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Elena Macdonald

@elenalowana.bsky.social
40 followers 108 following 81 posts

Paredarerme lowana, Trouwunna / lutruwita salt water mob abolitionist / disability justice / knowledge bearer / story teller

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Elena Macdonald @elenalowana.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
O, / to be Ron, / staring at buttered / toast
Photo of a grey and white tabby. He is sitting on a bed with a floral quilt, and staring up adoringly at something above the frame (buttered toast). In the foreground is a plate with a slice of buttered toast. Behind him is a cluttered bedroom.
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Dana Bergstrom @danambergstrom.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
276 diesel generators to run a planned datacentre in Nth Tasmania Yup that’s moving foward🤦‍♀️
abc.net.au
Tasmanian EPA says it was not told extent of Firmus data centre generator plans
Tasmania's EPA is worried about the extent of AI data centre company Firmus's planned diesel generator use, saying it is much more than initially disclosed.
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Elena Macdonald @elenalowana.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Happy birthday to me 🎂 care of Ron 🙂‍↕️
A photo of purple irises in bloom against a background of green grass and trees. In the foreground, a sticker of a grey and white tabby looking bemusedly at the camera has been added.
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Elena Macdonald @elenalowana.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Can never win I swear to god. They're now using the names but pronouncing them WRONG. I texted in to correct, and was talked down to by the presenter – "we are using the official gvmt pronunciation guide". Really?! The correct pronunciation is literally right on the government website, it's
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Elena Macdonald @elenalowana.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Happy news! I have just had a very respectful reply from the director of news for ABC Tasmania, and they will ensure the dual names are observed going forward.
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Amanda Katz @katzish.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
“At the Rashad Shawa Cultural Centre, its collection of nearly 50,000 books was entirely lost. At the Holst Library, around 10,000 books were lost after the centre sustained partial damage”
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Elena Macdonald @elenalowana.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
The greens taking their inter-party infighting to the media is so utterly the wrong move. All it does is turn people off the party completely, and switch off from anything they say
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Elena Macdonald @elenalowana.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Call out to anyone who cares about the way @news.abc.net.au approaches mob and deals with our place names and languages! Enough is enough. For some reason, reporting by the ABC in Trouwunna/lutruwita (tasmania) takes great care to observe some official dual language place names — but not all.
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Elena Macdonald @elenalowana.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The arrogance of the established settler australian academic 'expert' on Aboriginal people is astounding
In claiming that the discipline of history in Australia needs to be decolonised (whatever that means), many contributors provide shallow one-dimensional accounts of past and present historical practice in regard to the Aboriginal past. Most significantly, they ignore the various changes that have taken place in recent decades. Given those changes and that Aboriginal people’s historical turn has largely served their cultural and political needs, one might wonder why there are ongoing calls to decolonise history. This is probably the case because, whereas Aboriginal people are relating, and relating to, the past in ways that resemble the ways their forebears did it, history practised in keeping with its disciplinary traditions can undermine the political, legal, and cultural claims Aboriginal people make on the basis of ‘continuity’ because it reveals that their societies and cultures have undergone radical change since 1788.

