Books in series
#1
In Denial
Quarterly Essay 1
2001
In this national bestseller Robert Mane attacks the right-wing campaign against the Bringing them home report that revealed how thousands of Aborigines had been taken from their parents. What was the role of Paddy McGuinness as editor of Quadrant? How reliable was the evidence that led newspaper columnists from Piers Akerman in the Sydney Daily Telegraph to Andrew Bolt in the Melbourne Herald Sun to deny the gravity of the injustice done? In a powerful indictment of past government policies towards the Aborigines, Robert Manne has written a brilliant polemical essay which doubles as a succinct history of how Aborigines were mistreated and an exposure of the ignorance of those who want to deny that history.
"In Denial is not a book of history. It is a political intervention. By holding an influential section of the Right to account-Manne was exercising the kind of responsibility often demanded of public intellectuals." —Raimond Gaita
"In complex intellectual conflicts, there will always be argument about whether the antagonists are committed to finding the truth or to winning the battle. This essay tells us that Robert Manne is intent on finding the truth." —Morag Fraser
"In Denial is a work of both the head and the heart. It is carefully researched and powerfully expressed. It needs to be widely read." —The Hon. P.J Keating
6 April 2001
"Robert Manne has made an important contribution to the continuing debate and in doing so has helped launch a new and important venture." —Henry Reynolds
#2
Appeasing Jakarta
Australia's Complicity in the East Timor Tragedy
2001
In the second Quarterly Essay, John Birmingham takes apart the folly of twenty-five years of Australian policy on East Timor. How did Gough Whitlam and Richard Woolcott in 1975 saddle this country with a policy that was bound to lead to the intervention of 1999? Why were shrewder voices ignored and why did we persist with an unworkable model? Where does this leave us with an Indonesia still dominated by the old power elites? And what was the tragedy like for the people of East Timor? John Birmingham has written a passionate narrative history of the East Timor question which never turns away from the slaughter and sorrow of the people who suffered it.
#3
The Opportunist
John Howard and the Triumph of Reaction
2001
In the third Quarterly Essay, Guy Rundle comes to grips with John Howard, the prime minister who, on the eve of an election, seems to have turned round his political fortunes by spurning refugees and writing blank cheques for America's War on Terror.
This is a brilliant account of John Howard's dominant ideas, his concerted 'dreaming' with its emphasis on unity and national identity that reveals him to be the most reactionary PM we have ever had, the only political leader who would allow ideas like those of One Nation to dominate the mainstream of Australian politics in order to improve his political chances. Rundle puts Howard in the context of the economic liberalism he shares with his colleagues and opponents and the conservative social ideology that sets him apart. It is a complex portrait in a radical mirror which relates John Howard to everything from Menzies' 'forgotten people' to the inadvertent glamour of the government's antidrug advertising. It is also a plea for right-thinking people of every political persuasion to resist the call to prejudice and reaction.
'A portrait of a political opportunist who is also ... a sincere reactionary: putting back the clock because he believes in it, but also fanning the whirlwind of unreason in order to save his political skin.' —Peter Craven, Introduction
'The coincident occurrence of the asylum seeker confrontation and the attack on the U.S. has made visible the most dangerous and damaging thing he has done to the Australian polity...and that is to deepen contempt for such protection as we did have from unbridled executive power, mass hysteria, the rush to surrender our freedoms and offer them up on the alter of crisis.' —Guy Rundle, The Opportunist
#4
Rabbit Syndrome
Australia and America
2001
In the fourth Quarterly Essay Don Watson takes an analytical look at the ways in which the Australian imagination has always been dominated by America. Why are they so much better than we are? Even when it comes to producing books like the Updike "Rabbit" sequence that tell us what we are like? Why are they also a land of executioners who have nevertheless created the least bad empire the world has seen? Can we really expect to be deputies to America? And what about our own sacred story (the progressive one) that we have sold for the sake of the Americanisation of our own society? If we can't have a friendly independent relationship with America, why don't we go the whole hog and join them? In a dark, brooding, moody essay, Don Watson plays on the paradoxes of Australia's feeling about America and offers a scathing view of an Australian culture that is asking to be engulfed by its great and powerful friend because the mental process is already so advanced. This is a brilliant meditation round a set of paradoxes that are central to our long-term anxieties and hopes.
"... this is a Quarterly Essay that plays on our most fundamental fears, including the most terrifying of all, that we shall cease to exist because we have never been."
Peter Craven, Introduction
"The Australian story does not work anymore, or not well enough ... to hang the modern story on ... The most useful thing is to recognise that ... we took the biggest step we have ever taken towards the American social model. And this has profound implications for how we think of Australia and how we make it cohere."
Don Watson, Rabbit Syndrome
#5
Girt By Sea
Australia, the Refugees and the Politics of Fear
2002
In the first Quarterly Essay of 2002 Mungo MacCallum provides a devastating account of the Howard government's treatment of the refugees as well as delineating the factors in Australian history which have worked towards prejudice and those which have worked against it; ranging from Calwell's postwar immigration policy to the recent revelations of beat-ups and distortions in the 2001 election campaign. This is a powerful account of how the government played on what was ultimately the race issue. In an essay which is, by terms, witty, dry and bitingly understated, Mungo MacCallum asks what epithets are appropriate for a prime minister who has brought us to this pass. He also raises the question of whether Australia's contemporary treatment of refugees has anything in common with the sane and decent policies that have characterised the better moments in our history.
"... it will take a long time to recover from the campaign of hate and fear which was deemed to be necessary to return the Howard government in the first year of the new millennium." —Mungo Maccallum, Girt By Sea
"... this most cold-eyed of one time Canberra chroniclers brings to this story all his wit and dryness and power of mind. It's a sad tale...though it is everywhere enlivened by [Mungo] MacCallum's... tendency to suggest that spades really are bloody shovels at the end of the day." —Peter Craven, Introduction
#6
Beyond Belief
What Future for Labor?
2002
In the second Quarterly Essay of 2002, John Button looks at what has gone wrong with the Labor Party. What has happened to the faith of the True Believers and why is the ALP so bad at recruiting new members? He offers a tough-minded analysis of what went wrong in the last election and asks why the Labor Party has turned its back on its destiny as a party of reform.
Here is a very cool account of the factions which seem to stand for nothing but their own power bases, and the unions who both give and get little from the ALP. In a withering analysis, John Button looks at the quality of Labor members and the short-sightedness of a party turning its back on ideas. This is an essay by a man who still believes in Chifley's light on the hill but who thinks the only hope lies with New Believers.
"Beyond Belief represents one of the coolest and most disheartening accounts of a great political party this country has seen. This is the Australian Labor Party seen from the perspective of an elder statesman who has an absolute belief ... in the moral superiority of the Labor cause but who seriously doubts whether the ALP will ever achieve government again and who distinctly implies that in its present state it is not fit for it." —Peter Craven, Introduction
"After the election debacle some people blamed the Tampa and September 11. But the simple fact is that the ALP had not built an adequate policy profile or built up sufficient enthusiasm and respect for its style of politics. Without these, it had no hope of differentiating its position on refugees and asylum seekers from the government's when this became the key issue of the election." —John Button, Beyond Belief
#7
Paradise Betrayed
West Papua's Struggle for Independence
2002
In the third Quarterly Essay for 2002 John Martinkus details what is being done to West Papua by its Indonesian overlords. He illustrates how those who seek independence are killed and tortured for their cause. There is now no one like the Papuan leader Theys Eluay, murdered in 2001 by the Indonesian military, and a campaign of death and terror has been launched on those who raise the Morning Star flag. Martinkus shows how the wealth of the Freeport mine underpins a regimen of repression and he reports on the rise of Laskar Jihad, the imported Islamic extremists who spread fear inthe name of Indonesian domination. In a powerful, groundbreaking piece of reportage, Martinkus shows how West Papua is another East Timor waiting to happen and how this is made possible by the indifference of everyone from the United Nations to the Australian government.
"John Martinkus' narrative is as engrossing as it is appalling. It is full of menace and madness and the smell of death." —Peter Craven, Introduction
"The violence in West Papua today ... is being orchestrated by the same figures in the Indonesian military who were behind the events in East Timor ... the whole repressive network of the Indonesian military that laid [it] waste." —John Martinkus, Paradise Betrayed
#8
Groundswell
The Rise of the Greens
2002
Who are the Greens, where do they come from and where are they going? In the wake of the Cunningham by-election and the Tasmanian results Amanda Lohrey, novelist and political thinker, looks at the philosophical background of the Greens, the history of the campaigns to save the wilderness and the election figures that suggest the Greens are making powerful advances towards becoming the major 'minor' party in Australia.
This is a compelling portrait of the Greens and of their leader Bob Brown which depicts them as the most formidable attempt that has been made on the Left to deal with the damage of globalisation.
‘In Australia it is the Green, not the Democrats, who have emerged as the authentic representatives of this developing constituency … They are not a collection of ersatz Liberals … [they] are clear on the bottom-line accounting … There is a crucial sense in which the Greens know where they come from.’ —Amanda Lohrey, Groundswell
‘Bob Brown in Amanda Lohrey's characterisation is certainly a man for all seasons. She emphasizes the skepticism as well as the spirituality and the kind of personal integrity that can hush a House of Parliament by force not of charisma but of conviction.’ —Peter Craven
‘She takes us systematically and in economic detail through the origins of the Green Movement as a new paradigm of what politics is or should be about – the ecological, the knowledgeable, respectful and restrained use of nature.’ —Canberra Times
‘Bringing her novelist’s eye to the history of environmental politics, Amanda Lohery paints a vivid picture of the Greens’ formative decades.’ —the Age
Amanda Lohrey has written two Quarterly Essays, Groundswell: The Rise of the Greens and Voting for Jesus: Christianity and Politics in Australia. She is also the author of the novella Vertigo and of the short story collection, Reading Madame Bovary, which won the Fiction Prize and the Steele Rudd Short Story Award in the 2011 Queensland Literary Awards. Her novel, The Philosopher's Doll, was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. In 2012 she was awarded the Patrick White Literary Award.
