The ’60s and ’70s were a time of great optimism, but by the 1980s, the “energy crisis”, the danger of monopolistic economies and life in the umbra of the threat of nuclear war were having marked effect on the global psyche. As the world slid into the darkness of uncertainty and pessimism, my ethos and philosophy on life, however, was still optimistic and based on high principles, from which I never waivered. Believing in a better future and still passionate enough to do it, I did what I could to encourage the same level of energy and optimism in others. Education is key and I took whatever opportunity I could to give people the knowledge they needed to improve their lives and that of others in a world that really did need saving. The Cold War subsided, the wall came down and the future was “open” again, and for more people, with affirmative action policies having ensured it. Rights for women were taking hold, Obama was elected and environmental awareness was gaining respectability. But the far-right backlash was lurking in the shadows and is now again regaining strength. The players may be different, but the game is the same. We’re now threatened by the same forces that were holding back all progress in the 1980s and the same is needed now as then to defeat it.

As I said back then, I believed that all the more knowledge was needed to be generated in order to enlighten the vacuum of ignorance which was becoming quickly filled with superstition. Split infinitive aside (I was being poetic), I still say the same, as emphatically, and I welcome and encourage all science believers to make full use of whatever opportunities, abilities and resources they have to do just that, especially against the rise of ignorance and anti-science, again threatening the planet and humanity. Back then, it was the Cold War and environmental destruction that threatened the planet. Sinister warmongers, exploiting religious fundamentalism and superstition to drive end-of-days scenarios, had succeeded only in creating mass hysteria, a collective psyche living under a belief of inevitable nuclear destruction. The ideology of “Armageddon” in our time, as one President put it, had to be fought with knowledge and the undoing of religious extremism and superstition, so people could take control of the future and change it, instead of slavishly just allowing it to happen by believing there was no other way. Simultaneously, the very material, existential threat of environmental destruction was going unchecked, as climate and environmental science were under attack from both those with commercial and political interests in undermining it and those proliferating anti-science ideologies, claiming that scientists were just “educated barbarians”, who did nothing but make nuclear bombs. Factionalism between the sciences and the arts was creating a divide as ridiculous as material extension of the idea that anyone has either a “left” or “right” brain. Here’s some news – every individual has both a “left” and a “right” brain and, equally, society needs both for survival. The truly wonderful and sincere peace movement of the ’60s had given way to a variety of cults with conflicting doctrines and pretentious privileged white man’s “New Age” bastardisations of “Eastern” philosophies, all thrown under one roof in a western/non-western divide, as though all “non-western” people “look alike”. These movements, driven not by genuine interest in religion or philosophy, but more a quest for power than a quest for knowledge, had led to inane absurdities, such as pretend “Buddhists” doing occult astrology and thinking it ok to kill “non-white” people, concepts completely antithetical to Buddhism and so much for embracement of “Asian” cultures. Supposed “nature-lovers” and “holistic-healers” were slaughtering rhinos and tigers, solely for their horns and teeth, as “medicine”, at once proving the “environmental” aim was a sham. Fraudsters claiming to have superior, supernatural powers and more love for people than “cold-hearted scientists”, were “bringing people together” with their dead father, mother, children or siblings, on the basis that their relationship with them was stronger than theirs. Add Christian European occult charlatan, Nostradamus, to the supposedly “Eastern” mix and the result was a perfect storm of anti-science, pseudo-science and pseudo-philosophy driving the world to moral chaos and environmental destruction. Buddhism and Christianity in its truest form provided fine bases for ethics and I’m all for true “children of the forest”, if their aim really is just to be at one with nature. They can dance naked in the forest to their heart’s content as far as I’m concerned, as long as they’re not harming anyone.

Science certainly is not the answer to everything and I’d rather break bread with a forest child or Bible basher with good principles than any scientist without ethics or who regards killing as a means to an end, but, with the world being railroaded toward destruction, it was important that other visions of the future were made known to combat the sensationalistic, end-of-days scenarios being forced into people’s perceptions and leading the march to inevitable doom, not as genuine foresight or scholarly interpretation of religious text, but as self-fulfilling prophecy, emanating from artificial, ill-motivated post-modernist nonsense, putting the horse well and truly before the cart, on a very wrong road. People needed the confidence to think for themselves, reason above the political propaganda being inculcated into them and question bad leadership as a basic democratic right. The dismantling of the Cold War brought great optimism and within less than a generation, the sense of inevitable doom that had over-shadowed the world for decades was only a memory in those who had been there at the time.

