First Taste challenges misconceptions on Indigenous alcohol consumption within Australia’s social history. It is a new
research publication funded by the Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation (AER) Foundation. Dr Maggie Brady has
written the series as six separate, easy-to-read, illustrated resources. It challenges ideas such as the idea that Aboriginal consumption of alcohol began with the First Fleet, that alcohol was use exploitatively, and received passively along with other colonial goods, and also that intoxicated behaviour is influenced more by biological than social and cultural factors. The publication aims to educate the wider community, which Brady says is ‘ill-informed about these matters’.
    Jump into PDHPE is now in its 3rd edition (Michelle Nemec et al, Macmillan), covering the Stage 4 syllabus for Year 7 and 8 students. It covers elements of physical and mental fitness and health, including relationships, movement, lifelong physical activity, drug use, and food habits.

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