#9
Beautiful Lies
Population and Environment In Australia
2003
In the first Quarterly Essay of 2003, Tim Flannery launches an attack on the various lies that we tell ourselves about our resources, our past and our future. The lie of terra nullius that made us ignore the Aborigines' knowledge of the environment. The lie of the Snowy Mountains Scheme that did untold damage to our river system for the sake of white immigration. The lie that rushing to preserve wilderness will save endangered species. Tim Flannery is also skeptical about the myths of multiculturalism, and he argues that we cannot sustain a larger population given our resources. In his conclusion, he asks how we can discharge our responsibility to the refugees who are the victims of American policies we collude with.
"This essay is written as a thundering no to the characteristic Australian assumption that 'She'll be right' ... This is a Quarterly Essay written in the passionate belief that we need a coherent policy on population ... If we do not have one, we will never be in a position to do justice to ... the dispossessed people of the earth; indeed our children's children will ... think we have dishonoured their birthright." —Peter Craven, Introduction
"The refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol will almost certainly, in time, be remembered as the greatest failure of the Howard government - Tampa, detention camps and Iraq notwithstanding." —Tim Flannery, Beautiful Lies
#10
Bad Company
The Cult of the CEO
2003
In Bad Company Gideon Haigh scrutinises the way we have turned CEOs into tin gods. Is moral outrage the appropriate response to the collapses of Enron or HIH or are we all implicated in a crazy system? Haigh argues that the attempt to create great entrepreneurs of the new caste of CEOs by giving them shares is doomed to failure and inherently absurd. In a tough-minded, vigorous demolition job on the culture that produced the cult of the CEO, Haigh writes a mini-history of business and shows how the classic traditions of capitalism are mocked by the managerialism of the present.
#11
Whitefella Jump Up
The Shortest Way to Nationhood
2003
In the third Quarterly Essay of 2003, Germaine Greer suggests that embracing Aboriginality is the only way Australia can fully imagine itself as a nation. In a wide-ranging essay she looks at the interdependence of black and white and suggests not how the Aborigine question may be settled but how a sense of being Aboriginal might save the soul of Australia. In a sweeping and magisterial essay, touching on everything from Henry Lawson to multiculturalism, Germaine Greer argues that Australia must enter the Aboriginal web of dreams.
"[Whitefella Jump Up] is an essay about sitting down and thinking where all the politics start and what kind of legend Australia wants to place at its heart." —Peter Craven
"I'm not here offering yet a solution to the Aborigine problem ... Blackfellas are not and never were the problem. They were the solution, if only whitefellas had been able to see it." —Germaine Greer, Whitefella Jump Up
#14
Mission Impossible
The Sheikhs, the U.S. and the Future of Iraq
2004
In the second Quarterly Essay of 2004, Paul McGeough offers a dramatic account of why Iraq remains in chaos despite desperate American efforts to create a model democracy in the Middle East. According to McGeough, Iraq to this day remains a tribal society. It cannot be governed without the cooperation of the true powers in the land, the tribal and religious sheikhs. Those who have ruled Iraq in the past, including Saddam Hussein and the British before him, understood this fact. The Americans, by contrast, seem to have missed the point.
In Mission Impossible, Paul McGeough enters the world of key Iraqi tribal and religious leaders. There are vivid portraits of the sheikhs' role in the fall and capture of Saddam, as well as their part in the growing insurgency. There are glimpses, too, of a history that once involved Lawrence of Arabia and Gertrude Bell, and which pre-dates Islam, stretching back thousands of years. Combining reportage and analysis in brilliant fashion, this groundbreaking essay is well timed to coincide with the next major phase in Iraq's troubled history.
"Throughout the history of their region, the sheikhs have been the powerbrokers, deciding who would reign between the great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates." —Paul McGeough, Mission Impossible
#15
Latham's World
The New Politics of the Outsiders
2004
In the third Quarterly Essay of 2004, Margaret Simons takes a long hard look at Mark Latham, the self-proclaimed "club buster" and the man who would be prime minister. Few doubt Latham's intelligence and ambition, but what will this amount to in government? Simons argues that if Labor is elected, it will not be "business as usual". Rather we can expect a reformist government in the spirit - if not the letter - of Latham's political tutor, Gough Whitlam. It is also likely to be a government that has little time for the totemic issues of the Labor elites.
This is an essay that takes the political pulse of the nation - it is clear-eyed, probing, anchored in observation and an original analysis of the political state of play. It ventures into the murky world of Liverpool Council, where Latham made enemies and ran the show. It reserves harsh words for those in the media who have ignored Latham's ideas and community campaigning in favour of rumour-mongering. Above all, it reveals Latham as a conviction politician and an acute thinker, with a prescient understanding of how the urban fringe now drives the politics of the nation.
"Mark Latham's arrival on the political scene has brought to an end the fictions that have dominated politics for the last ten years." —Margaret Simons, Latham's World
#16
Breach of Trust
Truth, Morality and Politics
2004
In the fourth Quarterly Essay of 2004, Raimond Gaita confronts essential questions about politics as it is practised today. What do politicians mean when they talk about "trust"? Why is truthfulness important? Are we as politically and morally divided as the Americans? Does the war on terror authorise leaders to do things that once were considered beyond the pale?
Gaita argues for a conception of politics in which morality is not an optional extra. He discusses why successful politicians must at times be economical with the truth, but shows a way beyond cynicism on the one hand and moralising on the other. Politics, he says, is conceivably a noble vocation, as well as potentially a tragic one. He looks closely at patriotism and its distortions, and the temptation to betray our deepest values in the act of protecting ourselves. Combining gentle evocation with gloves-off argument, Breach of Trust is a clarion call from one of Australia's leading thinkers.
"I have never met anyone who believes that politicians should never lie ... But of course there are limits. They are not set in the heavens, but in culture." —Raimond Gaita, Breach Of Trust
#17
'Kangaroo Court'
Family Law in Australia
2005
The Family Court was a progressive reform of the 1970s. Now it is perhaps the most hated institution in Australia. In the first Quarterly Essay of 2005, John Hirst investigates what went wrong.
This is a measured yet unsparing appraisal which interleaves individual cases with compelling legal and moral argument. Hirst takes us deep into the workings of the Court and the domestic apocalypses it sees every day.
He explores the Court's fervour to uphold the best interests of the child no matter what and traces its chilling consequence: a court where malicious allegations regularly go unpunished. He notes the Court's enormous power over individual lives, as well as its self-proclaimed status as a 'caring court', and wonders at its ability to overlook the defiancé of its own authority. In closing, he considers how to reform an institution that has bred antagonism and extremism and too often entrenched paranoia and despair. Lucid and urgent, 'Kangaroo Court' is a cautionary tale about the perils of high-mindedness when it comes to dealing with the breakdown of families.
#18
The Worried Well
The Depression Epidemic and the Medicalisation of our Sorrows
2005
In the second Quarterly Essay of 2005, Gail Bell investigates Australia's depression epidemic. Why, she wonders, do well over a million Australians now take antidepressant drugs?
This is a fresh, frank and independent look at the depression culture and the move to medicalise sadness. Bell examines how the prescription culture operates, scrutinising the role of big drug companies and GPs and talking to those who take - and don't take - the new antidepressants, from anxious students to lonely retirees. She finds that drug companies have invested billions in an effort to simplify a profoundly complex mental condition, and that along the way ordinary problems of living have been transformed into medical conditions. She also finds that we, the consumers, have been happy to get on board: the vocabulary of depression - "serotonin", "bipolar", "genetic predisposition" - rolls off our tongues as if each of us had studied it at medical school. In this freeranging and elegant essay, Bell takes the pulse of Australia's "worried well" and looks at alternative cures for what ails us.
"If the number of prescriptions truly reflects the numbers who are depressed, then we may need to re-design our tourist brochures. The sun-bronzed Aussie optimist with his no-worries attitude to calamity might be an outdated caricature." —Gail Bell, The Worried WellQuarterley Essay
#19
Relaxed & Comfortable
The Liberal Party's Australia
2005
What is the Liberal Party's core appeal to Australian voters? Has John Howard made a dramatic break with the past, or has he ingeniously modernised the strategies of his party's founder, Sir Robert Menzies? For Judith Brett, the governmeant of John Howard has done what successful Liberal governments have always done: it has made its stand firmly at the centre and presented itself as the true guardian of the national interest. In doing this, John Howard has taken over the national traditions of the Australian Legend that Labor once considered its own. Brett offers a lucid short history of the Liberals as well as an original account of the Prime Minister, arguing that, above all, he is a man obsessed with the fight against Labor. She explores both his inventiveness in practising the politics of unity and his great ruthlessness in practising the politics of division. She incorporates fascinating interview material with Liberal voters, shedding light on some of the different ways in which the Liberals appeal as the natural party of government. Full of provocative ideas, Relaxed & Comfortable will change the way Australians see the last decade of national politics.