A few decades later, however, we now face the same dangers – extremist religious fundamentalism and superstition again driving world affairs with forever wars and the environment in more danger than ever as true knowledge is rendered invisible within a morass of unthinking and irresponsible ignorance. The deceitful hypocrisy of anti-science ideology became brazenly evident in leading New Age magazines bearing far-right QAnon ads supporting Trump’s election, along with anti-climate science and anti-vaccine articles and dangerous nonsense under guise of “natural healing”.

As I had also said back in the ’80s, it’s important to reserve subjective perceptions for aesthetics only and stick to knowledge for truth, given the fascist dangers inherent in that situation ever becoming the reverse. If one madman’s truth becomes the perception of all, aided by superstition, nationalistic jingoism and lack of reason, as has happened on a few notable occasions in history, if the social and economic order so allows it, the results can be catastrophic in a system supposedly set up to unite all to one purpose, which can all too easily be used to implement the purpose of one. Diversity and democratic input are needed for true unity, survival and progress. More heads are always better than one and diversity precludes destructive “us and them” and superior/inferior mentalities from taking hold in social and political frameworks. Combatting xenophobia, whether as fear, or unnatural elevation, of “the other”, is essential for our survival. But now, as before, we are again in danger of cutting off our futures at the brain stem as a minority of uneducated but well-facilitated fools, whose comprehension of higher social constructs has as much relevance to leadership as word processing does to literature, with free reign to enact their personal motives, control the fates of the majority and threaten survival of the planet itself. Now, as in the 1980s, there is a way out and we need to be doing everything we can to achieve it.

Uniting the world in a white male superiority versus everything but divide is just that – a divide. It’s not unity. It’s not unity of all people. It’s a divide and conquer strategy, exploiting fear and ignorance and designed to serve only the infantile purpose of a very select few. Instead, embrace the spirit of diversity and envision a bright and optimistic future for all, as a people of all peoples, united not to implement the purpose of one, but to secure the future of all.

I applaud the ICJ for recognising the “plausible case for genocide” in Gaza and the ICC for issuing an arrest warrant against Netanyahu and others for war crimes. What is happening in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and now Syria is absolutely unacceptable, and the world must be united in stopping this descent into complete lack of moral and legal standards.

I oppose anti-Semitism and condemn the Hamas attacks on October 7.

I condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank.

I condemn the genocide that Israel is carrying out against the Palestinian people and the atrocities being committed in the name of “self-defence”.

Congratulations, Australia, on electing the best government and set of representatives  in a long time!

A great day!

An ALP/Greens/independents win is the best outcome for our great and diverse nation, the best step ahead for a secure and sensible future.

Did my vote – Labor first, then Greens. In other electorates I would do Independent where appropriate. The most important objective is to get the most corrupt, incompetent, lying, stealing, low-minded, Murdoch-press controlled government in Australia’s history out.

Last night I took to Twitter expressing my concern at safety for people attending protests, but also my joy at the public awareness of black rights, with references to highly emotional musical performances. I also followed up with this, which I think, without wanting to cause hurt to anyone, is a story worth telling.  

Decorum restored after my “wild” expression of joy “in public”, I will state that once, many years ago, I equally “lost my temper” in public in response to a racist comment made on a uni internet discussion board. I was angry at the ignorance of intnl students (not Chinese) attending the uni of which Gough Whitlam was Chancellor, plus Australians who went along with it. It was an incidental comment about Australian Aboriginals and what I noticed was the casualness with which it was made and the obliviousness to how offensive it was. I was also annoyed that a uni discussion site was being used for things other than course-related purposes, not the least of which by people who had no idea of the significance of the institution they were attending. I posted that the comment was inappropriate and to stop using the site as a “bitching board”. The response to that was heartening. Fellow countrymen of the people who posted it agreed with me, even if those who did it made the “free speech” defence and claimed they were just quoting “poetry”. I considered that the people who wrote that “poetry” did so a long time ago and themselves would now probably be ashamed of it. They could not get away with it today, in whatever context it was intended, and there was no critical thinking behind its regurgitation in that instance. I regretted losing my temper in public, but not the reason. It did, however raise a significant point about the latent racism that pervaded in culture and language, barely recognised as such by people inured to it. I don’t think we can blame everyone for that, just make sure awareness of it is raised and make the appropriate changes.

I was without power and all phone lines were down due to storms when this was made public knowledge so I vented then through Twitter, but I can now more fully express my personal outrage at the destruction of Juukan Gorge.

For many years I have been trying to draw attention to the destruction of sites of cultural and scientific interest in the Kimberleys and Pilbara regions of northwest WA. I published my novel, “Katajarri – Murder by the Board”, partly for that reason, in that instance involving stromatolites, the fossils of some of the oldest life-forms on Earth..

