Second year in a row Aboriginal elders have been booed and abused while giving the Welcome to Country at the Dawn Service. Organisers should make it clear they will abandon the service if that happens. They won’t, but they should.

This is an incredibly alarming investigation of the leadership of the NAAC.

It breaks my heart that in 2026 a Welcome To Country elicits such disrespect. Three generations of my family served this country and the haters can't spare them a minute of respect. 😢💔

Unis: we’ll keep you in poverty and debt til you get your first job in your mid 30s. Uni colleagues: but also retire by 60 or we’ll think you’re hoarding resources. Oh you want to pay a mortgage down and save for retirement?? lol.

This is a superb piece on university governance by Hannah Forsyth: open.substack.com/pub/hannahfo...

The AI rollout is an incredible test case for the power of capital to overrule everything in its way. An overwhelmingly stupid, obscenely polluting, and wildly dangerous set of technologies are being brute-forced into every part of our lives because money says so.

We're in Sheffield today to co-host our annual day conference, 'History and Archives in Practice', with @ihr.bsky.social, The National Archives, and University of Sheffield Library #HAP26 40+ speakers explore the contributions of history to social and civic identity: bit.ly/4tj8DqW #Skystorians

"Some people say, “I just use it to brainstorm ideas.” If you don’t know what to paint, or compose, or write, you’re in the wrong job. Art is the business of making up stuff — go make up some stuff."

This issue of ‘Lilith' explores gender in 20th-century Australia and Britain, from maternal feminism and 'Citrus Queen' pageants to motherhood and mental health, and the arguments that won abortion law reform in 1960s Britain. Get your copy today: doi.org/10.22459/LFH... #feminist #feminism #gender

Vale. A most remarkable woman.

A great thread:

Writing tip #7: When, during the course of research, you come across a story that is central to the theme of your book, go ahead and write 2-3 pages about it. If you do this consistently, you’ll accumulate building blocks for the book. You’ll eventually find a place for each one.

An important report on the terrible funding and equity impacts of Morrison-Clare’s job-Ready Graduates policy: futurecampus.com.au/2026/03/13/s...

A timely virtual special issue of Aust J of Politics and History: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1...

Historian friends, anyone got any reading recommendations on the Disability Discrimination Act / related campaigns in Australia? And/or on the way that different anti-discrimination Acts related to each other esp. in the 1990s?

The NACC has been an utter waste of public money. Its sole achievement so far is to further persuade everyone that consequence-free corruption and bastardry are fixed features of government in this country.

🧵: Books by historians I constantly recommend in policy meetings / professional contexts. In no order, to be added to when I remember: 1. The Seventies, by @michellearrow.bsky.social . Stuff can change, and it's possible to believe in things and plan for the future. unsw.press/books/the-se...

This is exciting - the 2025 Lilith is nearly out!

International students accuse Australia of treating them like ATMs after fees for one visa double without warning

Where are law peak bodies and academic associations? Why aren’t they speaking up against the impact of this dreadful policy on their profession?

Come work with us! jobs.anu.edu.au/jobs/lecture...

TIL, via Josh Widdecombe's new podcast, Museum of Popular Culture, that the Spice Girls' 1996 interview with The Spectator (where Geri Halliwell claimed 'Thatcher was the first Spice Girl') was conducted by popular historian of Stalin, Simon Sebag Montefiore. archive.spectator.co.uk/article/14th...

Eliminating gender studies courses helps to ensure that universities and other institutions will continue to protect men who benefit from the abuse of women and girls, either directly or through their connections to those who exploit girls and women for profit. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

"wars can be lost before they are even declared if defenders surrender strategic terrain without a struggle. For universities, that terrain is the ultimate high ground: human intelligence itself. If we do not fight for it now, those who come after us will face an even more unequal struggle."

I don't know anyone in the sector who is not horrifically burnt out and depressed. Exec are probably fine, though

Meanjin's back!

the people who want you to believe that generative AI can paint like Picasso tend to gloss over the fact that Picasso didn’t have hundreds of Picassos to learn from. He had to make something new, which a model trained on old art is definitionally incapable of doing.

the police presence at Town Hall is unfuckingbelievable. They are deep inside the station, stopping and searching people at the top of the stairs from the platform. Absolutely off the charts I have never seen anything like it and I have protested for over 40 years.

I have many, many favourite Kudelka cartoons but this, from 2011, is possibly one of the best Aus pol cartoons ever drawn.

There’s some cosmic bingo tea towel out there that has a square for ‘too young, too funny, too decent’.

“We’re heading into, within the next five years, a real reduction in the capacities to sustain a creative and cultural workforce … There will be an enormous decline in the amount of creative and artistic activity in Australia.”

Why would the press gallery agree to this? Now that the cat’s out of the bag, could someone explain?

Such a lovely tribute to Graeme. As Andrew notes, we need his calm, clear advocacy for the humanities now more than ever:

This song is 7 1/2 years old now. youtu.be/VYOjWnS4cMY?...

Please share. 💔

There’s a whole Honours thesis to be written about this one:

And this definitely deserves its place in the top 25

COLDEST 100: 2026 EDITION 42. Centrelink Hold Music (2025) Brekky Boy #coldest100 #hottest100 youtu.be/TtXmkwRS9vY

Also outstanding:

This is outstanding:

And one more thing. Students. If you have a professor who is, for some reason, outsourcing their own job to ChatGPT....drop the class. If they tell you to "ask ChatGPT" for sources, drop the class. Because they apparently don't know their own discipline well enough to teach it.

Rich private schools are gouging parents with huge fee increases while also pocketing millions a year in govt money – yet 98% of public schools don’t get their minimum funding. Should Labor be pouring billions a year into the private system while public schools are underfunded?

Powerful statement from Louise Adler and a huge loss to see her go from AWW.

📣Postdoc in creative writing 📣 careers.jcu.edu.au/jobs/postdoc...

‘It’s financial stupidity to enter the humanities in any of our universities, and the current federal government has done nothing to abate that.’ Great piece by Ben Quilty on our undervaluing of the arts in Australia: www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

BREAKING: 3 members of the Adelaide Festival Board have resigned after it refused to reverse its decision to rescind Dr Abdel-Fattah's invitation. No statement has been issued but their names have been quietly removed from the website. Four people are now responsible for the ongoing crisis.

The Adelaide Writers Festival now wrecked by the Adelaide Festival Board, half of which was appointed late last year: a marketing executive; a former politician; a local councillor/real estate agent; an airport manager; a lawyer; a media consultant; and a banker. Another public arts takeover fiasco.