"Where Keating spoke to the nation, Howard spoke from it - straight from the heart of its shared beliefs and commonsense understandings of itself." —Judith Brett, Relaxed & Comfortable
#20
A Time for War
Australia as a Military Power
2005
In the fourth Quarterly Essay of 2005, John Birmingham ponders the Aust ralian way of war. After East Timor and Bali, a combination of primal fear and primal ambition has transformed attitudes to our region, to security and to war as an instrument of politics. Australian defence policy has become more assertive and our armed forces are being radically restructured and hardened. Australia now has the capacity, and even the will, to act as a military power in its region. A Time for War begins with a gripping account of Operation Anaconda, the 2002 battle in Afghanistan to which Australian special forces made a crucial contribution. Birmingham also looks at our war dreaming: the sanctification of Anzac Day and the eclipse of the Vietnam Syndrome. Ranging from Sir John Monash to Peter Cosgrove, from Rudyard Kipling to The One Day of the Year, he finds that our armed forces can now do no wrong, and that politicians have taken note. The new militarism is not simply a response to September 11, he argues - it marks a deeper shift in the culture.
"It being an RSL, we would stand each night at six o'clock for the prayer of remembrance. It was always a moving occasion, a strange suspended moment when the pokies and racing channel, the piped music and the drunken bullshitting all fell away ... Friends from overseas who witnessed the quiet ceremony never failed to be impressed. One, a poet from Czechoslovakia, had always thought Australians to be a shallow, soulless, materialistic people, but she changed her mind after her first experience of the ode to the fallen among the half-empty schooners and chip packets." —John Birmingham, A Time For War
#21
What's Left?
The Death of Social Democracy
2006
In the first Quarterly Essay of 2006, Clive Hamilton throws out a challenge to Australia's party of social democracy - to both its true believers and right-wing machine men. Will it be business-as-usual and creeping atrophy, or will the Labor Party find a new way of talking to individualistic, affluent Australia?
According to Hamilton, Labor and the Left must acknowledge that the social democracy of old - with its strong unions, public ownership of assets and distinct social classes - is dead. Prosperity, more than poverty, is the dominant characteristic of Australia today. Given this, should governments confine themselves to stoking the fires of the economy and protecting the interests of wealth creators? Or is there room for a political program that embodies new ideals but can also withstand economic scare tactics? This is an original and provocative account of our present political juncture by a man of the Left who accuses the Left of irrelevance. Any new progressive politics, Hamilton argues, will need to tap into the anxieties and aspirations of the nation, find new ways to talk about morality, and thereby address deeper human needs.
"The Australian Labor Party has served its historical purpose and will wither and die as the progressive force of Australian politics." —Clive Hamilton, What's Left?
#22
Voting for Jesus
Christianity and Politics in Australia
2006
From the Hillsong Church to the Family First Party, Australia appears to be experiencing an evangelical revival. In the second Quarterly Essay for 2006, Amanda Lohrey investigates that revival - its shape and scope, and what it means for the mainstream churches and the nation's politics. She talks to young believers and analyses the machinations of the Christian Right. She discusses, with humour and insight, the appeal of the megachurch, the changing image of Jesus and the political theories of George Pell and Peter Jensen. Voting for Jesus is also an essay about the use and abuse of religion in party politics. Examining the success of Family First, Lohrey argues that Christians in politics have far less influence than they would like - the government uses them when convenient and otherwise disregards them. Blending individual interviews with political argument, she makes a subtle case for the blessings of secularism and the variety of spiritual encounters it makes possible.
#23
The History Question
Who Owns the Past?
2006
In the third Quarterly Essay for 2006, Inga Clendinnen looks past the skirmishes and pitched battles of the history wars and asks what's at stake - what kind of history do we want and need? Should our historians be producing the "objective record of achievement" that the Prime Minister has called for?
For Clendinnen, historians cannot be the midwives of national identity and also be true to their profession: history cannot do the work of myth. Clendinnen illuminates the ways in which history, myth and fiction differ from one another, and why the differences are important. In discussing what good history looks like, she pays tribute to the human need for story telling but notes the distinctive critical role of the historian. She offers a spirited critique of Kate Grenville's novel The Secret River, and discusses the Stolen Generations and the role of morality in history writing. This is an eloquent and stimulating essay about a subject that has generated much heat in recent times: how we should record and regard the nation's past.
"Who owns the past? In a free society, everyone. It is a magic pudding belonging to anyone who wants to cut themselves a slice, from legend manufacturers through novelists looking for ready-made plots, to interest groups out to extend their influence." —Inga Clendinnen, The History Question
#24
No Fixed Address
2006
In every religion I can think of, there exists some variation on the theme of abandoning the settled life and walking one's way to godliness. The Hindu Sadhu, leaving behind family and wealth to live as a beggar; the pilgrims of Compostela walking away their sins; the circumambulators of the Buddhist kora; the Hajj. What could this ritual journeying be but symbolic, idealised versions of the foraging life? By taking to the road we free ourselves of baggage, both physical and psychological. We walk back to our original condition, to our best selves.
After many thousands of years, the nomads are disappearing, swept away by modernity. Robyn Davidson has spent a good part of her life with nomadic cultures. In this fascinating and moving essay she evokes a vanishing way of life, and notes a paradox: that even as classical nomads are disappearing, hypermobility has become the hallmark of contemporary life. In a time of environmental peril, she argues, the nomadic way with nature still offers valuable lessons. No Fixed Address is part lament, part evocation and part exhilarating speculative journey.
#26
His Master's Voice
The Corruption of Public Debate Under Howard
2007
John Howard has the loudest voice in Australia. He has cowed his critics, muffled the press, intimidated the ABC, gagged scientists, silenced NGOs, censored the arts, prosecuted leakers, criminalised protest and curtailed parliamentary scrutiny.
Though touted as a contest of values, this has been a party-political assault on Australia's liberal culture. In the name of "balance", the Liberal Party has muscled its way into the intellectual life of the country.
And this has happened because we let it happen. Once again, Howard has shown his superb grasp of Australia as it really is. In His Master's Voice, David Marr investigates both a decade of suppression and the strange willingness of Australians to watch, with such little angst, their liberties drift away.
"More than any law, any failure of the Opposition or individual act of bastardry over the last decade, what's done most to gag democracy in this country is the sense that debating John Howard gets us nowhere." —David Marr, His Master's Voice
#27
Reaction Time
Climate Change and the Nuclear Option
2007
Australia is at a crossroads: if we are to halt global warming, do we need to stride resolutely into a nuclear future?
In this engrossing and persuasive essay, Ian Lowe discusses his one-time belief in the benefits of nuclear power and explains why that belief has faltered. He engages with the leading environmentalists, like James Lovelock, who advocate going nuclear, as well as with the less savoury aspects of the Australian politicking. He discusses whether other countries might need to use nuclear power, even if Australia doesn't, and offers an authoritative survey of Australia's energy alternatives - from solar and wind power to clean coal. Above all, he explains why taking up the nuclear option would be a decisive step in the wrong direction - economically, environmentally, politically and socially.
"Promoting nuclear power as the solution to climate change is like advocating smoking as a cure for obesity. That is, taking up the nuclear option will make it much more difficult to move to the sort of sustain able, ecologically healthy future that should be our goal." —Ian Lowe, Reaction Time
#28
Exit Right
The Unravelling of John Howard
2007
In Exit Right, Judith Brett explains why the tide turned on John Howard. This is an essay about leadership, in particular Howard's style of strong leadership which led him to dominate his party with such ultimately catastrophic results.
In this definitive account, Brett discusses how age became Howard's Achilles heel, how he lost the youth vote, how he lost Bennelong, and how he waited too long to call the election. She looks at the government's core failings - the policy vacuum, the blindness to climate change, the disastrous misjudgment of WorkChoices - and shows how Howard and his team came more and more to insulate themselves from reality.
With drama and insight, Judith Brett traces the key moments when John Howard stared defeat in the face, and explains why, after the Keating-Howard years, the ascendancy of Kevin Rudd marks a new phase in the nation's political life.
"It is when a leader's grip on political power starts to slip, when his threats and bribes miss their mark, when he starts to make uncharacteristic mistakes and when what had once been strengths reveal their limitations, that we can see most clearly the inner workings of that leadership. This essay is about John Howard's leadership, seen through the prism of its failings." —Judith Brett, Exit Right
#29
Love & Money
The Family and the Free Market
2008
In Love & Money, Anne Manne looks at the religion of work - its high priests and sacrificial lambs. As family life and motherhood feel the pressure of the market, she asks whether the chief beneficiaries are self-interested employers and child-care corporations.
This is an essay that ranges widely and entertainingly across contemporary culture: it casts an inquisitive eye over the modern marriage of Kevin Rudd and Therese Rein, and considers the time-bind and the shadow economy of care. Most fundamentally, it is an essay about pressure: the pressure to balance care for others and the world of work.
Manne argues that devaluing motherhood - still central to so many women's lives - has done feminism few favours. For women on the frontline of the work-centred society, it has made for hard choices. Eloquently and persuasively, Manne tells what happened when feminism adapted itself to the free market and argues that any true definition of equality has to take into account dependency and care for others.
#30
Quarterly Essay
Last Drinks
2008
When Mal Brough and John Howard announced the Northern Territory intervention in mid-2007, they proclaimed a child abuse emergency. In this riveting piece of reportage and analysis, Paul Toohey unpicks the rhetoric of emergency and tracks progress. One year on, have children been saved? Will Labor continue with the intervention? What are the reasons for the social crisis - the neglect and the violence - and how might things be different?
