram Factory and the lively independent publishing scene, absorbed ideas about women, family and Jewish culture that often led to tense conversations with her father. When Sam falls sick and hopes to end his suffering, his daughter's devotion undergoes a final test. My Father's Shadow is a portrait of life on the Left during a time of great social change. Lyrical, sharply observed and affecting, it is a candid exploration of the fraught dynamics between father and daughter - and, ultimately, the love that underlies them.

In 2023, debate about an Indigenous Voice to Parliament swirls around us as Australia heads towards a referendum on amending the Constitution to make this Voice a reality. The idea of a ' First Nations Voice' was famously raised in 2017, when Indigenous leaders drafted the Statement from the Heart-- also known as the Uluru Statement. It was envisioned as a representative body, enshrined in the Constitution, that would advise federal parliament and the executive government on laws and policies of significance to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. But while Indigenous people may finally get their Voice, will it be heard? In Time to Listen, Melissa Castan and Lynette Russell explore how the need for a Voice has its roots in what anthropologist WEH Stanner in the late 1960s called the ' Great Australian Silence', whereby the history and culture of Indigenous Australians have been largely ignored by the wider society. This ' forgetting' has not been incidental but rather an intentional, initially colonial policy of erasement. So have times now changed? Is the tragedy of that national silence-- a refusal to acknowledge Indigenous agency and cultural achievements-- finally coming to an end? And will the Makarrata Commission, which takes its name from a Yolngu word meaning ' peace after a dispute', become a reality too, overseeing truth-telling and agreement-making between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians? The Voice to Parliament can be a transformational legal and political institutional reform, but only if Indigenous people are clearly heard when they speak.

Authenticity. Vulnerability. Humility. Transparency. These are some of the 21st-century virtues proselytised by mindset gurus, paraded (if not practised) by big corporations, and lauded by professionals on LinkedIn. The quest for authenticity, for example, is central to progressive campaigns for greater diversity and inclusion, while our political and business leaders are highest praised if they appear to be humble. But are Australia's newest virtues fit for purpose? In this provocative book, Lucinda Holdforth questions the new orthodoxy. She suggests that these virtues are not only unhelpfully subjective and self-referential but also, in the absence of broader civic values, fail to serve our democracy. This matters when experience around the world, especially in the United States, shows us that no democracy is guaranteed. If we agree that Australia needs confident, rational, optimistic and outward-looking citizens to shape our future, then Holdforth challenges us to reconsider the contemporary virtues shaping our society.

Thin Skin is an exhibition of contemporary and historical paintings by Australian and international artists who explore the liminal space between figuration and abstraction. Guest curated by Australian, London-based writer, curator and former editor of frieze magazine, Jennifer Higgie, it features works by thirty-six artists. As a term, ' thin skin' is joyfully ambiguous. Thin Skin refers not only to the delicate membrane that separates body, mind and environment, but to other borders: thresholds between reason and unreason, wisdom and foolishness, life and death, the conscious and unconscious, laughter and weeping. To have ' thin skin' is to be hypersensitive to the world around you. Paint is a thin skin on a surface. Some of the artists in Thin Skin employ absurdity, slapstick, parody, caricature and/or dreamlike logic to explore themselves and their place in the world. Others depict bodies in rich, often intertwined, conversations with the psyche, the land, domestic or work environments and with animals. Thin Skin also embraces the idea of ' thin places', an ancient term of mysterious provenance that refers to locations with a unique or peculiar energy. They are places that attract spirits; they appear when the distance between earth and heaven narrows. In Thin Skin, the ephemeral is made tangible. The fully-illustrated catalogue features new writing by Jennifer Higgie and a specially commissioned short story by Chloe Aridjis, award-winning Mexican-American novelist and writer.

After the dense miasma of the sixties, the seventies hit like a hangover. Idealism took a pounding as cynicism began to pervade western culture. Stagflation, Watergate and a war in Vietnam all weakened faith in government, while environmental disasters and an oil crisis proved there was even more to worry about than a Cold War. A culture of ' me' began to replace the hippie ideal of universal love. Yet at the same time, women and the LGBTI+ community stepped forward to actively assert their rights; the digital revolution stirred and the west embarked on a new relationship with China. Brimming with beguiling stories and little-known details, Vinyl Dreams is a fast-paced romp through the musical decade that defined all after. Whether or not you lived through the era, its music has shaped you. From the golden age of rock to the stirrings of the New Romantics, Tony Wellington traces the revolutions that reverberate through to today, showcasing the energy, fervour and enduring legacy of the decade's music.

