Painting Fakes

It being NAIDOC week, and us all talking about the voice to parliament, treaties and so forth, it's only fair that I should write a review of Sarah Maddison's book, The Colonial Fantasy: Why White Australia Can't Solve Black Problems. Sarah Maddison is Professor of Politics at the University of Melbourne.  She is not an Indigenous person, but she has written and researched extensively on Indigenous politics and a good deal of this book consists of direct quotes from Indigenous authors and leaders.  She doesn't claim to represent or speak for Aboriginal people. She is careful to represent the diversity of Indigenous views rather than pretend to consensus. Still, her extensive quotes show at least that there is no shortage of Indigenous people who share her view, even if others have a different opinion. Why, she asks, after decades of debate and effort, are we not succeeding in solving the issues of inequality that face Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communitie

Experiencing serious trauma can change your life, and rarely for the better. People who have experienced trauma are more likely to experience a range of other things - chronic mental illness, addiction, homelessness, marriage breakdown.  Trauma rewires our brains, changes the way we react to situations, makes us prone to 'fight or flight' in situations which are benign for other people. *** You would think that the bigger the trauma, the more serious the effect, but this is not necessarily so.  Case in point: last year I read and reviewed  Jimmy Barnes' two-volume autobiography.  Barnes suffered a horrendous childhood, witnessing domestic violence, experiencing physical and sexual abuse, being abandoned by his mum and left with his siblings to fend for themselves while their dad spent all his time and all the family's money at the pub.   Hardly surprising that Barnes' adult life was a train wreck of addiction, violence, self-destructive behaviour, promiscuit