That Aboriginal people do the kind of ‘history’ they do is one thing. That many settler historians are now intent on practising it in the same ways and thereby producing accounts of the past that are ahistorical is quite another. In the name of decolonising history, many appear willing, indeed eager, to give up on history as it has largely been practised since it became a discipline. They treat all Aboriginal accounts of the past as though they are empirically sound and allow their readers to receive them accordingly. They defer to Aboriginal narrators who have recently accommodated a Eurocentric account of Australia’s black past that once briefly dominated the Australian academy but which differs from the morally ambiguous stories earlier generations of Aboriginal people told. And they repudiate their own authority, and the responsibility that goes with it, to tell the truth about the past. To what end? A kind of faux politics that only threatens to tear apart deep knowledge about Australia’s Aboriginal past.
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Elena Macdonald @elenalowana.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Everytime I think an asinine, flaccid cretin can't possibly come up with another way to whinge about how any mention of settler colonialism is "pointless and preventing the real, cutting edge work", I am again, wowed! (not) by all the unique ways they can in fact be colonial pricks
Screenshot of a substack post. The text reads: "It’s quite absurd. This goes some way to explaining the aesthetic deficiencies of the nation. Natural beauty here is everyday, easy to access. Because natural beauty is both everywhere and so ingrained in the national imagination, a kind of autonomic naturalism obtains in the country’s artistic output. Non- or even anti- naturalism, whether in terms of content, theme, or style, is viewed with suspicion. The Australian Gothic tradition comes close, however its place in the nation’s aesthetic history has been consigned to academic siloes handwringing about settler colonialism. The British settlement of the continent becomes the organising principle for anything that attempts to go beyond the ordinary."
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Elena Macdonald @elenalowana.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Hospital visitor (almost too excited to actually say hello to me)
Photo of a red-brown and white shaggy coat Jack Russell dog. She is smiling up at the camera with her tongue out.
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Briony Kidd @brionykidd.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
To recap: Tasmania’s Liberal Government is fast-tracking highly speculative projects that could have major local and global repercussions, that the majority of Tasmanians oppose— to benefit a company that has misled us repeatedly, run by a guy who did jail time for insider trading. #politas #auspol
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bronte lee @brontelee.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
in case you missed it!! new release of @kudelka.bsky.social’s rusted-on bingo tea towels, with $5 from every tea towel sold going to the Jon Kudelka Fund for Glioblastoma Research at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research get yours now!! www.kudelkashop.com/product/rust...
Screenshot of a post from facebook:

The Kudelka Shop is at The Kudelka Shop.
RUSTED ON BINGO IS BACK.
Jon Kudelka's classic tea towel is getting a special re-release.
This time, $5 from every tea towel sold goes to the Jon Kudelka Fund for Glioblastoma Research at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research.
#JonKudelka #RustedOnBingo
#glioblastomaresearch #menziesinstituteformedicalresearch
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Reposted by Elena Macdonald
Briony Kidd @brionykidd.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Tas Inquirer asked Tassal about their now *increasing* use of explosives & whether there’s an end date for use of these devices. ‘Tassal, which is owned by Canadian multinational Cooke Aquaculture, did not respond.’ Of course not, they feel no responsibility to this place or its people. #politas
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CAMERON WILSON @cameronwilson.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
NEW: Leaked documents shows the Albanese government has floated 2 ways to let AI companies train their models on Australian content One would let companies like OpenAI and Anthropic do this without paying some creators if they strike enough deals deals with enough rights holders
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Elena Macdonald @elenalowana.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Millie and Ron converge in the veggie patch for grass eating
A grey and white tabby cat is sitting in the grass, next to a white and brown shaggy jack russell dog. The sun is shining on them.
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Elena Macdonald @elenalowana.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Proud and honoured to say I made the Nakata Brophy prize shortlist, for my poem Tasmanian Gothic! overland.org.au/2026/09/anno...
Screenshot of a webpage. The text reads: "Elena Macdonald, ‘Tasmanian Gothic’

Elena Macdonald belongs to the Paredarerme Nation, from the east coast of Trouwunna / lutruwita. She is a writer, creative, and knowledge bearer, and lives in southern Trouwunna.