In 1996, the first independent national report on the state of Australias environment found that we faced serious problems. With increasing urgency, five subsequent reports declared those problems were all getting worse, each calling for immediate action to protect our future. The 2021 report determined that, Overall, the state and trend of the environment of Australia are poor and deteriorating as a result of increasing pressures from climate change, habitat loss, invasive species, pollution and resource extraction, and warned of the dramatic impact on our health and living standards. It is now clearer than ever that the consequences of long-term inaction are upon us. Accelerating climate change and the loss of our unique biodiversity are the most obvious signs of the grim outlook for future generations of Australians. But the international trends are equally worrying, with quixotic economic systems casting doubt on the wisdom of running down our domestic production of essential goods and services in favour of a dependence on trade. It is no exaggeration to conclude that Australian society itself is at risk. In Australia on the Brink, Ian Lowe argues that the essential first steps in addressing these threats are stabilising the global climate and protecting our local biota. We must also change the emphasis of resource extraction from a damaging reliance on trade to improving our capacity to meet our own needs. This is our best perhaps our only chance of restoring a sense of social stability, and the equality of opportunity that was once a hallmark of this country.

Cruel Care tells a story of government, politics and the emotions that drive decisions. It asks why Australia has treated child refugees with violence and why governments say that the cruel acts they perpetrate are a form of care. Based on extensive research - including 35 oral history interviews with key policymakers, along with a rich set of archival sources - this book traces how governmental authorities can make decisions designed to control and disenfranchise children in their care. It explores how legislation, ministers, political parties and the public service have combined to create a sentimental rhetoric of welfare while enacting repressive policies. And it details the weaponization of rhetoric such as 'best interests of the child' and the histories of race - and racism - that shape Australian discourses of national security. At the heart of this book is a study of the stories of the people who shape refugee policy. Cruel Care asks provocative questions about how policymakers are shaped by, and in turn shape, their histories, communities and the nation, in order to offer bold suggestions for how we could achieve collective justice for refugees.

New Australian writing from emerging and established writers The thirty-one stories and poems in this collection explore our defiant acts, from the small, everyday moments of revolt to life-changing actions in possible futures and imagined pasts. From the unbridled ambition of a scientist to the assassination of a king, and traversing themes including the anthropogenic impact on climate change and the intersectional nature of identity, this scintillating collection takes us into the moral quandaries, ambitions and desires of those in places near and far. Crackling with energy and originality, these pieces are united by a singular intent: to defy the expected, whether in form, subject or content. They reveal the best of Australian writing today. Featuring contributors including Carmel Bird, Sofia Chapman, Elena Disilvestro, Warwick Sprawson, Cameron Semmens, Arwen Verdnik, Ashleigh K. Rose, Paris Rosemont, Jane Downing and Koraly Dimitriadis.

Time of Our Lives presents the extraordinary lives of ordinary women in their seventies, eighties and nineties, challenging the stereotype of the helpless old woman who is nothing more than a burden. The first collection of its kind in Australia, it demonstrates the rich lives led by 21 women of diverse backgrounds, all born before 1946 and all of whom have achieved great things in older age. From Mig Dann, an 80-year-old artist who worked for David Bowie and completed a PhD in her seventies, to Pauline Lorenzen, a 75-year-old Indigenous solicitor working to support women; from Robina Rogan, a boat-builder planning a sea voyage at age 82, to Rosemary Salvaris, a 76-year-old civil celebrant who has taken up orienteering, these women show that learning has no age limit. As the generation of Australian women who waved the flag for feminism enter retirement, let's change the conversation around what it means to be 'old'. Our ageing population is not a burden - it's time to celebrate the contributions that older women make to our community. Time of Our Lives also gives insights into how to ensure our own lifelong learning and live to the fullest.