Toohey argues that the real issue is not sexual abuse, but rather a more general neglect of children. He criticises the way both white courts and black law have viewed violent crime by Aboriginal men. He examines the permit system and the quarantining of welfare money and argues that due to Labor's changes to these, the intervention is now effectively over - though the crisis persists. In Last Drinks, Paul Toohey offers the definitive account of how the Territory intervention came about and what it has achieved.
#31
Now or Never
A Sustainable Future for Australia?
2008
Sometime this century, after 4 billion years, some of Earth's regulatory systems will pass from control through evolution by natural selection, to control by human intelligence. Will humanity rise to the challenge?
This landmark essay by Tim Flannery is about sustainability, our search for it in the twenty-first century, and the impact it might have on the environmental threats that confront us today. Flannery discusses in detail three potential solutions to the most pressing of the sustainability challenges: climate change. He argues that Australia has a special responsibility when it comes to climate change, and that our prime minister could be a critical player on the global stage in Copenhagen in December 2009 - but only if we take swift and effective action and make sharp cuts in emissions. Brilliant and terrifying, Now or Never is a call to arms by Australia's leading thinker and writer on the natural world.
"Throughout the latter part of 2007 and into 2008, I found it increasingly hard to read the scientific findings on climate change without despairing ... I think that there is now a better than even chance that, despite our best efforts, in the coming two or three decades Earth's climate system will pass the point of no return." —Tim Flannery, Now Or Never
#32
American Revolution
The Fall of Wall Street and the Rise of Barack Obama
2008
This is a dazzling and perceptive look at the United States between hope and an election-year kaleidoscope. Timed to come out immediately after the November 2008 election in the US, it offers a series of memorable snapshots of America in fascinating Bush's last days in office; sub-prime meltdowns; markets, trust and community; the fate of Hillary and the meaning of Obama.
#33
Quarry Vision
2009
This is an essay about “quarry vision”, the mindset that sees Australia’s greatest asset as its mineral and energy resources – coal especially. How has this distorted our national politics and our response to climate change? What happens now that our coal-fired resources boom has gone bust?
In this powerful essay about the national interest, Guy Pearse discusses the future of the coal industry and argues with the economic orthodoxy. He exposes the shadowy world of greenhouse lobbyists; how they think, operate and skin cats. Quarry vision, he argues, is a carbon-laced trap and a blind faith and a mentality we can no longer afford.
#34
Stop at Nothing
The Life and Adventures of Malcolm Turnbull
2009
A scintillating biography for an election year . . .
In Stop at Nothing Annabel Crabb recounts the Malcolm Turnbull story with characteristic wit and perceptiveness.
Drawing on extensive interviews with Turnbull, Crabb delves into the young man's university exploits – which included co-authoring a musical with Bob Ellis – and his remarkable relationship with Kerry Packer, the man for whom he was at first a prized attack dog, and then a mortal enemy. She asks whether Turnbull – colourful, aggressive, humorous and ruthless – has changed sufficiently to entrench himself as prime minister. She tells how he first lost, and then won back, the Liberal leadership, and explores the challenges that now face him as the forward-looking leader of a conservative Coalition government.
This is a memorable and highly amusing portrait by one of the country's most incisive writers.
‘The most incisive portrait of Turnbull that's been written.’—David Marr
#35
Radical Hope
Education and Equality in Australia
2009
In Radical Hope, one of Australia’s most original and provocative thinkers turns his attention to the question of education. Noel Pearson begins with two fundamental questions: How to ensure the survival of a people, their culture and way of life? And can education transform the lives of the disadvantaged many, or will it at best raise up a fortunate few?
In an essay that is personal and philosophical, wide-ranging and politically engaged, Pearson discusses what makes a good teacher and recalls his own mentors and inspirations. He argues powerfully that underclass students, many of whom are Aboriginal, should receive a rigorous schooling that gives them the means to negotiate the wider world. He examines the long-term failure of educational policy in Australia, especially in the indigenous sector, and asks why it is always “Groundhog Day” when there are lessons to be learned from innovations now underway. This is an essay filled with ideas and arguments and information – from a little-known educational revolutionary named Siegfried Englemann, to the No Excuses ethos and the Knowledge Is Power program, to Barack Obama’s efforts to balance individual responsibility and historical legacy. Pearson introduces new findings from research and practice, and takes on some of the most difficult and controversial issues. Throughout, he searches for the radical centre – the way forward that will raise up the many, preserve culture, and ensure no child is left behind.
“It is time to ask: are we Aborigines a serious people? … Do we have the seriousness necessary to maintain our languages, traditions and knowledge? … The truth is that I am prone to bouts of doubt and sadness around these questions. But I have hope. Our hope is dependent upon education. Our hope depends on how serious we become about the education of our people.” —Noel Pearson, Radical Hope
"A work of universal significance in which Pearson once again shows himself to be Australia’s most powerful contemporary thinker. His essay is essential reading for all who care about the true nature of the society we have created in Australia. For the first time in my life I encountered here a mature insight into the private hells produced by the very kind of failed education I received as a boy growing up at the bottom of a class ridden culture in London after the war." —Alex Miller
#36
Australian Story
Kevin Rudd and the Lucky Country
2009
In Australian Story, Mungo MacCallum investigates the political success of Kevin Rudd. What does he know about Australia that his opponents don’t? This is a characteristically barbed and perceptive look at the challenges facing the government and the country. MacCallum argues that the things we used to rely on are not there anymore. On the Right, the blind faith in markets has recently collapsed. The Left lost its guiding light with the demise of the socialist dream.
In entertaining fashion, MacCallum dissects the myths that made Australia: the idea of the Lucky Country, with endless pastures, a working man’s paradise, a new Britannia, and more. In newly uncertain times, MacCallum argues, Rudd has sought to tap into these myths, in the process reclaiming them from John Howard.
Australian Story is both a canny assessment of the Rudd government’s election-winning approach and a broader meditation on the nation’s core traditions at a time of major change and challenge.
“Rudd has made it clear that he is looking forward to a long time in office … If the polls are to be believed, he is still seen as the best man for the job by an overwhelming majority of Australians. But Why? What is it about this repetitive, boring, God-bothering nerd that appeals to the proverbially laid-back, cynical, disengaged public?”
Mungo Maccallum, Australian Story
Mungo MacCallum is one of Australia’s most influential political journalists. Over a career spanning more than four decades, he has worked for most of Australia’s leading newspapers and magazines and been a journalist and broadcaster for the ABC and SBS. His books include Mungo: The Man Who Laughs, How To Be a Megalomaniac and Poll Dancing: The Story of the 2007 Election.
Quarterly Essay presents significant contributions to the general debate. Each issue contains a single essay written at a length of about 25,000 words. It aims to present the widest range of political, intellectual and cultural opinion.
Contents:
1 – Australian Story: Kevin Rudd and the Lucky Country
Mungo MacCallum
69 – Is Neo-Liberalism Finished?: 2009 Quarterly Essay Lecture
Robert Manne
93 – Correspondence “Radical Hope”
Christine Nicholls, Chris Sarra, Tony Abbott, Peter Shergold, Peter Sutton, Fred Chaney, Jane Caro, Andrew Leigh, Noel Pearson
137 - Contributors
#37
What's Right?
The Future of Conservatism in Australia
2010
Where did the Right go wrong? With the departure of George W. Bush and John Howard, conservative parties in the US and Australia entered a period of turmoil. Foreign affairs, economics, the environment – all were issues to be avoided. Most profoundly, conservatives no longer seemed to have a compelling vision of the future – and arguably still don’t. How did the Right end up in this state? How might conservatism renew itself?
In this illuminating essay, Waleed Aly begins by unravelling the terms “Right” and “Left,” arguing that these have become meaningless. He contends that conservative parties have backed themselves into a corner by embracing free-market extremism, and that an illiberal social politics – including prescribing who or what is Australian – is not the answer, electorally tempting though it may be.
Aly discusses what a better conservatism might look like. He predicts that the key issues of the day, such as climate change and the financial crisis, mean a reactionary brand of politics is unlikely to work because public opinion is swiftly leaving it behind. He draws on the work of conservative thinkers, past and present, to sketch the kind of conservatism that seems scarce in Australia, but which would be a welcome presence here. This is a supple, clear and original argument for political change.
“Our political discourse is drenched in Left and Right because it is so deeply impoverished. These terms are the hallmark of a political conversation that is obsessed with teams and uninterested in ideas.”
Waleed Aly, What's Right?
#38
Power Trip
The Political Journey of Kevin Rudd
2010
Power Trip shows the making of Kevin Rudd, prime minister. In Eumundi, where Rudd was born, David Marr investigates the formative tragedy of his life: the death of his father and what came after. He tracks the transformation of a dreamy kid into an implacably determined youth, already set on the prime ministership. He examines Rudd’s years as Wayne Goss’s right-hand man in Queensland, his relentless work in federal Opposition – from Sunrise to AWB – and finally his record as prime minister.
In Rudd’s Queensland years, Marr finds strange patterns that will recur: a tendency to chaos, a mania for control and a strange mix of heady ambition and retreat. All through this dazzling and revelatory essay, Marr seeks to know what drives an extraordinarily driven man. As Power Trip concludes, he enters into a conversation with the prime minister in which much becomes clear.
