For fifty-seven years, James (“Jim”) Glen Service, “Mr Canberra”, banker, property expert and company director, was identified with most things commercial and cultural that happened in the national capital. Those who knew him found a tough-minded businessman, conscientious about “giving back”, with a wonderful sense of the absurd.
I cannot imagine anyone in the ALP in 2021 who today does not hope for the emergence of a Palestinian state. How this outcome might occur is where differences emerge.
Until now, despite several appealing attempts, the brilliant, complex, exasperating, shrewd, and naïve Herbert Vere Evatt QC, PC, KStJ (1894-1965), Labor politician, judge, and historian, lacked a compelling biography.
This is a lucid and interesting story by Keith Harvey: From university activist in the Democrat Club at Monash University in the early 1970s, gradual attraction to the ideals and works of the National Civic Council (NCC), conversion to Catholicism, marriage, children, recruitment to the anti-communist union cause, union work, including the Victorian Trades Hall Council (VTHC) in 1977-78 (it did not end well), then the Federated Clerks Union (FCU) to retirement, and attraction to the ideals of the Australian Labor Party in coalition with Christians concerned with social justice.
The relentless demonising and delegitimising of Israel continues apace. With so many references in the media, in hard and far-Left publications, on university campuses and in public discourse generally, to Israel’s alleged practice of apartheid, it is timely to evaluate the substance of the claim, assess the origin of the slur, and consider whether there is any merit in the use of the word.
Rodney Cavalier’s review (Newsletter 241) of the book The Write Stuff (Connor Court, 2020) comments on my Chapter, ‘Faithful and Labor: What Labor Ignores at Its Peril’ and argues that there is no problem.
There were two periods in recent British Labour history where leaving the party was a more than usually troubling question for a lifelong supporter to consider.
Maurie Daly, geographer, raconteur, family man, academic critic of urban planning follies, gained an international following for the clarity and insightfulness of his analysis of city and place.
The presence of members of Jewish, Orthodox Christian, and various Protestant denominations at the funeral indicated that this was no ordinary man. “Even if you cry your eyes out, don’t worry; he was worth every tear,” the Bishop of Wollongong, The Most Rev. Brian Mascord, said in his homily.
Speech delivered online to the delayed (2020) ASFA Conference held online and from the International Convention Centre Sydney (ICC Sydney) on 10 February 2021.