Slavery in Australia: What is blackbirding and how did racist policies shape our nation?
Normal text size Very large text size Waskam Emelda Davis was sitting in her favourite orange armchair in her loungeroom on a cool winter's day when her phone rang. "Did you just hear this?" came her friend's voice down the line. Prime Minister Scott Morrison had just been on radio, her friend informed her, claiming there was no history of slavery in Australia. "I was enraged," says Davis. The comments in June 2020, which the Prime Minister later apologised for and clarified, prompted a fresh examination of Australia's colonial history at the height of a reinvigorated global Black Lives Matte...