{"title":"Edges of Empire: The Politics of Immigration in Aotearoa New Zealand, 1980–2020. By Francis L. Collins, Alan Gamlen, and Neil Vallelly, Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2025. ix + 331 pp. NZ$49.99 (paperback). ISBN: 978 177671 112 3.","authors":"Kate McMillan","doi":"10.1111/ajph.70060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ajph.70060","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45431,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Politics and History","volume":"72 2","pages":"379-380"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2026-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148343225","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"When First Nations Don't Count: H.V. Evatt and the Erasure of Palestinian Rights","authors":"Jeff Rickertt","doi":"10.1111/ajph.70043","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ajph.70043","url":null,"abstract":"<p>As Minister for External Affairs in the Chifley Government, Herbert Vere Evatt played a pivotal role at the United Nations in securing the partition of Palestine and recognition of the State of Israel. These endeavours were represented by Evatt and in subsequent commentary as exemplifying Evatt's commitment to justice. This article questions how this could be the case when Evatt, in steering partition through UN forums, knowingly disregarded the opposition to partition by the Arab majority of Palestine. The article explains this apparent contradiction by challenging the view that Evatt's principal motivation was humanitarian. While acknowledging that Evatt's sympathy for Jewish suffering was sincere, it is argued that Zionism was, for Evatt, a cause that enabled him to advance an imperialist Australian foreign affairs agenda in the United Nations. It was this agenda that led him to support partition against the wishes of Palestinians. The article argues that partitioning Palestine under the auspices of the UN advanced Australia's foreign policy goals in two ways. It helped Evatt to validate the UN as an institution capable of delivering outcomes beneficial to medium powers, thus advancing Australia's strategic goal of a regional zone of control comprising Australian-administered UN trusteeships over non-state territories of the southwestern Pacific. Second, it undermined the UN's doctrine of self-determination by subordinating the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples to a system of mediated imperialism.</p>","PeriodicalId":45431,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Politics and History","volume":"72 2","pages":"269-290"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2026-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ajph.70043","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148343045","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Tasmania July to December 2025","authors":"Robert Hortle, Lachlan Johnson","doi":"10.1111/ajph.70065","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ajph.70065","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45431,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Politics and History","volume":"72 2","pages":"336-339"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2026-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148343129","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Uncomfortable Issues”: Kitchener's 1910 Report and Imperial German Assessment of Australian Defence Preparedness in the Context of Weltpolitik","authors":"Peter Overlack","doi":"10.1111/ajph.70034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ajph.70034","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Prime Minister Alfred Deakin invited Field Marshal Viscount Kitchener to visit Australia in 1909 to inspect the overall state of defence preparedness and to advise the best way to provide Australia with more effective land defences. Kitchener's report was submitted in February 1910 and, along with wide-ranging infrastructure advice, recommended the introduction of compulsory military training. An examination of how Australia's closest colonial neighbour viewed defence programs and their implications for both Germany's position in the Asia-Pacific region and British Imperial unity contributes much to the continuing debate over Australia's involvement in the First World War. With an understanding of Kaiser Wilhelm II's expansionist “world policy” which necessitated preparation for what was regarded as a possible conflict with Britain, German activity in Australia and the broader Asia-Pacific region is placed in a meaningful world-political context.</p>","PeriodicalId":45431,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Politics and History","volume":"72 2","pages":"216-236"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2026-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148343169","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Queensland: July–December 2025","authors":"Paul D. Williams","doi":"10.1111/ajph.70069","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ajph.70069","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45431,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Politics and History","volume":"72 2","pages":"366-370"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2026-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148343223","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An Evolving Record: A Centennial History of the Economic Society of Australia By Alex Millmow, North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2025. v + 199 pp. $49.95 (paperback). ISBN: 978-1-92-326752-7.","authors":"Leonora Risse","doi":"10.1111/ajph.70062","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ajph.70062","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45431,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Politics