Data colonialism in the most literal sense

Fun fact: several years after his Provisional Government was deposed by the Bolsheviks in 1917, former Russian prime minister Alexander Kerensky married Brisbane-born Nell Tritton and relocated briefly to peaceful, leafy Clayfield in Brisbane’s northern suburbs www.smh.com.au/world/alexan...

Delighted that the University of Canberra has announced my appointment as Donald Horne Professor of History and Public Ideas, and Director of UC's new Vice-Chancellor's Centre of Public Ideas. Looking forward to developing this exciting initiative from early 2026. www.canberra.edu.au/about-uc/med...

Daddy, what did you do in the great (sub)culture war of Oct-Nov 2025?

One of the country's best music journalists, writing about one of Australia's greatest musicians. Lovely stuff. www.theguardian.com/music/2025/n...

Amanda Harris @amaharrisusyd.bsky.social reviews ‘The Wild Australia Show: The Story of an Aboriginal Performance Troupe and Its Afterlives’ by Paul Memmott, Maria Nugent, Michael Aird, Lindy Allen, Chantal Knowles and Jonathan Richards. @anupress.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Happy birthday to the brilliant Lindy Morrison. Here's a glorious Go-Betweens performance filmed for Australian TV in 1987. It boasts their best line-up and a short but sweet set including Bye Bye Pride, Right Here, Cut It Out, Spring Rain, Cattle and Cane… youtu.be/4ALbPfCFfkQ

Message in a bottle from first world war soldier found on remote Australian beach

Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s secret spa bath/jacuzzi with city views on the Premier’s private floor of the parliamentary annexe building, Brisbane, Queensland (built c.1979)

Saturday night soul salve … cos after this week’s Joy Division t-shirt carry on our souls are that much deader inside 🖤 youtu.be/MhEm4S-4v_U

Thought I’d re-up my piece on this perfect day as the Saints (73-78) prepare to embark on a national, then international tour. I’m dead proud of it, if I do say so myself www.patreon.com/posts/saints...

Your annoying regular storm season update from Brisbane/Meanjin ⛈️

Sussan Ley once said she loved the "theatrics" of punk. She seems strangely unaware of what those theatrics were, @theshufflediary.bsky.social writes.

#OtD 28 Oct 1916 conscription to the army in Australia during World War I was narrowly defeated 51% to 49% in a referendum. Labor PM Billy Hughes blamed the @IWW union for this, and responded by banning the group and jailing members. More in our podcast: workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e19-...

Breaking News: Prunella Scales, the British actress best known for her role as Sybil on “Fawlty Towers,” died at 93.

Dead Kennedys next, please www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

opening a new front in the (ahem) Sub-culture wars I’ll see myself out

I watched six hours of Australian history on TV so you don’t have to (though I think you should!) www.smh.com.au/culture/tv-a...

As Australia’s first Indigenous press photographer, Mervyn Bishop told many others’ stories. Now the yarn is about him

Help, the bot I fed on racism has turned out to be a racist. theconversation.com/historical-i...

Octobanana it ain’t, but something even grander: 4ZZZ 50th anniversary festival/market day in Brisbane/meanjin tomorrow. Cannot wait 🤘

#OtD 24 Oct 1975 90% of women in Iceland went on general strike for equality with men. Working women stayed home, and house workers refused to cook, clean and look after children. Today Iceland has the lowest gender inequality in the world stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9692...

the year is 2030. the white house remains half demolished because president trump refused to pay construction workers and musk gutted government spending. two thieves sneak into the white house using a truck mounted ladder and steal the constitution

Informal voting at federal elections has more than doubled since 1987. New research shows why some young people spoil their ballots. 👉 Read the full story: theconversation.com/why-are...