The thought began to form in my mind that many people would have a powerful story to tell about a turning point that led to them finding their purpose their passion. When historian Mary Ryllis Clark came across her copy of Austrian philosopher and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl's A Man's Search for Meaning, she was struck by the idea that 'the purpose of life is to live a life of purpose. This propelled her on a journey to seek out and interview those individuals whose stories had inspired her. Historian Henry Reynolds could not keep silent about the racial injustice he witnessed in Australian life and it changed the course of his career. Whistleblower Andrew Wilkie made the brave decision to tell the truth about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Actor Jack Charles's discovery of the Malumani healing program, developed by a fellow survivor of the Stolen Generation set him on a path of self-discovery. Anthony Bartl who has no use of his limbs, was not expected to survive after a terrible accident, yet he has travelled widely and is an inspiration to people living with a disability. From Julie Spriggs, who became the seventh physiotherapist working in Ethiopia, treating tuberculosis, to Gia-Yen Luong, the daughter of Vietnamese refugees who is committed to raising the standard of education in state schools in Australia, the 25 individuals in this collection all share a moment that changed the course of their future, sparking them to live a life of passion and purpose and in turn enriching the lives of others. With a foreword by Brenda Niall, this collection brings to life stories of triumph and tragedy, hope and survival. Other contributors include Robyn Davidson, Gillian Triggs, Inala Cooper Anna Funder, Peter Doherty, Allan Fels, Fiona Patten and Elizabeth Chong.

Acclaimed filmmaker John Darling lived in Bali through the 1970s and 1980s. During that time, he created the films that established him as the leading foreign filmmaker of Indonesia. This included Lempad of Bali, which celebrated the life and times of the astonishing Balinese artist Gusti Nyoman Lempad. Today, Darling is often remembered for his documentary The Healing of Bali, made in the immediate aftermath of the October 2002 bombing in Kuta and described in The Sydney Morning Herald as a 'masterpiece.' This collection of essays is a multifaceted portrayal of Darling's years in Bali, revealing the cultural experiences that shaped him. Transcending conventional biography, it contains essays in his honour, paired with his poetry and photographs, as well as critical essays on his work and personal reminiscences of his life from Balinese and Australian expatriates. It is a book for fans of John's work as well as the new generation of filmmakers he inspired, and those with an interest in Balinese culture and Bali's cosmopolitan expatriate scene in the 1970s and 1980s. Published in conjunction with Monash University's Herb Feith Indonesian Engagement Centre.

The May 2022 election marked the great re-engagement of those ignored and patronised for too long on climate, integrity and gender equity. The electoral map has been dramatically redrawn. However, the triumph of the 'teals' was not entirely unexpected to those assisting their rise, such as Climate 200 founder Simon Holmes áa Court. As Australia entered its lost decade on climate action, he observed that conventional advocacy had become a case of diminishing returns, and that Cathy McGowan's election as a community independent in 2013 provided a template for direct political engagement. The result was Climate 200, a crowdfunded outfit intended to provide the money and expertise to better match the major parties and turbocharge the grassroots movement emerging in thirty-plus electorates. This is the story of how a team of inspired young tech-heads and older sages used their real and virtual-world experience to help a cluster of communities get the representation they wanted.

Gladys Berejiklian was one of Australia's most popular premiers. Forging a path for New South Wales through the difficult early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, she seemed unstoppable. But it all came crashing down. In one of the most staggering falls from grace in Australian political history, Berejiklian found herself embroiled in a major corruption inquiry that had enveloped the man with whom she was in a secret relationship. That same inquiry slowly expanded to focus on the conduct of Berejiklian herself. Journalist Paul Farrell takes us behind the scenes of the corruption investigation that brought down a NSW premier. He gives us a bird' s-eye account of how a case was built against her, and the relationship that ended her political reign. He also reveals how Berejiklian's popularity was shored up by powerful allies in media and political circles, and the tactics deployed by her office to silence critics. At the centre of all this is the national importance of trust, honesty and integrity, and how much Australians are willing to tolerate when it comes to the behaviour of their leaders.

Partway through the Jerilderie Letter Ned Kelly accused Senior Constable Anthony Strahan of threatening him: he would shoot me like a dog. Those few fateful words have echoed through Australian history and been the cause of much bloodshed and violence. They ushered in a national myth: the legend of the Kelly Gang. For two days after Anthony reputedly made his threat Ned and his gang shot dead three police in an event now known as the Stringybark Creek killings. Neds reason for opening fire? He thought one cop was Anthony. Lachlan Strahan Anthonys great-great-grandson grew up believing Ned Kelly was a heroic outlaw and Anthony the ruthless cop who pursued him. Yet as Lachlan began to explore his ancestors life he discovered an alternative story. This is a tale about justice and retribution, morality and vengeance. It is about making a life against the odds in a wild frontier society. It is also a story of inheritance: of the words passed from father to son and the myths we choose to preserve.