#39
Power Shift
2010
In the third Quarterly Essay of 2010, Hugh White considers Australia’s future between Beijing and Washington. As the power balance shifts, and China’s influence grows, what might this mean for our nation?
Throughout our history, we have counted first on British then on American primacy in Asia. Now the rise of China as an economic powerhouse challenges US dominance and raises questions for Australia that go well beyond diplomacy and trade – questions about our place in the world, our loyalties and our long-term security.
Will China replace the US as regional leader? If so, we will be dealing with an undemocratic and vastly more powerful nation. Will China wield its power differently from the US? If so, should we continue to support America and so divide Asia between our biggest ally and our biggest trading partner? How to define the national interest in the Asian century?
This visionary essay considers the shape of the world to come and the implications for Australia as it seeks to carve out a place in the new world order.
#40
QE40
Trivial Persuit
2010
In the aftermath of the 2010 election, George Megalogenis considers what has happened to politics in Australia. Have we entered a new phase with minority government and the rise of the Greens and independents?
The Hawke, Keating and Howard years were ones of bold reform; recently we have seen an era of power without purpose. But why? Is it down to powerful lobbies, or the media, or a failure of leadership, or all of the above? And whatever the case, how will hard decisions be taken for the future?
In a brilliant analysis, Megalogenis dissects the cycle of polls, focus groups and presidential politics and explores what it has done to the prospect of serious, difficult reform and the style of our leaders. He argues that politics-as-usual has become a self-defeating game and mounts a persuasive case for a different model of leadership.
This is also an essay that looks at the fate of progressive politics after the three years of opportunities lost. In distilling the meaning of election 2010, it offers a thought-provoking guide to the challenges to come. Now that the political landscape has changed, where to next?
#41
The Happy Life
The Search for Contentment in the Modern World
2011
In the first Quarterly Essay for 2011, David Malouf returns to one of the most fundamental questions and gives it a modern twist: what makes for a happy life?
With grace and profundity, Malouf discusses new and old ways to talk about contentment and the self. In considering the happy life – what it is, and what makes it possible – David Malouf returns to the “highest wisdom” of the classics, looks at how, thanks to Thomas Jefferson’s way with words, happiness became a “right”, and examines joy in the flesh as depicted by Rubens and Rembrandt. In a world become ever larger and impersonal, he finds happiness in an unlikely place. This is an essay to savour and reflect upon by one of Australia’s greatest novelists.
#42
Quarterly Essay 42 Fair Share
Country and City in Australia
2011
Once the country believed itself to be the true face of Australia: sunburnt men and capable women raising crops and children, enduring isolation and a fickle environment, carrying the nation on their sturdy backs. For almost 200 years after white settlement began, city Australia needed the country: to feed it, to earn its export income, to fill the empty land, to provide it with distinctive images of the nation being built in the great south land. But Australia no longer rides on the sheep’s back, and since the 1980s, when “economic rationalism” became the new creed, the country has felt abandoned, its contribution to the nation dismissed, its historic purpose forgotten.
In Fair Share, Judith Brett argues that our federation was built on the idea of a big country and a fair share, no matter where one lived. We also looked to the bush for our legends and we still look to it for our food. These are not things we can just abandon. In late 2010, with the country independents deciding who would form federal government, it seemed that rural and regional Australia’s time had come again. But, as Murray-Darling water reform shows, the politics of dependence are complicated. The question remains: what will be the fate of the country in an era of user-pays, water cutbacks, climate change, droughts and flooding rains? What are the prospects for a new compact between country and city in Australia in the twenty-first century?
“Once the problems of the country were problems for the country as a whole. But then government stepped back … The problems of the country were seen as unfortunate for those affected but not likely to have much impact on the rest of Australia. The agents of neoliberalism cut the country loose from the city and left it to fend for itself.” —Judith Brett, Fair Share
#43
Bad News
Murdoch's Australian and the Shaping of the Nation
2011
This year has seen unprecedented scrutiny of Rupert Murdoch’s empire in Britain. But what about in Australia, where he owns 70 per cent of the press? In Bad News, Robert Manne investigates Murdoch’s lead political voice here, the Australian newspaper, and how it shapes debate.
Since 2002, under the editorship of Chris Mitchell, the Australian has come to see itself as judge, jury and would-be executioner of leaders and policies. Is this a dangerous case of power without responsibility? In a series of devastating case studies, Manne examines the paper’s campaigns against the Rudd government and more recently the Greens, its climate change coverage and its ruthless pursuit of its enemies and critics. Manne also considers the standards of the paper and its influence more generally. This brilliant essay is part deep analysis and part vivid portrait of what happens when a newspaper goes rogue.
“The Australian sees itself not as a mere newspaper, but as a player in the game of national politics, calling upon the vast resources of the Murdoch empire and the millions of words it has available to it to try to make and unmake governments.” – Robert Manne, Bad News
#44
Man-Made World
Choosing Between Progress and Planet
2011
Witnessing at first-hand the failure of the Copenhagen Climate Conference and wondering what went wrong, Andrew Charlton realised the truth of a colleague’s words: “The world is split between those who want to save the planet and those who want to save themselves.”
In this groundbreaking essay, Charlton discusses the rift that will shape our future: progress versus planet; rich versus poor. In recent times environmentalists have argued with mounting force that the growth of human activity on our planet is unsustainable. We are, they claim, on a collision course with destiny. But, the developing world counters, environmental threats, dire as they may be, are not the only challenges we face. Indeed, these can seem a distant danger compared to the daily tragedies of life in slums and villages.
Across the globe, economists and environmentalists vie over who has the right response to climate change, population growth and food scarcity. In Australia, this battle has plunged our politics into one of its most tumultuous periods. In Man-Made World Charlton evaluates some of the proposed solutions –renewable and nuclear energy, organic and genetically modified food – and argues that our descendants will only thank us if we find a way to preserve both the natural world and human progress.
“Progress has its price. Each step of human advancement has left a footprint on the planet. Today our two defining challenges are managing climate change and eliminating global poverty. In Copenhagen we learned that these challenges are inseparable.” —Andrew Charlton, Man-Made World
This edition of Quarterly Essay also includes a piece by one of Australia’s leading writers, Richard Flanagan, entitled The Australian Disease: On the decline of love and the rise of non-freedom.
#45
Quarterly Essay 45 Us and Them
On the Importance of Animals
2012
For the first time in history, humans sit unchallenged at the top of the food chain. As we encroach on the wild and a vast wave of extinctions gathers force, how has our relationship with animals changed? In this dazzling essay, Anna Krien investigates the world we have made and the complexity of the choices we face. From pets to the live cattle trade, from apex predators to scientific experiments, Krien shows how we should – and do – treat our fellow creatures. As she delves deeper, she finds that animals can trigger primal emotions in us, which we are often unwilling to acknowledge. This is a clear-eyed meditation on humanity and animality, us and them, that brings out the importance of animals in an unforgettable way. “I am not weighing up whether our treatment of animals is just, because it isn't. That age-old debate is a farce - deep down we all know it. The real question is, just how much of this injustice are we prepared to live with?” —Anna Krien, Us & Them
#46
Great Expectations
Government, Entitlement and an Angry Nation
2012
Rather than relaxed and comfortable, Australians are disenchanted with politics and politicians. In Quarterly Essay 46 Laura Tingle shows that the answer goes to something deep in Australian culture: our great expectations of government.
Since the deregulation era of the 1980s, Tingle shows, governments can do less, but we wish they could do more. From Hawke to Gillard, each prime minister has grappled with this dilemma. Keating sought to change expectations, Howard to feed a culture of entitlement, Rudd to reconceive the federation. Through all of this, and back to our origins, runs an almost childlike sense of the government as saviour and provider that has remained constant even as the world has changed.
Now we are an angry nation, and the Age of Entitlement is coming to an end. What will a different politics look like? And, Tingle asks, even if a leader surfs the wave of anger all the way to power, what answer can be given to our great expectations?
“It is wrong to see the anger of the last few years as a ‘one-off,’ which might go away at the next election. The things we are angry about betray the changes that have been taking place over recent decades. Politicians no longer control interest rates, the exchange rate, or wages, prices or industries that were once protected or even owned by government. Voters are confused about what politicians can do for them in such a world.” Laura Tingle, Great Expectations
#47
Political Animal
The Making of Tony Abbott
2012
Tony Abbott is the most successful Opposition leader of the last forty years, but he has never been popular. Now Australians want to know: what kind of man is he, and how would he perform as prime minister?
In this dramatic portrait, David Marr shows that as a young Catholic warrior at university, Abbott was already a brutally effective politician. He later led the way in defeating the republic and, as the self-proclaimed “political love child” of John Howard, rose rapidly in the Liberal Party. His reputation as a head-kicker and hard-liner made him an unlikely leader, but when the time came, his opposition to the emissions trading scheme proved decisive.
Marr shows that Abbott thrives on chaos and conflict. Part fighter and part charmer, he is deeply religious and deeply political. What happens, then, when his values clash with his need to win? This is the great puzzle of his career, but the closer he is to taking power, the more guarded he has become.
