All for what? "To ensure that the community better appreciates the significance of wartime experiences to our development as a nation". And now, today, Howard has further extended the hours of compulsory Oz history in schools, and appointed two of his pet poodles to ensure unsavoury episodes are underplayed. One of these poodles, Gerard Henderson, is a notorious neo-con ideologue who never met a war he didn't like. His credentials? Producing a long forgotten history of - wait for it ­- the Liberal Party. Now he runs a secretly funded think tank, collects files on his enemies and lauds the Prime Minister at every opportunity. Poor fellow, our country.  . . read more

Choose a member of the Royal Family as your partner, any close-up of your partner deserves a 1 x Drink cheers

1 x Drink for anytime the commentators say Britain/British with gusto

1 x Drink anytime you see a Kate and Will tea-towel 

1 x Drink for the naming and onscreen shots of any current or former Head of State

1 x Drink for any time the Charles Diana wedding is mentioned

1 x Drink for any tears, drink again if the person is a member of the Royal family, male or old. E.g Prince Charles = 4 drinks

1 x Drink for anytime Prince Charles looks awkward

Any time Prince Harry appears all players must produce a Nazi salute. The last player to do so must drink

1 x Drink for anytime the Queen purses her lips and looks as if a doctor is using some ice-cold implements on her nether regions

If Elton John is spotted the last person to shout "Candle in the Wind" must drink

Finish vessel and lower Union Jack if the Bride runs 

Finish your vessel if/when the Bride gets given away

Sink your vessel and sing "Rule Britannia" for the balcony kiss

The winner of the game is the last one singing "God Save The Queen" who actually means it.

Are you playing our drinking game? Are you feeling feverently British? Tell us and remember....Disqus!   . . read more

And, as I say, the starting point might be to recognise that the problem starts with us non-Aboriginal Australians. It begins, I think, with the act of recognition. Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the disasters. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion.

It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine these things being done to us. With some noble exceptions, we failed to make the most basic human response and enter into their hearts and minds. We failed to ask - how would I feel if this were done to me? As a consequence, we failed to see that what we were doing degraded all of us.

[Part of Prime Minister Paul Keating's speech at Redfern, December 1992] . . read more