Category: Book Review
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World Wars, media wars – and Royal family wars
Page from history: bushies go to war “Total silence befell the gathering as the announcer, in sombre and subdued tones, began to read a message from the Prime Minister advising that Britain was at war with Germany and that Australia, as a member of the British Empire, was also at war. “Young men were urged…
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A rattling good tale of a forgotten political assassination
‘A Coup in Canberra: The Political Assassination of an Australian Prime Minister’ by Alex Mitchell Reviewed by Michael Smith John Gorton’s literary hero was Ernest Hemingway, who wrote the wartime classic For Whom theBell Tolls after spending time in Spain as a correspondent during the Civil War in the 1930s. Gorton, who once wanted to become…
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Abe Saffron had a little mate at ASIO headquarters
BOOK REVIEW Abe Saffron, the king of Sydney’s vice rackets, had a long friendship with Dudley Doherty, a top spy with the Australian Secret Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). Doherty used his accountancy skills to draw up a false set of books for Saffron’s racketeering to evade taxation, a criminal offence. They went to brothels together, shared…
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‘Murder in Melbourne’ a case of stolen identity
BOOK REVIEW Hasbara and identity theft: a Melbourne case study By DR DAVID FABER The dark arts of economy with the truth have long been part of political manipulation. Why take the risk of lying outright and being caught out when fudging the truth will do and be more effective? As such they have been…
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Teachers on ‘Murder in Melbourne’: wider questions raised
1) BOOK REVIEW Murder in Melbourne: The untold story of Aiia Maasarwe by Alex Mitchell, 2020 Kevin Bain writes: This little book added important aspects to my awareness of this terrible event, which I discuss below. My interest in reading it was because of one thing that I found so sad at the time, which was reported…
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Bishop reviews ‘Murder in Melbourne’
BOOK REVIEW Murder in Melbourne: The untold story of Aiia Maasarwe by Alex Mitchell, 2020 Bishop George Browning writes: The plight of Palestinians in their homeland was tragically on display in the aftermath of the brutal Melbourne rape and murder of Aiia Maasarwe. Her killer, Codey Herrmann, a 20-year-old Aborigine with no prior history of crime or…
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Robert Tickner’s memoir
BOOK REVIEW Ten Doors Down by Robert Tickner, published by SCRIBE, Melbourne 2020 Reviewed by ALEX MITCHELL Robert Tickner, who served in the Hawke and Keating Governments as Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, was too nice to be a politician. He was too humble, way too honest and he cared about serving the…
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Second review of Aiia’s tragic story
David Hickie, former editor-in-chief of the Sydney Morning Herald and Sun-Herald, looks beyond the headlines in the coverage of crime BOOK REVIEW: Murder in Melbourne: The untold story of Aiia Maasarwe by Alex Mitchell (2020) DAVID HICKIE WRITES: Over Xmas/New Year I read Kate McClymont and Vanda Carson’s forensically detailed tome Dead Man Walking: The murky world of…
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First review of new book on Palestinian Aiia Maasarwe
Struggles for Personal and National Identity BOOK REVIEW – Murder in Melbourne: The untold story of Aiia Maasarwe by Alex Mitchell (2020) STUART REES WRITES: In courts of law, defendants appear before a judge, police and lawyers, each party pondering an individual’s identity. One question affects deliberations. Is this person worthy or unworthy? In university…
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The Weekly Notebook – conservative basket cases
Why conservative parties have become basket cases A common feature of today’s political environment is the identity crisis in conservative parties that have ruled much of the Western world in the post-war years. For example, Christian Democratic parties that blossomed in Europe and Latin America after World War Two are now struggling for survival. In Australia…