There are many sites of significance in the northwest which are in potential danger due to an inadequate environmental impact assessment process, which not only fails to recognise sites of significance but dismisses them in a streamlined process designed to disregard them. Consultation is practically non-existent and as locals, scientists and researchers note, there is much that is unknown, unresearched and uncatalogued, making the danger of destruction higher.

It is very important that people with local knowledge, researchers and those in the know make the significance of the northwest generally known. At times it has been necessary to keep sites secret to preserve them but as is becoming increasingly evident, while taking appropriate precautions, it is essential that the general public knows that there is much more to the northwest than red dirt and spinifex.  

Mining is an important industry – the Australian economy would practically collapse without it, but it must take place within appropriate contexts. The benefits of preservation, whether for pure purposes or perhaps commercial gain from tourism, far outweigh the costs, which to the mining industry are minimal. It’s frustrating that near to ideal practice is achievable but that vested interests and general ineptitude is resulting in mediocrity. To quote the old concept, we have a chance at greatness. We can set a standard for cultural and scientific recognition in hand with economic gain and be recorded as those who helped preserve history, rather than as those who blew it up.

A lot to come, but to put the previously noted paper into context, Australia’s political history is very convoluted and cannot be summarised in a single sentence. There was a left-right delineation, specifically defined from the 1880s with the Free Trade Party being the left and the Protectionist Party, the conservative right. The Labour Party came into being in the early 1890s and were also “left” and supported the Free Trade Party, which governed New South Wales. The conservative, now so-called “Liberal Party”, did not exist in the 19th century. For complicated historical reasons, the ironically misnamed today’s conservative “Liberal” party is the descendant of the Protectionist Party of the 1880s and 1890s, which opposed the progressive “leftist”, genuinely liberal, Free Trade and Labour Parties which led NSW politics at the time.

In the 1880s and 1890s, the Free Trade Party and then the Labour Party wanted to remove regressive indirect taxes, such as sales taxes and import duties, which impacted on the middle and working classes the most. They fought for the introduction of direct taxation in the form of income tax instead, whereby people could be taxed according to wealth and ability to pay. They also advocated for legislation as the means by which to ensure working conditions and living standards as opposed to reliance on free-market forces, which the Protectionists claimed would be sufficient. 

In New South Wales in 1895, the Free Trade Party under George Houston Reid, fully supported by the Labour Party under Billy Hughes, introduced the historic Land and Income Assessment Act, following a landslide win in a special election held to decide the issue and whereby, for the first time in NSW, people were taxed according to wealth.

It was not until many years later, after the 1908 “fusion” and many more changes, including Billy Hughes’ division of the Labor Party , that the party structure began to resemble that which it represents today.

Many would also claim that, even now,  the current resemblance is not that of even ten or twenty years ago. 

Please click on the link below  to access a paper addressing issues relating to work by previous writers on the history of Queanbeyan.

Errors, Inaccuracies and Misimpressions in Errol J. Lea-Scarlett’s Queanbeyan District and People (1968), Gundaroo (1972) and Queanbeyan in Distaff (1983).

This is a slightly modified version of a hard copy of the paper currently held in the Queanbeyan Public Library by the heritage librarian, Brigid Whitbread.

My work on the history of the Queanbeyan district differs significantly from that of previous writers. Although my original intention was to focus on my work only, in the circumstances, I have decided to publish the paper to make it generally available during a time it may not otherwise be as it establishes context to the extent and manner in which my research differs.

The paper is a precise and objective exposé of errors and issues with works that are among the most constructed in Australian history. 

I recognise that people of substance, including Prof L. F. Fitzhardinge, put their names to, reproduced, cited or presented some of the works in question. I feel for those people, including one who, probably unknowingly, introduced a talk which was published in the Journal of the Canberra and District Historical Society and reproduced in a book in 1983, which contained much incorrect material. That unfortunate situation of blind repetition was continuing for some time as the work by Lea-Scarlett was still being promoted as the authoritative history of the district until relatively recently, when I pointed out it was incorrect, being all the more reason the correct history needs to be in the public domain and in context as soon as possible, so that more people are not so compromised.

I also feel it necessary to present this exposé because the works referred to constituted the authoritative histories of the district for many decades, were a source of great injustice to many people, presented a very limited and inaccurate history of the district and to some extent Australian history in general and were of significant influence, an influence still being felt today. The critique and my works present an antidote to the right-wing extremist conservative politics promulgated in the works referred to and assurance that such is not integral to the  Australian psyche. 

Although my work completely overturns that of the previous writers referred to, the responses to it so far have been embracing, welcoming and encouraging, which I appreciate.

Joanna Davis

In the circumstances I will be launching Politics in Queanbeyan – from the Counties to Federation in digital version for the time being, within the coming weeks.

I very much look forward to coming to Queanbeyan and Canberra after this has passed.