For a Queenslander, this gives off very Bellevue Hotel demolition vibes (minus the tearing down under cover of nighttime darkness)

211 years ago, on the 17th of October 1814, eight people died in the London Beer Flood. One vat of porter had burst at Horse Shoe Brewery, causing a chain reaction of destruction which eventually resulted in a ‘wave of beer’ destroying a wall and flooding St Giles Rookery. #otd #history 🗃️

#OtD 16 Oct 1968 African-American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their gloved fists in a Black power salute as they won medals. Peter Norman showed solidarity by wearing a badge protesting the white Australia policy stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8831...

On this day in 1968, Black Olympic medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos faced death threats and expulsion for protesting racial inequality.

Past/Present is an Australian Historical Association initiative, in partnership with the Guardian, looking at current events in historical context. Here's an excellent piece by Roland Burke on early international efforts to deal with misinformation/disinformation. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Escapee Australians became undercover agents in Yugoslavia during World War II www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10... #ozhist

The war against 'false news' is not 'new', but has been a concern of international organisations for over 100 years. The ever captivating Roland Burke launches a new Guardian column, Past/Present, sponsored by the @austhistassoc.bsky.social.

Here is the excerpt from my appearance on Thursday night that Chris is referring to. www.patreon.com/posts/140529...

Federal Government officials have admitted they can’t identify Freedom of Information requests from artificial intelligence bots, or even if they are any, despite that being a reason given for changing FoI laws region.com.au/no-bots-abou...

At last night’s Brisbane Writers Festival panels: Andrew Stafford talking ‘Pig City’, the Go-Betweens’ John Willsteed talking ‘Nowhere Fast’, chaired by Noel Mengel. @andrewstafford.bsky.social gave a stirring defence of art/music speaking truth to cultural oppression and political interference 🔥

Read this you muppets: Paul Musgrave on post-literacy musgrave.substack.com/p/a-post-lit...

The Graun’s Australian Bird of the Year poll is now open. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

For no other reason than I pulled up someone on another site for posting these images without attribution, here’s the link to Queensland State Archives’ digitised collection of photos taken during Expo ‘88 in Brisbane 🌞 www.flickr.com/photos/queen... ps. a petition to reinstall Expo monorail asap

new term to me for something which I had already internalised: cassette futurism

Wrote about anxiety about the creep of artificial intelligence into the courts and concerns that the use of these tools could erode Australia’s core judicial values

When I did a study fifteen years ago of the prevalence of unparliamentary language across the Queensland, Western Australian and Commonwealth parliaments, it might interest (if not surprise) some to lean that WA had by far the most ‘unruly’, ‘out of order’ and abusive parliamentary debates

Rachel Perkins likens it to a neighbour getting permission to put on a veranda, “and 21 years later they come back and say ‘we consulted you about the veranda but we’re putting a three-storey building there’”. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Jane Goodall showed tremendous courage in charting her own course as a pioneering researcher – and working to spread hope wherever she went.

'In a tragic turn, Mākereti Papakura – believed to be the first woman from an Indigenous community to study at the university – died just weeks before completing her thesis, and in the decades since, her family has fought to have her degree recognised.'

JUST IN: Jane Goodall, primatologist who transformed our understanding of the lives of apes, has died, according to an announcement from the Jane Goodall Institute.

A formidable coalition of Australian creators and book industry organisations attended a Senate Inquiry hearing yesterday to strongly oppose the Productivity Commission’s proposal for a text and data mining exception for AI training. Read more: www.asauthors.org.au/news/its-not...

Origin story to the Sydney-Melbourne rivalry you never knew: mid-1850s stonemasons in The Bad City racing to successfully strike ahead of their southern counterparts

Important research here from Joel Barnes tracing the origins of philanthropic wealth in Australia. How should institutions reckon with these legacies? theconversation.com/the-dixson-f...

A stunning Red Hand Files by Nick Cave - politics is not simple He says: “we have an obligation to assist those who are genuinely marginalised, oppressed, or sorrowful in a way that is helpful & constructive & not to exploit their suffering for our own professional advancement or personal survival”

The series may not be accurate in detail, but it is valuable in spirit – and hilariously opens a window onto a forgotten corner of European history.