“Since witnessing the Hewson catastrophe at first hand, Abbott has worn a mask. He has grown and changed. Life and politics have taught him a great deal. But how this has shaped the fundamental Abbott is carefully obscured. What has been abandoned? What is merely hidden on the road to power? What makes people so uneasy about Abbott is the sense that he is biding his time, that there is a very hard operator somewhere behind that mask, waiting for power.” – David Marr, Political Animal
#48
Quarterly Essay 48 After the Future
Australia's New Extinction Crisis
2012
Australia is home to many animals and plants found nowhere else on earth, making Australians caretakers of a unique heritage in a land that tolerates few mistakes. Yet, in After the Future, Tim Flannery shows that this country is now on the brink of a new wave of extinctions, which threatens to leave our national parks as “marsupial ghost towns.” Why are species becoming extinct despite the tens of millions of dollars being spent to protect nature? And what more should be done?
In this passionate and illuminating essay, Flannery tells the story of the human impact on the continent. He revisits his Future Eaters hypothesis, discussing how firestick farming helped to shape the ecology and preserve native fauna. He looks at the way recent governments, in tandem with an indifferent populace and a rabid libertarian right, have let environmental knowledge and commitments erode. Finally, he describes new approaches to wildlife conservation and argues that Australia must take the lead on these. This is an essay that rings the alarm on behalf of the natural world, and asks us to think again about protection of its irreplaceable riches.
“Such is the depth of public ignorance about Australia’s extinction crisis that most people are unaware that it is occurring, while those who do know of it commonly believe that our national parks and reserves are safe places for threatened species. In fact the second extinction wave is now in full swing, and it’s emptying our national parks and wildlife reserves as ruthlessly as other landscapes.”—Tim Flannery, After the Future
#49
Not Dead Yet
Labor's Post-Left Future
2013
“During the term of the Rudd and Gillard governments, criticism of the Labor Party became a national pastime.” So writes Mark Latham, a one-time leader of the party and still its most perceptive – and fiercest – critic.
In Quarterly Essay 49, Latham argues that the time has come to go beyond criticism to solutions. In that spirit, he offers a timely assessment of the future for Labor. He examines the key challenges: the union nexus, the Keating settlement, a real education revolution, a new war on poverty, climate change, and handling the Greens. With wit and insight, he suggests that Labor’s biggest problem is the steady erosion of its traditional working-class base. Across the suburban flatlands of Australia’s major cities, people who grew up in fibro shacks now live in solid-stone double-storey affluence. Families which were once resigned to a lifetime of blue-collar work now expect their children to be well-educated professionals and entrepreneurs. Can Labor reinvent itself and speak to a changed Australia?
In election year 2013, this will be an essential and much-discussed contribution to national political debate.
#50
Unfinished Business
Sex, Freedom and Misogyny
2013
On the surface, it seems the best time ever to be a woman in Australia. The prime minister, governor-general and the richest person are all female; women are at the forefront of almost every area of public life. Yet when Julia Gillard’s misogyny speech ricocheted around the world, it clearly touched a nerve. Why?
In the fiftieth Quarterly Essay, Anna Goldsworthy examines life for women after the gains made by feminism. From Facebook to 50 Shades of Grey, from Girls to gonzo porn, what are young women being told about work and equality, about sex and their bodies? Why do many reject the feminist label? And why does pop culture wink at us with storylines featuring submissive women?
Unfinished Business is an original look at role models and available options in the age of social media and sexual frankness. Goldsworthy finds that progress for women has provoked a backlash from some men, who wield misogyny as a weapon, whether in parliament, on talkback radio or as internet trolls. With piercing insight and sharp humour, she lays bare the dilemmas of being female today and asks how women can truly become free subjects.
“There is a charmed zone for a girl, shortly before she is ambushed by puberty. At eleven or twelve, she is usually taller than her male peers; more articulate; and more confident than she will be for years. She probably spends a lot of time in front of a screen, words and images flickering in her eyes. Facebook, Slutwalks, Lady Gaga, Girls, Mad Men, gonzo porn, Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey. What messages are being broadcast to her, and what messages is she hearing? Are they going to make her bigger, or smaller?” Anna Goldsworthy, Unfinished Business
#51
The Prince
Faith, Abuse and George Pell
2013
The leading Catholic in the nation and spiritual adviser to Tony Abbott, Cardinal George Pell has played a key role in the greatest challenge to face his church for centuries: the scandal of child sex abuse by priests.
In The Prince, David Marr investigates the man and his career: how did he rise through the ranks? What does he stand for? How does he wield his authority? How much has he shaped his church and Australia? How has he handled the scandal?
Marr reveals a cleric at ease with power and aggressive in asserting the prerogatives of the Vatican. His account of Pell’s career focuses on his response as a man, a priest, an archbishop and prince of the church to the scandal that has engulfed the Catholic world in the last thirty years. This is the story of a cleric slow to see what was happening around him; torn by the contest between his church and its victims; and slow to realise that the Catholic Church cannot, in the end, escape secular scrutiny.
The Prince is an arresting portrait of faith, loyalty and ambition, set against a backdrop of terrible suffering and an ancient institution in turmoil.
#52
Found in Translation
In Praise of a Plural World
2013
Whether we’re aware of it or not, we spend much of our time in this globalised world in the act of translation. Language is a big part of it, of course, as anyone who has fumbled with a phrasebook in a foreign country will know, but behind language is something far more challenging to translate: culture. As a traveller, a mistranslation might land you a bowl of who-knows-what when you think you asked for noodles, and mistranslations in international politics can be a few steps from serious trouble. But translation is also a way of entering new and exciting worlds, and forging links that never before existed.
Linda Jaivin has been translating from Chinese for more than thirty years. While her specialty is subtitles, she has also translated song lyrics, poetry and fiction, and interpreted for ABC film crews, Chinese artists and even the English singer Billy Bragg as he gave his take on socialism to some Beijing rockers. In Found in Translation she reveals the work of the translator and considers whether different worldviews can be bridged. She pays special attention to China and the English-speaking West, Australia in particular, but also discusses French, Japanese and even the odd phrase of Maori. This is a free-ranging essay, personal and informed, about translation in its narrowest and broadest senses, and the prism – occasionally prison – of culture.
“About six years ago, President George W. Bush was delivering a speech at a G8 summit, when, made impatient by the process of translation, he interrupted his German interpreter: ‘Everybody speaks English, right?’ …”
Linda Jaivin, Found in Translation
#53
That Sinking Feeling
Asylum Seekers and the Search for the Indonesian Solution
2014
Tony Abbott promised to stop the boats. With the help of Kevin Rudd's "PNG solution," he has. But at what cost?
In Quarterly Essay 53, Paul Toohey tells the dramatic stories of asylum seekers heading from Java to Australia, investigates people-smuggling and witnesses the aftermath of a sinking at sea.
Toohey also examines Australian attitudes to boat people, and what politicians have made of these. He assesses the diplomatic fall-out from turning back boats and asks: have we missed our chance for an Indonesian solution, a realistic alternative to the brutally effective system we now have? This is an unflinching look at people at their worst and best - and most ruthless and most vulnerable - by one of Australia's finest reporters.
"Any hope for a genuine regional solution rested with Indonesia, the final stepping stone to Australia ... Why did neither Howard, in his better times with Indonesia, or Labor, from 2007, seek a one-on-one solution with Indonesia? 'The Indonesian Solution.' Those words would have been the most convincing political statement any Australian government could ever deliver to Australian voters on asylum seekers." Paul Toohey, That Sinking Feeling
Paul Toohey is a senior reporter for News Corp Australia. He won a Walkley Award for his first Quarterly Essay, Last Drinks: The Impact of the Northern Territory Intervention. He was previously a senior writer at the Bulletin and the Australian, has won the Graham Perkin Journalist of the Year Award and is the author of three books: God's Little Acre, Rocky Goes West and The Killer Within. He lives in Darwin. [final page extent: 120pp]
#54
Dragon's Tail
The Lucky Country after the China Boom
2014
Explores the supercharged rise of China and considers Australia’s future as the Chinese dragon stirs and shifts.
#55
A Rightful Place
A Road Map to Recognition
2014
The nation has unfinished business. After more than two centuries, can a rightful place be found for Australia's original peoples? Soon we will all decide if and how indigenous Australians will be recognised in the constitution. In the words of Professor Greg Craven: "We have a committed prime minister, and a committed opposition. We have a receptive electorate. There will never be a better time. We have no choice but to address the question. If constitutions deal with fundamental things, our indigenous heritage is pretty fundamental." In A Rightful Place, Noel Pearson shows how the idea of "race" was embedded in the constitution, and the distorting effect this has had. Now there is a chance to change it - if we can agree on a way forward. Pearson shows what constitutional recognition means, and what it could make possible: true equality and a renewed appreciation of an ancient culture. This is a wide-ranging, eloquent call for justice, an essay of remarkable power that traverses history and culture to make the case for change. "As long as we have a constitution that characterises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples on the basis of race, it will always have deleterious implications for their citizenship. It must be removed ... This is not just a matter of symbolism. I think this will be a matter of psychology. The day we come to regard ourselves as people with a distinct heritage, with distinct cultures and languages but not of a distinct race, will be a day of psychological liberation. And it will also be liberating for those in the wider community ..." Noel Pearson, A Rightful Place
#56
Clivosaurus
The Politics of Clive Palmer
2014
Who is Clive Palmer, and what does his ascent say about Australia’s creaking political system?
In Clivosaurus, Guy Rundle observes Palmer close up, examining his rise to prominence, his beliefs, his deals and his politics – not to mention his poetry. Rundle shows that neither the government nor the media have been able to take Palmer’s measure. Convinced they face a self-interested clown, they have failed to recognise both his tactical flexibility and the consistency of his centre-right politics.
