National Redress: Survivor engagement and conflict of interest This is an edited version of a paper I presented to the LSAANZ Conference, Voice, Resistance and Repair: Law and Living Together held at the University of Technology Sydney in December 2023. Introduction After some equivocation, on 4 November 2016, Australia’s Attorney-General, George Brandis, and Minister for […]
Refuge, Rescue and Reform: Voices of suffering and survival
Another book! I’m very pleased to announce that a book Dot Wickham and I have been working on for a few years is finally at the printers and will be launched in Ballarat by Hon. Catherine King MP, the Minister for Transport on 24 May as part of the Ballarat Heritage Festival. The publisher is […]
Problems with Records Are Not Confined to the Past
Just published on line through Springer. Will be printed in Archival Science in due course. Below is a pre-publication version of the manuscript. Some minor changes will be found in the on line version which can be accessed at ‘Online First’: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10502-019-09304-0 DOI 10.1007/s10502-019-09304-0 “Problems with records and recordkeeping practices are not confined to the past”: A […]
Recent Publications
One of the reasons I have not been able to keep up a flow of new posts is the increase for requests to contribute to journals. Here is one of the more recent publications.
Sexual Abuse as the Core Transgression of Childhood Innocence: Unintended Consequences for Care Leavers
I’ve just added a copy of my article published this week in the Journal of Australian Studies – a special edition devoted to the Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Try this link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14443058.2018.1445121?scroll=top&needAccess=true For those who want to see the contents of the Special Issue of the Journal of Australian Studies:
Redress for All Forms of Abuse.
Senator Derryn Hinch was a member of the Senate Committee examining the Bill before the Parliament on a national redress scheme. The Senator demonstrated that not all politicians come to meetings like this one with a closed mind. A few days after the hearing, he posted the following part of his diary on Crikey.com. These […]
Another Apology
Formal Apologies: What do they mean? Do they matter? The Prime Minister has set up a committee to provide advice on a proposed national apology to Australians who were sexually abused as children. (See more here.) There are many things we’ve learned from past apologies. Care Leavers and survivors of child abuse have inspired […]
Redress – Claytons or Fair Dinkum?
Redress – Claytons or Fair Dinkum? In late October/early November I was invited to Sweden along with Associate Professor Jacqui Wilson of Federation University (another Care Leaver) to talk about the state of play with the Australian Royal Commission’s recommendations on redress. We planned to present an essentially negative story about why the Australian government had rejected the Commission’s […]
Lost and Found: Reconstructing a family at war
Lost and Found: Reconstructing a family at war This was the title of a paper I presented at the Australian Catholic University, Melbourne on 13 December 2016 at a conference entitled (Re)Examining Historical Childhoods: Literary, Cultural, Social. The conference was organised by the Australasian Society for the History of Children and Youth. I am working this paper up as […]
Svetlana Alexeviech didn’t make it to the Royal Commission
A brilliant essay given by Maria Tumarkin at the University of Melbourne on Wednesday 7 September 2016. A short version was published in The Conversation on Friday 9 September – reprinted here with permission. Among other things, Maria asked: “Have we outsourced the witnessing of child sexual abuse in Australia to the Royal Commission?” Some say yes. Others, […]