thanks to whoever left this awesome giant sheep outside the museum! we're sure nothing bad is going to happen

Tried to nap but couldn't, paradoxically because I was thinking about Ivan Illich writing in 1974 about participatory low energy societies

Me imagining life when I can restart meds that make my brain slightly work

This is very sad. Any time I've lived in Melbourne and needed escape from grief, trauma, life crises, I would go to Marios, where Massimo was a genuinely comforting presence. One stressful day, as he served my meal he suggested I close my book and really relax over my dinner. He was right of course.

My former academic library has just been collected for New International Bookshop ahead of their Big Red Book Fair on 18 July at Trades Hall, 54 Victoria St Carlton. Go give my old books good homes 💜

Extremely useful thread summarising how the amendments to the NDIS bill are faring, for those who lack the spoons or stomach to watch along

and NDIS Bill report delayed again - this time till next Tuesday www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentar...

report on NDIS bill due today, but in the meantime read some of the incredible submissions from disabled people - all the 'name withhelds' tell you how scared people are about speaking out, but they did it anyway www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentar...

The only acceptable use of Claude

Always, always pause when reading something that doesn't make any sense and think ... my own version was a sentence about reading dialectical materialism as a guide to gaining confidence talking to women. It might be madness but, you know, it's nearly always interesting if you follow it.

One of the most important influences of The Cheese and the Worms was to notice the odd turn of phrase or the thing that doesn't make sense in a document and poke at it. I always loved that bit at the beginning about the sentence in the Inquisition about putrefaction that he went back to years later.

A whole bunch of new collections of radical online archives listed. Check out this 🧵 #historians #archives 🗃️

Today's the anniversary of the Nazis executing Marc Bloch. Or, someone who could sit with uncertainty, champion inquiry & trying to understand, and recognise plurality & perplexity. And, in that knowledge, made the choice not to remain passive. Bloch, Historian’s Craft (MUP, 1992), pp. 64, 119, 160.

NDIS Bill Committee report now due Friday (was due today) www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentar...

This, again, like building castles out of dry sand

a machine that can fill in the gaps in the archives! this is distilled essence of so much of the techno-utopianism around LLMs and research. it fundamentally misunderstands: the *gaps* are the meaning. history is not the past, it is the processes of recording, then interpreting those records

Just disability things: I have a lovely new mechanical keyboard which feels very satisfying, sounds quiet, and is pleasingly colourful. However I can't use it right now because I'm too sick to move my hands enough to press down keys without the effort making me too tired to type at all. 🙃

And let’s not forget the crucial role of Redbridge in message testing how accusations of “fraud” in the NDIS would land with the community on behalf of Bill Shorten. This myth didn’t grow from a single seed, it was a concerted campaign by the people who claim the loudest to support disabled people.

Disabled Australians and their families are being screwed over by bullshit numbers thepoint.com.au/opinions/260...

CFP alert: We are thrilled to announce the Call for Presenters for a hybrid event in collaboration with @britishlibrary.bsky.social! This will be taking place on 27th November 2026, with presentations happening both in-person and online. Deadline to submit your ideas is: 31st July 2026! #DisHist

Liam is doing excellent threads on the details of the NDIS Bill going through Parliament - this one on the amends on the table so far

Elizabeth Malcolm was my honours supervisor, immensely generous and kind during a horrific time of my life. I still have copies of Patrick O'Farrell's books she recommended to me, after she described how his work had influenced her own. Good teaching is a gift that keeps giving over time and space.

QIDAN have done an excellent summary of just how little action has taken place in response to the Disability Royal Commission. Very much worth your time: qai.org.au/wp-content/u...

Don't have the time to listen in heaps of detail but Katy Gallagher is discussing the huge NDIS budget reduction at Finance estimates - most of the cuts hinge on this Bill being passed. www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOKY...