This is a story about the Gold Coast, money in politics, Canberra’s detached political caste and the meaning of Palmer’s motley crew. Above all, it is a brilliantly entertaining portrait of “the man at the centre of a perfect storm for Australian democracy, a captain steering his vessel artfully in the whirlpool.”
“In the first half of the year we saw Tony Abbott treated with deference to his values and beliefs, as his chaotic and lying government slid from one side of the ring to the other, while Clive Palmer, ploughing a steady course on a range of key issues, was treated as the inconstant one. No wonder no one could tell what he was going to do next – they weren’t even bothering to look at where he had come from.” – Guy Rundle, Clivosaurus
#57
Dear Life
On Caring for the Elderly
2015
In this moving and controversial Quarterly Essay, doctor and writer Karen Hitchcock investigates the treatment of the elderly and dying through some unforgettable cases. With honesty and deep experience, she looks at end-of-life decisions, frailty and dementia, over-treatment and escalating costs.
Ours is a society in which ageism, often disguised, threatens to turn the elderly into a 'burden' – difficult, hopeless, expensive and homogenous. While we rightly seek to curb treatment when it is futile, harmful or against a patient's wishes, this can sometimes lead to limits on care that suit the system rather than the person. Doctors may declare a situation hopeless when it may not be so.
We must plan for a future when more of us will be old, Hitchcock argues, with the aim of making that time better, not shorter. And we must change our institutions and society to meet the needs of an ageing population. Dear Life is a landmark essay by one of Australia's most powerful writers.
'The elderly, the frail are our society. They are our parents and grandparents, our carers and neighbours, and they are every one of us in the not-too-distant future . . . They are not a growing cost to be managed or a burden to be shifted or a horror to be hidden away, but people whose needs require us to change . . .' Karen Hitchcock, Dear Life
#58
Blood Year
Terror and the Islamic State
2015
Last year was a "blood year" in the Middle East - massacres and beheadings, fallen cities, collapsed and collapsing states, the unravelling of a decade of Western strategy. We saw the rise of ISIS, the splintering of government in Iraq, and foreign fighters - many from Europe, Australia and Africa - flowing into Syria at a rate ten times that during the height of the Iraq War. What went wrong? In Blood Year, David Kilcullen calls on twenty-five years' experience to answer that question. This is a vivid, urgent account of the War on Terror by someone who helped shape its strategy, as well as witnessing its evolution on the ground. Kilcullen looks to strategy and history to make sense of the crisis. What are the roots and causes of the global jihad movement? What is ISIS? What threats does it pose to Australia? What does its rise say about the effectiveness of the War on Terror since 9/11, and what does a coherent strategy look like after a disastrous year? "As things stand in mid-2015, Western countries . . . face a larger, more unified, capable, experienced and savage enemy, in a less stable, more fragmented region. It isn't just ISIS - al-Qaeda has emerged from its eclipse and is back in the game in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Syria and Yemen. We're dealing with not one, but two global terrorist organisations, each with its own regional branches, plus a vastly larger radicalised population at home and a massive flow of foreign fighters." David Kilcullen, Blood Year David Kilcullen was a senior advisor to General David Petraeus in 2007 and 2008, when he helped to design and monitor the Iraq War coalition troop "Surge." He was then appointed special advisor for counterinsurgency to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Before this, from 2005 to 2006, he was chief strategist in the Counterterrorism Bureau of the US State Department. He has also been an adviser to the UK and Australian governments, NATO and the International Security Assistance Force. He is a former Australian Army officer and the author of three acclaimed books: The Accidental Guerrilla, Counterinsurgency and Out of the Mountains .
#59
Quarterly Essay 59 Faction Man
Bill Shorten's Path to Power
2015
In Faction Man, David Marr traces the career of a Labor warrior. In dazzling style, he shows how this brilliant recruiter and formidable campaigner mastered first the unions and then the party in pursuit of an ambition he set himself in to be Prime Minister of Australia.
Bill Shorten is now a contender. But where do his loyalties lie? Is he a defender of Labor values in today’s Australia, or is he a shape-shifter, driven entirely by politics? And does this product of the old world of union intrigue have what it takes to defeat Malcolm Turnbull and lead the country?
Marr reveals a man we hardly the Napoleon of the factions, a virtuoso with numbers and a strategist of skill who Labor has backed to return the party to power.
‘David Marr is as brilliant a biographer and journalist as this country has produced’ —Peter Craven, Spectator
#60
Political Amnesia
How We Forgot How to Govern
2015
Whatever happened to good government? What are the signs of bad government? And can Malcolm Turnbull apply the lessons of the past in a very different world?
In this crisp, profound and witty essay, Laura Tingle seeks answers to these questions. She ranges from ancient Rome to the demoralised state of the once-great Australian public service, from the jingoism of the past to the tabloid scandals of the internet age. Drawing on new interviews with key figures, she shows the long-term harm that has come from undermining the public sector as a repository of ideas and experience. She tracks the damage done when responsibility is “contracted out,” and when politicians shut out or abuse their traditional sources of advice.
This essay about the art of government is part defence, part lament. In Political Amnesia, Laura Tingle examines what has gone wrong with our politics, and how we might put things right.
“There was plenty of speculation about whether Turnbull would repeat his mistakes as Opposition leader in the way he dealt with people. But there has not been quite so much about the more fundamental question of whether the revolving door of the prime ministership has much deeper causes than the personalities in Parliament House. Is the question whether Malcolm Turnbull – and those around him – can learn from history? Or is there a structural reason national politics has become so dysfunctional?” —Laura Tingle, Political Amnesia
#61
Balancing Act
Australia Between Recession and Renewal
2016
Australia is in transition. Saying it is easy. The panic kicks in when we are compelled to describe what the future might look like. There is no complacent middle to aim at. We will either catch the next wave of prosperity, or finally succumb to the Great Recession.
In this urgent essay, George Megalogenis argues that Australia risks becoming globalisation’s next and most unnecessary victim. The next shock, whenever it comes, will find us with our economic guard down, and a political system that has shredded its authority.
Megalogenis outlines the challenge for Malcolm Turnbull and his government. Our tax system is unfair and we have failed to invest in infrastructure and education. Both sides of politics are clinging defensively to an old model because it tells them a reassuring story of Australian success. But that model has been exhausted by capitalism’s extended crisis and the end of the mining boom. Trusting to the market has left us with gridlocked cities, growing inequality and a corporate sector that feels no obligation to pay tax. It is time to redraw the line between market and state.
Balancing Act is a passionate look at the politics of change and renewal, and a bold call for active government. It took World War II to provide the energy and focus for the reconstruction that laid the foundation for modern Australia.
Will it take another crisis to prompt a new reconstruction?
George Megalogenis has thirty years’ experience in the media, including over a decade in the federal parliamentary press gallery. His book The Australian Moment won the 2013 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for non-fiction and the 2012 Walkley Award for non-fiction, and formed the basis for the ABC documentary series Making Australia Great. His most recent book is Australia’s Second Chance and he is also author of Faultlines, The Longest Decade and a previous best-selling Quarterly Essay, Trivial Pursuit: Leadership and the End of the Reform Era.
#62
Firing Line
Australia's Path to War
2016
Going to war may be the gravest decision a nation and its leaders make. At the moment, Australia is at war with ISIS. We also live in a region that has become much more volatile, as China asserts itself and America seeks to hold the line.
What is it like to go to war? How do we decide to go to war? Where might we go to war in the future? Will we get that decision right?
In this vivid, compelling essay, James Brown looks to history, strategy and his own experience to explore these questions. He examines the wars we have chosen to fight in the past - from Gallipoli and Timor, to Afghanistan and Iraq - and asks: did we get the decision right?
Brown considers how we plug into the US war machine, and the American troops based in Darwin. He also sheds fascinating light on the changing technology and terrain of war - the cyber realm, the oceans and space. This is an essay that examines our independence as a nation, and the choices that may confront us.
James Brown is a former Australian Army officer, who commanded a cavalry troop in southern Iraq, served on the Australian taskforce headquarters in Baghdad and was attached to Special Forces in Afghanistan. He now runs the Alliance 21 project at the US Studies Centre, University of Sydney. A columnist for the Saturday Paper and regular media contributor, his first book was the acclaimed Anzac's Long Shadow.
#64
The Australian Dream
Blood, History and Becoming
2016
In a landmark essay, Stan Grant writes Indigenous people back into the economic and multicultural history of Australia. This is the fascinating story of how fringe dwellers fought not just to survive, but to prosper. Their legacy is the extraordinary flowering of Indigenous success – cultural, sporting, intellectual and social – that we see today.
Yet this flourishing co-exists with the boys of Don Dale, and the many others like them who live in the shadows of the nation. Grant examines how such Australians have been denied the possibilities of life, and argues eloquently that history is not destiny; that culture is not static. In doing so, he makes the case for a more capacious Australian Dream.
‘The idea that I am Australian hits me with a thud. It is a blinding self-realisation that collides with the comfortable notion of who I am. To be honest, for an Indigenous person, it can feel like a betrayal somehow – at the very least, a capitulation. We are so used to telling ourselves that Australia is a white country: am I now white? The reality is more ambiguous … To borrow from Franz Kafka, identity is a cage in search of a bird.’ —Stan Grant, The Australian Dream
Stan Grant is Indigenous Affairs editor for the ABC and Chair of Indigenous Affairs at Charles Sturt University. He won the 2015 Walkley Award for coverage of Indigenous Affairs and is the author of The Tears of Strangers and Talking to My Country.