How does a city go from being the world's most liveable to its most locked down? For 262 days, Melbourne was cocooned by stay-at-home orders. Through successive COVID winters, the state of Victoria was isolated from the rest of the federation and Melbourne from the rest of the state.

Collective Movements is a wide-ranging project focusing on the work of historic and contemporary First Nations creative practitioners and community groups in south-eastern Australia that recognises collectivity as integral to Indigenous knowledges and ways of being. This project and publication begins from a desire to make a language and terminology beyond Western art concepts of 'collaboration' and 'collectivism' more visible, and to better describe and acknowledge the way Indigenous creatives work within a broader community and its inheritances. Collective Movements includes contributions from Australia's first Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander chamber orchestra, Ensemble Dutala; leading Australian First Nations theatre company ILBIJERRI; Aboriginal art centre Kaiela Arts Shepparton; Melbourne-based collective this mob; Ballarat artist collective Pitcha Makin Fellas; Koorroyarr Arts, the creative platform founded by Gunditjmara sisters Kelsey and Tarryn Love; and The Torch, an arts support platform for Indigenous offenders and ex-offenders in Victoria. It also traces the stories of the widespread return of Possum Skin Cloak making in south-eastern Australia, the landmark 1996 festival We Iri, We Homeborn, and Latje Latje Dance Group Mildura, one of the earliest organised dance groups in Victoria. Collective Movements is co-curated by Taungurung curator, artist and writer Kate ten Buuren; Lardil and Yangkaal artist and curator Maya Hodge; and Boon Wurrung Elder and Traditional Owner, N'arweet Dr Carolyn Briggs AM. The publication is edited by Kate ten Buuren and Maya Hodge, and includes texts and interviews by Bryan Andy, Paola Balla, Belinda Briggs, Yaraan Bundle, Maddee Clark, Brian Martin, Tiriki Onus, Steven Rhall and the Collective Movements curatorium. It is designed by Larrakia, Wardaman and Karajarri artist-designer, Jenna Lee.

The work of Shelley Lasica reveals a sustained exploration of dance, movement, and the varying contexts in which they can occur. WHEN I AM NOT THERE has been produced to accompany a performance exhibition reflecting on forty years of Lasica's choreographic practice. Held at Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne (15-27 August 2022), WHEN I AM NOT THERE is the first Australian survey of its kind. Centring on a new ensemble work that Melbourne-based Lasica has developed with a team of ten other artists--Lydia Connolly-Hiatt, Luke Fryer, Timothy Harvey, Rebecca Jensen, Megan Payne, Lisa Radford, Lana Sprajcer, Oliver Savariego, François Tétaz, and Colby Vexler--it also presents components from Lasica's archive of earlier works, including costuming, objects, soundscapes, and text. Consolidating ideas and experiments that Lasica has developed throughout her career, WHEN I AM NOT THERE contributes to discussions around choreography in the gallery space and activates the tension between what it means 'to perform' and 'to exhibit.' Edited by the project's curator, Hannah Mathews, in conversation with Lasica, this monograph is the first to be published on an Australian choreographer.

As 'America's shoeshine boy in the South Pacific', Australia is accustomed to being told what to do. In the space of a mere five years, the subjugation of Australia's national interest to that of the United States in provoking China under president Trump led us very quickly into a hostile relationship with the rising power of the People's Republic of China, and trashed forty years of positive relationship building. The Australian Government is inexperienced in its dealings with China, about which it knows very little. It fails to understand that primarily China wants to be treated with the respect due to a major power. Seeking to curry favour with Washington, the Australian Government and the media have turned the people against China. Claiming to stand up against the newly aggressive nation under President Xi Jinping, Prime Minister Morrison has damaged Australia's critical trading relationship with China as he acts to shore up his own political support against domestic challengers. As a result, Australia is now suffering serious Chinese blowback. This book describes the current unhappy situation and, based on Gantner's forty years of work in cultural exchange with China, offers some modest suggestions on improving bilateral relations. With the United States pushing for containment of and confrontation with China, and an insecure Australia giving up its sovereignty to buy American protection, it is not at all certain that this will happen.

