TV – First Contact – SBS TV

First Contact | SBS TV and NITV | 3 episodes, 18, 19, 20 November First Contact shines a light on the deep divide between Indigenous Australians and the rest of the nation by taking six non-Indigenous people and immersing them into Aboriginal Australia for the first time. To watch the programme on YouTube, clink the…

BITM – Peter Hartcher – The Adolescent Country

Peter Hartcher | The Adolescent Country: A Lowy Institute Paper | Penguin Specials (Australia) 9780143572435 | A$9.99 | Nov The great crises that threaten Australia’s national prosperity come from abroad. So do the grandest opportunities. But in Australian politics the big matters are commonly crowded out by the small. International policy is used for domestic point-scoring.…

BITM – Andrew Tink – Australia 1901-2001

Andrew Tink | Australia 1901 – 2001: A Narrative History | NewSouth Books 9781742234083 | A$34.99 | Nov Andrew Tink’s superb book tells the story of Australia in the twentieth century, from Federation to the Sydney 2000 Olympics. A century marked by the trauma of war and the despair of the depression, balanced by extraordinary achievements…

BITM* – Susan Greenfield – Mind Change

Susan Greenfield | Mind Change | Random House 9781846044304 | £20 | August 2014 In Mind Change, Susan Greenfield discusses the all-pervading technologies that now surround us, and from which we derive instant information, connected identity, diminished privacy and exceptionally vivid here-and-now experiences. In her view they are creating a new environment, with vast implications, because…

Radio – 702 ABC Sydney

With the clocks going back to GMT in the UK on 26 October, Today on Radio 4 now starts at 08:00 SAT rather than 07:00, so I thought I’d look for something different to listen to while I waited for Today to start. Wanting a change from the the Beeb, the obvious alternatives were the…