"The Healing Foundation, an advocacy group that represents survivors, commissioned a report in 2025 titled Are you waiting for us to die?The unfinished business of Bringing Them Home, which found that only 5 out of 83 recommendations had been implemented." 5 out of 83 recommendations in ~3 decades

“The Freedom Of Information system is broken. It was broken by ministers and senior public servants who delay, deny and obfuscate FOI requests, wasting tens of millions of taxpayer dollars a year." – Bill Browne Read the full media release 👇 https://theaus.in/4wOxDsf

For people with disabilities, extreme heat is more than just an inconvenience - it is a critical health and accessibility crisis. Come to a free, online Heat and Disability Symposium on tomorrow from 1pm AEST events.humanitix.com/heat-and-dis...

100% agree; even though the production is janky, the rest of the album is disposable, and I'm not sold on the arrangement, the song itself soars above all of it.

Restarting a crucial med really gets me using my historian skills, in that I'm surrounded by strange decontextualised traces of how this body was surviving for however many weeks, and now it is up to me to piece together the evidence into a sort of story that hangs together and that I can live with

luv to cut disability support instead of taxing the gas industry: "[Social License] has been used widely as part of the PR of extractive industries [to signal they] are mindful of their social responsibilities [without] having to meet intrusive government regulations and community expectations"

From the article: “However, the decision to reduce this budget was preferred over others because it does not impact the health and safety of participants,” it said. As a 99% housebound person, I can tel you this is a lie. Not being able to go out has huge impacts to both health and safety.

Two points here: 1) Butler describing the NDIS as needing 'social licence' reveals a very sinister attitude to the function of that institution, however: 2) much current Labor policy revolves around not knowing what words mean or what events occured in the recent past, which is a massive problem

🚨 PSA for: disability / policy folk, the first part of this piece by Peter McPhee explains the origins of "social licence" as a concept, and is really useful for explaining how inappropriate it is to be used in the contexts Labor is currently doing so: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

If you want to know more about the government's legislation to enable cruel NDIS cuts, there is an event on tomorrow evening for those who are interested in getting involved in trying to stop it. You can register for the emergency community meeting here:

outstanding and devastating work from QIDAN that also found Qld govt had changed responses with no explanation 'new analysis revealed just 3 per cent of the more than 200 recommendations from the disability royal commission have been implemented.' www.smh.com.au/national/que... archive.md/HSeHX

This paper explores an online research training course for people with intellectual disabilities and highlights an important lesson for accessibility: there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Accessible education means recognising different needs, preferences, and forms of participation.

"It is not always clarifying to explain something new with reference to something old—especially if doing so relies on a two-dimensional view of the past." 🙌

Tomorrow on The Sunday Shot, @instanterudite.bsky.social and @davemilbo.bsky.social are joined by @grogsgamut.bsky.social, Kalila Welch and @bluntshovels.bsky.social discussing the budget and the cuts to the NDIS. Check it out on Youtube or your podcast app of choice.

Note that property investors get grandfathered changes, but NDIS participants do not. So our Government is effectively saying property investors deserve the dignity of maintaining their current comfort levels, but people with disabilities do not.

It's a bad time to work on disability while also having disabilities that respond to stress by trying to kill you 🙃

Good morning Zedheads! Today on the show Anna and @drnatosborne.bsky.social are in the studio talking about the disastrous cuts to the NDIS, & playing part 2 of Anna's interview with the wonderful Belle from 4ZZZ's 'Only Human', on the transformative impact the NDIS had for them.

Pour one out for contemporary British historians living in Australia, constantly infuriated by both Labour and Labor parties

In 18 years of closely watching federal budgets, I've never seen a budget measure with this level of social spending cuts (not even in Joe Hockey's 2014 budget). $36b in NDIS cuts over the forward estimates

My prediction was correct, fwiw

Prediction that this will be me when the budget drops

The British state once managed to build multiple new towns throughout the country to house millions - when it was arguably poorer overall than today. There's a learned helplessness about the current political establishment.

As @brionyneilson.bsky.social once informed me, Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero have in the past described historians as like grave-robbers.

📢 Disability advocates say they won't stop protesting NDIS cuts despite ugly scenes at a Melbourne rally.

Spending Sunday night with the Second International, with twelve tabs of Laski open, like it's 2013 again

“Rather, we should be wondering if those on income support are being forced to live in poverty and despair, and just how much that is contributing to issues such as mental health.” Thank you, Greg, for this contribution to what is an exhausting conversation for everyone on actual income support.