and History","volume":"72 2","pages":"381-382"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2026-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148343263","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“A Campaign for Territorial Control”? Mining and the Yirrkala Bark Petitions","authors":"Robert Porter","doi":"10.1111/ajph.70027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ajph.70027","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This review article provides a critical assessment of elements of Clare Wright's book, <i>Näku Dhäruk The Bark Petitions</i>. The book deals with the events leading to a bark petition being tabled in the House of Representatives on 28 August 1963, on behalf of the Yolngu people of the Yirrkala Mission in the Northern Territory. The events are conveyed as significant to later steps to formalise rights to land for Indigenous Australians, at a time when such rights, as well as access to minerals, were vested in the Crown. The author characterises the events as representing a “four-cornered contest” to cheat the Yolngu people of reserve land for planned mining. Further, the book posits a framework of “territorial control” and suggests an “extractive frontier”. In doing so, Wright characterises the actions of key individuals, notably Paul Hasluck, the Minister for Territories, as willing protagonists in actions antithetical to the interests of the Yolngu people. This article suggests such a framework and the author's interpretation of aspects of this history through the perceived shortcomings and moral weaknesses of individuals, as well as a lack of contextual understanding of the actions of some individuals and what they sought to achieve, detracts from a balanced understanding of events. In the process the motivations, and part of the careers, of individuals, not least Paul Hasluck, are impugned. An attempt is made in this article to redress some of the perceived deficiencies in this form of historical analysis.</p>","PeriodicalId":45431,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Politics and History","volume":"72 2","pages":"315-335"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2026-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148342977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Resisting the Reframing of Poverty as Welfare Dependency: An Examination of the Australian Council of Social Service's Advocacy Strategies During the Howard Government Years 1996–2007","authors":"Philip Mendes","doi":"10.1111/ajph.70031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ajph.70031","url":null,"abstract":"<p>During the long period of Labor Party Government from 1983 to 1996, the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) arguably became one of the most effective policy advocacy groups in Australia. But the election of the Howard-led Coalition Government in 1996 presented new challenges including the management of ideological discord with the Coalition and rebuffing active attempts by the government to exclude social justice advocates from political influence. This paper examines the strategies used by ACOSS to retain their impact on social welfare policy debates and particularly to resist the Coalition's attempt to reframe financial poverty as solely the outcome of individual behaviour via the use of the term “welfare dependency”. Particular attention is focused on ACOSS's response to the McClure welfare review and also their campaign to reform the contentious welfare breaches system. Some conclusions are drawn about the effectiveness and limitations of their policy interventions.</p>","PeriodicalId":45431,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Politics and History","volume":"72 2","pages":"195-215"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2026-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148343170","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Lady Anne Kerr: From the Rise of International Conference Interpreting to the Whitlam Dismissal","authors":"Alexis Bergantz","doi":"10.1111/ajph.70022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ajph.70022","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Before Anne Robson (née Taggart) became the second Lady Kerr upon marrying governor-general John Kerr in 1975, she had an international career of some 30 years working as a French to English interpreter and consultant at over 30 national and international conferences and became the first Australian elected to the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC) in 1966. She resigned from the profession and divorced her first husband in 1975 to marry John Kerr and within the year became entangled in the political and national crisis of the Whitlam dismissal, brought on by her new husband, and in which some contemporaries suspected she played a part. Eclipsed by the crisis and largely ignored by historians since, her life and career merit closer scrutiny. They speak to the professionalisation of interpreting services in the post-Second World War era and to Australia's early endeavours in regional diplomacy. They underscore the critical role of language in facilitating and hindering international relations as well as of the invisibility of the interpreter in diplomatic history. Finally, her story merits closer examination for what it reveals about John Kerr, their relationship, his tenure as governor-general and particularly his decision to dismiss Whitlam.</p>","PeriodicalId":45431,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Politics and History","volume":"72 2","pages":"179-194"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2026-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ajph.70022","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148343221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}