On 17 of November Barack Obama touched down in Darwin for a visit that sent Darwin into a tailspin. The visit had been announced weeks earlier, giving Darwin time to spruce up for the visit. This included painting all the…
Progressive culture since 1954
Author: Rohan Wightman
Rohan Wightman is a Darwin-based writer & teacher. He’s been shortlisted for the NT literary awards four times, including this year. He has been published in Going Down Swinging and has been shortlisted in a few other writing comps and won a few less well-known comps. He started writing when he was young but really hit his stride when writing for Squat It, the magazine of the Squatters Union of Victoria, in the late 80s. He has piles of manuscripts but no publisher. His under construction website is www.rohanwightman.com
Blogs
Loudspeaker
Occupy Darwin
Another sunny Darwin day, no clouds, but the humidity is way up there. We got to parliament house just after 3pm, covered in a thin film of sweat. A scattering of people sat around on the lush green grass house,…
Loudspeaker
Paying for the sins of your children
The other day I was talking to a teaching colleague about a troublesome student we’d both taught. He’s in Year 10 and notorious for his absenteeism and, when in class, his disruptive behaviour and refusal to do any work. She…
Loudspeaker
Don’t muck-up Muckaty
On Wednesday 11 May, over 1000 people showed their opposition to the proposed nuclear waste dump at Muckaty Station. One hundred protestors stood around a huge blow-up nuclear waste bin outside Parliament House in Darwin, with a variety of banners,…
Loudspeaker
Punch and Judy and the theatre of politics
Punch & Judy: the double disillusion election of 2010Mungo MacCallumBlack Inc. Mungo must have been punching out Punch and Judy during the election – trawling the mediascape for fodder and spitting it back out between midnight and 4am, when only…
Continue reading 'Punch and Judy and the theatre of politics' 6
Loudspeaker
The income quarantine scam
Income quarantining has become part of life for welfare recipients in the NT. Originally it was part of the Federal Intervention, rolled out by Howard and his pet bulldog Mal Brough in 2007. Its aim was to prevent welfare money…
Community
Non-fiction review – On Radji Beach
On Radji Beach Ian W Shaw Macmillan The plight of the Second World War nurses who fled Singapore and wound up in Japanese prison camps is not unknown. A number of nurses have written accounts of their horrendous experiences in…
Community
The education devolution
Once upon a time, in the not too distant past, education was the means to which anyone could transform their lives. In the near future if you want your child to attend university they will need to attend a private…
Community
Into the underbelly of the beast
Non-fiction review Betrayal: The Underbelly of Australian Labor Simon Benson PanteraPress Paul Keating famously said, ‘where goes NSW, so goes federal Labor’. I read Betrayal: The Underbelly of Australian Labor before the federal election, and watching the drama unfold I…