Human rights come into question in times of crisis. But should we wait for crises to arise before we discuss these rights? Advancing human rights should be everyone's business, not just that of a select group of public interest lawyers, conspiracy theorists or those who prefer tinfoil hats. Human rights are routinely debated in the wake of scandals. Think about the quality of care in nursing homes, the treatment of illegal immigrants, and police practices towards Indigenous people in custody-all examples of crises that demand remedies and receive less than satisfactory solutions. Our rights certainly became an issue of heated public debate during the COVID-19 pandemic. Michael Mintrom argues that the advancement of human rights is an investment: our efforts today will create ongoing benefits for society. He finds the answers in enhancing the quality and accessibility of early childhood education, shutting down the school-to-prison pipeline, and assisting former prisoners during their re-entry into society. Beyond these powerful examples, he also suggests other candidates for policy change that will lead to the progression of human rights. In a caring society, the question of how to advance human rights should lie at the heart of public policymaking. But does our political class have the will to make the changes needed to ensure a fairer and more just society?

Tarenootairer (c.1806-58) was still a child when a band of white sealers bound her and forced her onto a boat. From there unfolded a life of immense cruelty inflicted by her colonial captors. As with so many Indigenous women of her time, even today the historical record of her life remains a scant thread embroidered with half-truths and pro-colonial propaganda. But Joel Stephen Birnie grew up hearing the true stories about Tarenootairer, his earliest known ancestral grandmother, and he was keen to tell his family's history without the colonial lens. Tarenootairer had a fierce determination to survive that had a profound effect on the course of Tasmanian history. Her daughters, Mary Ann Arthur (c.1820-71) and Fanny Cochrane Smith (c.1832-1905), shared her activism: Mary Ann's fight for autonomy influenced contemporary Indigenous politics, while Fanny famously challenged the false declaration of Indigenous Tasmanian extinction. Together, these three extraordinary women fought for the Indigenous communities they founded and sparked a tradition of social justice that continues in Birnie's family today. From the early Bass Strait sealing industries to George Augustus Robinson's 'conciliation' missions, to Aboriginal internment on Flinders Island and at Oyster Cove, My People's Songs is both a constellation of the damage wrought by colonisation and a testament to the power of family. Revelatory, intimate and illuminating, it does more than assert these women's place in our nation's story - it restores to them a voice and a cultural context.

The Supplement to the Bibliography of Australian Literature (BAL) completes the most comprehensive reference to Australian creative writing ever published. The four volumes of BAL recorded details of all separately published creative literature by Australian writers from 1788 to 2000. Core genres covered were poetry, fiction, drama, and children's writing. This Supplement includes some 2700 new Australian authors and over 7000 titles by them. It also provides new and updated information on many of the authors listed in the original four volumes. BAL and the Supplement have no canon. All books and pamphlets in the core genres published by Australian authors are included, regardless of perceived or accepted literary merit. To BAL, the self-published book of verse is as important as the prize-winning novel by an established author. This Supplement, like its predecessors, is an essential source for the study of Australian literature to the end of the twentieth century.

Disregard the critics. Australia's ABC, at ninety years of age, is demonstrably more valuable to Australians now than it has ever been. The ABC's home-grown Managing Director, David Anderson, gives us a rare insight into the ABC he knows intimately: a cultural powerhouse where Australian identity is celebrated, democracy is defended, and a very Australian brand of creativity is encouraged to flourish. This is a challenging era for many public broadcasters, with news media consolidation, globalised entertainment streams, and unreliable social media. Yet the ABC has never faltered or lost its relevance: on the contrary. This book sets out why Australians turn to their ABC now more than ever for information and news, solace and entertainment, pride and patriotism. Anderson lays out how the ABC will continue to innovate and develop as our essential and beloved national institution over the years leading to its centenary in 2032, and beyond.

The Morrison government's moral decline happened first slowly and then all at once. We suffered through 'Sports rorts' and 'Watergate' and an MIA PM, before the dissembling response to allegations of sexual abuse at the very heart of federal politics threw into stark relief the cynicism and moral bankruptcy of a government ready to abandon any semblance of integrity to save its own skin. But at a time when the country is crying out for leadership, the Labor Party seems paralysed, so terrified it may lose votes from its opponent's perennial wedging that, on key moral questions, it has failed to make the case to win them. Burning Down the House tells the story of how our political system went awry. Debunking the notion that we've ever had a two-party system, it examines how--with a recent dance card that has gone way beyond Labor and Liberal to encompass the Nationals, Greens, Centre Alliance and a whole host of RWNJs--Australia has now arrived at a place where a group of the most unlikely politicians contemplated the sort of Australia they wanted--responsible, humane, moral--and concluded that was not the Australia reflected in our current toxic politics. Into the breach has stepped a range of independents beholden to no-one but themselves and their electorates, ordinary Australians determined to burn it all down and build something new.