'This issue of Australian Historical Studies is the final one in our editorial tenure of the journal from 2015 to 2018. During this time, it has been a privilege to publish a range of fascinating articles in Australian history, and to support new historical work that examines Australia’s place in the world, and the international, transnational and localised connections that have shaped national historical experiences. This includes special issues and focused forums on topics such as The Pacific, Oral History and Australian Generations, Big Data and Australian History, Economic History and History and Heritage. We are delighted then that this issue features a forum on New Histories of Sexuality. It also includes a Commentary on the calls for ‘truth-telling’ about the history of Indigenous Australians under colonisation that underpins the Uluru Statement from the Heart, issued by the First Nations Constitutional Convention on 26 May 2017.' (Kate Darian-Smith and Penelope Edmonds : Editorial introduction)
'On 26 May 2017, more than 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples gathered at the First Nations Constitutional Convention and issued the Uluru Statement from the Heart. This Convention was the culmination of an Indigenous-designed and -led process of regional dialogues across the nations designed to elicit from First Nations what meaningful constitutional recognition would mean to them. The deliberative dialogue process adopted by the Referendum Council sought to build an informed consensus across Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities on reform proposals. The Statement called for two key reforms: a voice for Indigenous peoples in the constitutional structure (the so-called ‘Voice to Parliament’) and a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement, or treaty-making, and a ‘truth-telling about our history’.' (Introduction)
'Weston Bate will be best remembered for his influence on local history writing, his pioneering urban history methods, his passion for the poetics of the historian's craft, his insistence on the value of community networks, and his fascination with the dynamics of local/central power relationships. Born in 1924 in Surrey Hills, Melbourne, Bate attended Surrey Hills State School before going on to Scotch College. His mother, Mary Akers, hailed from California where his maternal grandfather had been a fruit farmer, and his Lancashire-born father, Ernest, was Deputy then Chief Engineer with the Victorian State Electricity Commission. During the war he spent two years as a pilot in England as part of the Empire Air Training Scheme, and on his return took advantage of a returned serviceman's tertiary scholarship to study English and History at the University of Melbourne, graduating with a BA in 1948. Under the influence of Max Crawford, Kathleen Fitzpatrick and John O’Brien, history got under Bate's skin. He soon embarked on a tandem endeavour; a teaching career at Brighton and later Melbourne Grammar, and a history MA, the latter completed in 1952 as ‘The History of Brighton, 1841–1859: A Study of the Private Township Formed on Henry Dendy's Special Survey in 1841’. He married Janice Wilson in 1955, continued his teaching career, and saw the birth of four of his six children by the time of the 1962 publication of an expanded version of the thesis.' (Introduction)
'Mary Tomsic's selective survey of twentieth-century Australian film history makes a valuable addition to the growing catalogue of books about women's myriad and, of course, neglected contributions to film production and culture. Over the past few decades scholars have reconsidered both the roles women have played throughout film history as well as the questions raised by their rediscovery. Feminist scholars in particular are increasingly aware that in order to tell new stories about the impact and legacy of women's work, historiographers must also devise new questions and new methods.' (Introduction)
