When Hobart councillor Louise Elliot moved to hear 'different views' before a decision to remove the statue of a former premier accused of mutilating an Aborigine's corpse, her motion was voted down without a debate. That truth is sacred and getting to it a moral obligation is a notion which appears not to be recognised at the Town Hall. Perhaps that is understandable, as few would welcome the accusation of Holocaust denial immediately heaped on Ms Elliot by activist Michael Mansell

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Les Hiddins, better known as The Bush Tucker Man, has spent three decades investigating reports and folk memories of a 'white tribe' of Dutch shipwreck survivors said to have established a colony near the site of what became the Hermansburg Mission. It is so outrageous a theory, the same historians who allow Bruce Pascoe to go uncriticised won't even consider it. Yet archives and detective work keep turning up tantalising clues

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DISCOVERY OF A WHITE COLONY ON THE NORTHERN SHORE OF NEW HOLLAND A correspondent living near Halifax has favoured us with the following interesting communication:- A friend of mine, lately arrived from Singapore, via India overland, having been one of a party who landed at Raffles Bay, on the north coast of New Holland, on […]

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In November's edition of Quadrant, our Michael Connor forensically dismantled Henry Reynolds' claim that Jeremy Bentham believed the failure to strike a treaty between the first white arrivals and Aborigines was 'an incurable flaw', one that continues to cast a shadow over modern Australia. How sadly predictable that the spurious claim would be amplified yet again in the pages of the Nine rags

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This week marked 80 years since Ordinary Seaman Teddy Sheean gave his life defending his HMAS Armidale shipmates as they abandoned ship, an act of supreme heroism that much later would earn him a belated Victoria Cross. This is the story of his life and sacrifice

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In a previous article I made the case why William L. Crowther, Tasmanian Premier, philanthropist and doctor, could well be -- most likely is -- innocent of the crimes and indignities he is alleged to have committed against the remains of Aboriginal man William 'King Billy' Lanne. A review of his life and ideals makes this charge even less credible

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The statue of Dr William. L. Crowther -- Tasmanian Premier, businessman, naturalist and renowned colonial surgeon-- has been deemed 'culturally unsafe' by Hobart City Council. The evidence strongly suggests the reputation of a good man is being besmirched while the real villain goes unmentioned

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Japan's midget submarine attack is a story everyone knows -- or think they do. Little mentioned has been the blithering incompetence of the brass. Not only did the two most senior commanders refuse to believe an attack was underway, the small-ship captains and crews who hunted down the intruders were denied any recognition. Eighty years on, it remains an injustice in need of a remedy

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Eighty years ago today, a tranquil Sunday night in Sydney was shattered by explosions, sirens and darting search lights hunting three Japanese midget submarines, two of which penetrated the boom net to wreak havoc in the Harbour. A samurai sword from one of those vessels is on display at the Australian War Memorial, but whose sword and from which boat?

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