»Australia's first formal truth-telling inquiry has found crimes against humanity and a genocide were committed against Aboriginal people in Victoria, and has recommended that Victorian First Peoples be compensated through treaties with interest.« https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-01/yoorrook-truth-telling-recommendations-tabled/105479118

»Among the recommendations are calls for redress from the state government via the treaty process for all damages and loss stemming from colonial invasion and occupation of Indigenous peoples' lands. [...] this redress could take the form of monetary compensation, tax relief, and the restitution of traditional lands, waters, and resources.« https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/victorias-true-history-on-the-record-as-australias-first-indigenous-truth-telling-commission-wraps-up/kka0mv52p

The exhibition ›Our Story: Aboriginal–Chinese People in Australia‹ »sheds light on the little-known history of Aboriginal and Chinese relations in colonial Australia« https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/our-story

»Education is fundamental to improving outcomes for First Nations people, yet Indigenous students continue to lag behind the broader population« https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/calls-for-teachers-to-educate-themselves-on-australian-history/g8l0254u6

»Watt repeated his claim that the Unesco report included ›factual inaccuracies‹ and said the authors did not have access to “the latest evidence”, including a rock art monitoring report compiled last year and released by the WA government in May.« https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/17/murray-watt-personally-lobbied-unesco-over-barring-of-wa-rock-art-from-world-heritage-list

»Ten years of painstaking work has culminated in an exhibition that not only brings together the infinite variety and long history of Aboriginal art, but that also recounts the brutal history of dispossession, subjection and scientific racism that is the dark heart of colonial history« https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-30/65-000-years-a-short-history-potter-museum-of-art-marcia-langton/105336112

Out now: ›CONTEMPORARY AUSTRALIA AND EMERGING CHALLENGES‹ guest ed by Dany Adone & Anna Gosebrink | This Special Issue is the outcome of a longstanding collaboration between Indigenous Elders, community members, and scholars working in various disciplines; it discusses some of the challenges that contemporary
Australia encounters. https://australienstudien.org/australian-studies-journal-42-2025/

📢 CfP | GASt 2025 Annual Conference
It’s Time! Australia and the World at the Crossroads
🗓 9–12 Oct
📍 Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies
📬 Call for Papers now open!
👉https://australienstudien.org/NewsTexte/CfPGASt2025.pdf
#GASt2025 #AustralianStudies #ItsTime #HCTS
#TransculturalStudies #DFG #CfP

»I want to find a way to a future free of racism. And, at this point in time, I can’t help but think of the words of two Prime Ministers – in speeches delivered half a century apart.« https://humanrights.gov.au/about/news/opinions/key-ending-racism-its-right-here-these-pms-speeches

»For many years now, Australian political scientists have pointed out that established partisan allegiance is in decline.« https://theconversation.com/defections-are-fairly-common-in-australian-politics-but-history-shows-they-are-rarely-a-good-career-move-258177

»Litoria tylerantiqua, a 55-million-year-old fossil, is Australia’s oldest known tree frog. It shifts the timeline for frog evolution and underscores the resilience of frogs across mass extinction events.« https://scitechdaily.com/55-million-year-old-frog-fossil-rewrites-australian-evolutionary-history/

»Sixty-five thousand years is a time longer than human comprehension, so far beyond our understanding it is abstracted to ›forever‹. Aboriginal people have been on this continent for at least that long – and so has our art.« https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/culture/visual-art/2025/06/07/65000-years-short-history-australian-art

Call for Papers | 19th International Conference of the German Association for Australian Studies (GASt) | “It’s Time! Australia and the World at the Crossroads” | Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg (Germany) #CfP #Australia # HCTS #Conference
https://australienstudien.org/NewsTexte/CfPGASt2025.pdf

»The idea of a Treaty or Treaties with Australia's Indigenous peoples is on track to become a reality in 2026 after being debated, dissected and denied for close to 200 years.« https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/could-australia-see-its-first-indigenous-treaty-by-next-year/io51q74jv

»In 2025, we mark the 50th anniversary of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (RDA) — a landmark in Australia's human rights history. The RDA was historic; it was the first piece of federal legislation to make racial discrimination unlawful in Australia.« https://humanrights.gov.au/commemorating-50-years-racial-discrimination-act

📢 CfP | GASt 2025 Annual Conference
It’s Time! Australia and the World at the Crossroads
🗓 9–12 Oct
📍 Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies
📬 Call for Papers now open!
👉 https://buff.ly/TODOtZW
#GASt2025 #AustralianStudies #ItsTime #HCTS #TransculturalStudies #DFG #CfP

»A great deal has changed over the past 50 years for LGBTIQ+ Australians. To mark SBS' 50th anniversary, we take a look back at the community’s struggle for equal rights and visibility.« (audio) https://www.sbs.com.au/news/podcast-episode/oppressive-laws-and-100-days-of-hell-lgbtiq-people-on-50-years-of-history/czqpn2bom

»These iconic women were ›inconvenient‹ in many ways. They pursued careers as journalists, poets and novelists at times when many women were relegated to the private sphere. They spoke out against injustices, despite the personal cost. They lived unconventional lives, personally and professionally. And they embodied alternative forms of womanhood.« https://theconversation.com/australias-inconvenient-women-writers-blazed-a-trail-through-the-20th-century-254705

»An Australian local government has decided against repairing an often-vandalized monument to renowned British explorer James Cook because it would be destroyed again.« https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/australian-local-government-removes-vandalized-monument-renowned-british-121785401

»Since the 1920s, the conservative partners have drifted apart and come back together, securing the Nationals an at-times outsized and consistent presence in Australia's federal parliament. Looking back through the history books perhaps offers some insights as to how this relationship could change today.« https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-21/history-of-the-coalition-nationals-liberals-splits/105314564