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Paul Collins is an historian, broadcaster and writer. The author of 13 books, his most recent is The Birth of the West (2013). He is well known as a commentator on Catholicism and the papacy and has also written about the environment and population.
Topic tags: Historian and broadcaster Paul Collins' most recent book is Burn: The Epic Story of Bushfire in Aust
We need no reminding of the depth of the division that exists in our Australian community. It's there every time we go online, turn on the TV, open the newspaper.
Our politics is focused on point-scoring, personalities, and name-calling across party lines. The media, for the most part, don't help, driven by the 24-hour news cycle and the pursuit of advertising dollars into a frenzy of click-bait and shallow sensationalism.
What does it mean to be an Australian in times like these? What are the values that unite us?
Eureka Street offers an alternative. It's less a magazine than a wide ranging conversation about the issues that matter in our country and our world; a conversation marked by respect for the dignity of all human beings.
To do this, we rely on your support as our community and we thank you for giving it so generously.
As informed people know, the Victorian fires are a replica of the Tasmanian fires 1987. You didn't mention those fires and circumstances
Thanks for your article on Abbott and Santamaria. My youthful experience was somewhat similar to yours; I was even a junior member of the movement as a 16 yo - briefly. I think that the intellectual link with Franco et al is more plausible than Gerard Henderson credits. In 1950, I remember the Christian Brother in charge of our class extolling the virtues of Franco and then expressing outrage when the referendum to ban the Communist Party failed. He even blamed our parents! It was the beginning of doubts about it all for me. Keep writing!
Kirsty Sangster is a Melbourne poet whose first collection, Midden Places, will be published in 2006 by Black Pepper Press. She submitted two articles to win equal second and highly commended in the inaugural Margaret Dooley Young Writers’ Award.
Associate Professor Shahram Akbarzadeh researches the politics of Central Asia and the Middle East, political Islam, and US relations with the Muslim world. He is Deputy Director of the National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne.
Paul Collins is an historian, broadcaster and writer. The author of 13 books, his most recent is The Birth of the West (2013). He is well known as a commentator on Catholicism and the papacy and has also written about the environment and population.