Elena says: ‘Tasmanian Gothic’ is my act of reckoning and witness, challenging the tasmanian-typical forms of colonial amnesia and selective remembrance that have attempted to erase my old peoples’, and our communities’ presence, our sovereignty, and
continued survival."
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Elena Macdonald @elenalowana.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Never known a dog to enjoy eating grass alongside her cat friend (Ron) so much
A grey and white tabby cat and a white shaggy coat Jack Russell dog are eating grass together.
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Elena Macdonald @elenalowana.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
I had forgotten how bad the sneering snobbery of 'literary twitter' was
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Elena Macdonald @elenalowana.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Man I love independence and transparency of the press in tasmania! Holding power to account! www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09...
abc.net.au
Pro-stadium opinion piece by public servant had input from Devils footy club
When a 3,000-word opinion piece by a senior public servant appeared in a major daily newspaper, eyebrows were raised across Tasmania's political spectrum. Emails show the pro-stadium piece had extensi...
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 16/08/2026
Folks: here's a meaty long read for you on how Australia's data centre industry lobbied (successfully) to kill regulations that would force them to cover their new demand with renewables And how (this is spicy) the desire within some climate/energy spaces to see data centres as 'cleantech' helped
ketanjoshi.co
How Australia’s data centre lobby is winning its fight to to freely pollute
Data centre greenwashing is getting worse, alongside the tech industry’s hunger for fossil fuels. Why help them?
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Elena Macdonald @elenalowana.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
So far have yet to see a review of the new adaption of My Brilliant Career that adequately addresses the racism of the original text (or really, even mentions it at all)
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Elena Macdonald @elenalowana.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Got to do a bit of work for mob today and it felt so good to be doing something again!! But now it's back to my usual state of unbeing with this illness
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eerie dickgirl @eigenvectrix.northsky.social · 28/07/2026
On 28 July 2026, ABC News published an article, "National guidelines on puberty blockers coming as fraught debate continues," by Stephanie Dalzell and Celina Edmonds. This piece has several problems. Here are a few. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07...
abc.net.au
Puberty blockers have been used since the 80s. Why are they now controversial?
The fierce debate over puberty blockers has become a collision of science and politics. To try to address a fractured consensus, the federal government is attempting to lay the groundwork for a nation...
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Reposted by Elena Macdonald
🐈‍⬛💜 phonakins 🍉🌲 @phonakins.com · 24/07/2026
Since Trump brought up slavery and coerced labor with his tariffs, how about we look again at how it's legal to pay disabled people less than minimum wage and they often don't get enough say in where they spend their days www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
theguardian.com
Charlotte’s friends with Down syndrome are paid $3 an hour. It’s legal in Australia - and she’s taking a stand
Down Syndrome Australia launches campaign to encourage politicians to abolish subminimum wage
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Dr. Divya (🔔 logged out) @divyampersaud.com · 24/07/2026
Sustain a wonderful project for displaced families in Jabalia refugee camp. The latest impact? Helping disabled kids with medical care! Food parcels for 70 families during Ramadan! And so much more! Every ounce helps. Give/find their link here. Hit “weekly”! chuffed.org/project/hope...
chuffed.org
Keep Hope Alive: a Gaza Giving Circle
We are a team of volunteers in the US and UK, led by two sisters passionate about helping our friends on the ground keep their families and neighbors alive with food, water, & shelter. We saw that…
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Reposted by Elena Macdonald
David Milner @davemilbo.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Here's my story from Pine Gap. "The fight to end the US military occupation of Australia (and the entire world)" It's a photo-essay this time because I took a tonne of pics, the country being this stunning, to help convey the Arrernte's struggle.
theshot.net.au
The fight to end the US military occupation of Australia (and the entire world) - The Shot
For 64 years – an insignificant speck of time under a sky this large – from a stolen, sacred site...
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Elena Macdonald @elenalowana.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Living through terrible undiagnosed illness times, but at least I have Ron to remind of the good, kind parts of life 💫 (and voraciously reading as my full-time occupation lol)
White and spotted grey-brown tabby cat, lying on his back on the floor, with his feet tucked up. He has an expression of serene contentment on his face.Grey-brown and white tabby cat lying on a blanket, positi9ned on his side. He is looking directly at the camera with a confused expression.
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Asher Wolf @asherwolf.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
We’ve seen this before: Robodebt, the NDIS and the danger of forgetting www.thenewdaily.com.au/opinion/2026...
thenewdaily.com.au
We've seen this before: Robodebt, NDIS and danger of forgetting
One of the most troubling aspects of Robodebt was that so many warning signs existed. We can't afford to ignore NDIS reform warning signs.
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Elena Macdonald @elenalowana.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Was proposed by a group of Tasmanian Aboriginal Elders from the east coast. Also important to note – the spelling given is the correct spelling, and the only culturally appropriate spelling to use. There has been some misinformation spread about this and it's important to correct!
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Elena Macdonald @elenalowana.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
First post so it must be one of Ron ✨️✨️✨️
Photo of a grey and white tabby cat sitting on a bed looking sleepy. Sunlight is coming in behind him.
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