Holding Pattern

A few weeks before he died in Melbourne in 1943, my maternal grandfather Paul Sheer wrote what he called a Spiritual Testament for his children. It contained no prayers, no appeals to God, and no comfort about an afterlife. Instead, it offered something rarer: a secular moral framework for children who, having fled Nazi Europe, […]

Hate Speech Following the Bondi Junction killings, the Minns Government has signalled its intention to expand criminal prohibitions on hate speech. The chant “globalise the intifada” will be banned and the NSW Legislative Assembly committee on law and safety will consider whether other slogans should be included in the ban. “From the river to the […]

The life of my paternal grandmother, Amelia Woods (later known as Cecily and Nana) was marked by early tragedy from which I suspect she never really recovered. Within the space of a few months she lost her twin babies and then her husband Frank Hills. These photos come from newspaper reports in December 1921, when […]

One of the interesting questions arising out of Labor’s unprecedented success in the election is how we should we now view what happened with the Voice referendum. I maintained at the time, and still maintain, that it would have been better to have taken a more straightforward, simpler, recognition of prior Aboriginal presence in Australia […]

I watched the 1961 film ‘Judgement at Nuremberg’ over the last few nights. (It goes for more than 3 hours). It seemed vaguely familiar. I think I must’ve watched it as a kid or perhaps as an early teen. It’s the story of the trial at Nuremberg of five men who served as judges under […]