#65
The White Queen
One Nation and the Politics of Race
2017
In this timely Quarterly Essay, David Marr looks at Australia’s brand of the politics of resentment now sweeping the world.
Pauline Hanson is not alone out there. A million votes are in play. Strategists in both Labor and the Coalition are asking, what can we give them? At stake are the progressive hopes of most Australians, hopes held hostage more than ever to the fears – especially the race fears – of old Australia.
This is a riveting essay by one of Australia’s best writers, examining the peculiar power of the fearful in this confident and prosperous nation.
#66
The Long Goodbye
Coal, Coral and Australia's Climate Deadlock
2017
The Great Barrier Reef is dying. Extreme weather is becoming all too familiar. Yet when it comes to action on climate change, division and paralysis rule the land.
In this vivid, urgent essay, Anna Krien explores the psychology and politics of a warming world. She visits the frontlines of Australia's climate wars - the Reef, the Galilee and Bowen basins, South Australia. She investigates the Adani mine, with its toxic politics and controversial economics. Talking to power workers and scientists, lobbyists and activists, she considers where climate change is taking us, and where effective action is to be found.
"This was Turnbull's moment, and the Liberal Party's too. Not just the Snowy 2.0, but the whole thing - an ailing and dysfunctional grid, a complex issue, something for the 'adults' to take responsibility for. But instead of leadership, Australians got politics as usual. Cheap shots, culture-war baiting, bad and good ideas lobbed like hot potatoes and lost in the trash talk of low-grade politics. After the ten-day policy spree, Turnbull resumed his poker face, continuing with his grim role of negotiating with the vipers in his nest." Anna Krien, The Long Goodbye
Anna Krien is the author of Night Games: Sex, Power and Sport, Into the Woods: The Battle for Tasmania's Forests and Quarterly Essay 45 Us and Them: On the Importance of Animals. Her work has been published in the Monthly, the Age, the Big Issue, Best Australian Essays, Best Australian Stories, Griffith Review and frankie. In 2014 she won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award in the UK.
#67
Moral Panic 101
Equality, Acceptance and the Safe Schools Scandal
2017
Are Australian schools safe? And if they’re not, what happens when kids are caught in a bleak collision between ill-equipped teachers and a confected scandal?
In 2016, the Safe Schools program became the focus of an ideological firestorm. In Moral Panic 101, Benjamin Law explores how and why this happened. He weaves a subtle, gripping account of schools today, sexuality, teenagers, new ideas of gender fluidity, media scandal and mental health.
In this timely essay, Law also looks at the new face of homophobia in Australia, and the long battle for equality and acceptance. Investigating bullying of the vulnerable young, he brings to light hidden worlds, in an essay notable for its humane clarity.
“To read every article the Australian has published on Safe Schools is to induce nausea. This isn’t even a comment on the content, just the sheer volume … And yet, across this entire period, the Australian – self-appointed guardian of the safety of children – spoke to not a single school-aged LGBTIQ youth. Not even one. Later, queer teenagers who followed the Safe Schools saga told me the dynamic felt familiar. At school, it’s known as bullying. In journalism, it’s called a beat-up.” —Benjamin Law, Moral Panic 101
Benjamin Law is the author of Gaysia and the memoir The Family Law, which he adapted for SBS TV. A columnist for Fairfax’s Good Weekend magazine, Law has written for the Monthly, Frankie, QWeekend, the Big Issue, Crikey and Griffith Review.
#68
Without America
Australia in the New Asia
2017
America is fading, and China will soon be the dominant power in our region. What does this mean for Australia's future?
In this controversial and urgent essay, Hugh White shows that the contest between America and China is classic power politics of the harshest kind. He argues that we are heading for an unprecedented future, one without an English-speaking great and powerful friend to keep us secure and protect our interests.
White sketches what the new Asia will look like, and how China could use its power. He also examines what has happened to the United States globally, under both Barack Obama and Donald Trump – a series of setbacks which Trump's bluster on North Korea cannot disguise.
White notes that we have got into the habit of seeing the world through Washington's eyes, and argues that unless this changes, we will fail to navigate the biggest shift in Australia's international circumstances since European settlement. The signs of failure are already clear, as we risk sliding straight from complacency to panic.
#69
Moment of Truth
History and Australia's Future
2018
Australia is on the brink of momentous change, but only if its citizens and politicians can come to new terms with the past.
In this inspiring essay, Mark McKenna considers the role of history in making and unmaking the nation. From Captain Cook to the frontier wars, from Australia Day to the Uluru Statement, we are seeing fresh debates and recognitions. McKenna argues that it is time to move beyond the history wars, and that truth-telling about the past will be liberating and healing.
This is an urgent essay about a nation’s moment of truth.
‘The time for pitting white against black, shame against pride, and one people’s history against another’s, has had its day. After nearly fifty years of deeply divisive debates over the country’s foundation and its legacy for Indigenous Australians, Australia stands at a crossroads – we either make the commonwealth stronger and more complete through an honest reckoning with the past, or we unmake the nation by clinging to triumphant narratives in which the violence inherent in the nation’s foundation is trivialised.’ —Mark McKenna, Moment of Truth
#70
Dead Right
How Neoliberalism Ate Itself and What Comes Next
2018
How did the big banks get away with so much for so long? Why are so many aged-care residents malnourished? And when did arms manufacturers start sponsoring the Australian War Memorial?
In this passionate essay, Richard Denniss explores what neoliberalism has done to Australian society. For decades, we have been led to believe that the private sector does everything better, that governments can’t afford to provide the high-quality services they once did, but that security and prosperity for all are just around the corner. In fact, Australians are now less equal, millions of workers have no sick leave or paid holidays, and housing is unaffordable for many. Deregulation, privatisation and trickle-down economics have, we are told, delivered us twenty-seven years of growth ... but to what end?
In Dead Right, Denniss looks at ways to renew our democracy and discusses everything from the fragmenting Coalition to an idea of the national interest that goes beyond economics.
“Neoliberalism, the catch-all term for all things small government, has been the ideal cloak behind which to conceal enormous shifts in Australia’s wealth and culture ... Over the past thirty years, the language, ideas and policies of neoliberalism have transformed our economy and, more importantly, our culture.”
Richard Denniss, Dead Right
#71
Follow the Leader
2018
What is true political leadership, and how do we get it? What qualities should we wish for in our leaders? And why is it killing season for prime ministers? In this wise and timely essay, Laura Tingle argues that democratic leaders build a consensus for change, rather than bludgeon the system or turn politics into a popularity contest. They mobilise and guide, more than impose a vision. Tingle offers acute portraits – profiles in courage and cunning – of leaders ranging from Merkel and Howard to Macron and Obama. She discusses the rise of the strongman, including Donald Trump, for whom there is no map, only sentiment and power. And she analyses what has gone wrong with politics in Australia, arguing that successful leaders know what they want to do, and create the space and time to do it. After the Liberal Party’s recent episode of political madness, where does this leave the nation’s new prime minister, Scott Morrison? “The Liberal Party has been ripped apart and our polity is the worse off for having one of its major political parties rendered largely ungovernable … Malcolm Turnbull’s fate came down to a series of judgements made not just by him, but by his colleagues, who spent much of his prime ministership failing to follow the leader and also failing in their own collective responsibility for leadership.” Laura Tingle, Follow the Leader
#72
Net Loss
The Inner Life in the Digital Age
2018
What is the inner life? And is it vanishing in the digital age?
Throughout history, artists and philosophers have cultivated the deep self, and seen value in solitude and reflection. But today, through social media, wall-to-wall marketing, reality television and the agitation of modern life, everything feels illuminated, made transparent. We feel bereft without our phones and their cameras and the feeling of instant connectivity. It gets hard to pick up a book, harder still to stay with it.
In this eloquent and profound essay, renowned critic Sebastian Smee brings to the surface the idea of inner life – the awareness one may feel in front of a great painting or while listening to extraordinary music by a window at dusk or in a forest at night. No nostalgic lament, this essay evokes what is valuable and worth cultivating – a connection to our true selves, and a feeling of agency in the mystery of our own lives. At the same time, such contemplation puts us in an intensely charged relationship with things, people or works of art that are outside us.
If we lose this power, Smee asks, what do we lose of ourselves?
#73
Australia Fair
2019
For some time, a majority of Australians have been saying they want change – on climate and energy, on housing and inequality, on corporate donations and their corrupting effect on democracy, to name just a few.
Recent attention has focused on the angry, reactionary minority. But is there a progressive centre? How does it see Australia’s future? And what is to be learned from the failures of previous governments? Was marriage reform just the beginning, or will the shock-jocks and their paymasters hold their ground?
In this vivid, grounded essay, Rebecca Huntley looks at the state of the nation and asks: what does social-democratic Australia want, and why?
#74
The Prosperity Gospel
How Scott Morrison Won and Bill Shorten Lost
2019
In Quarterly Essay 74, Erik Jensen considers what has gone wrong for the Coalition, and what prospects it has for renewal or collapse. He looks at Labor’s strengths and weaknesses, and what kind of government it might form.
Through interviews and close observation, Jensen homes in on the meaning of a transformative election. Are we seeing the last days of the Liberal Party? Is Labor capable of forging a new accord for the nation? Does anyone have an answer to the voters’ disgust with politics as usual?
#75
Men at Work
Australia's Parenthood Trap
2019
When New Zealand's prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, announced her pregnancy, the headlines raced around the world. But when Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg became the first prime minister and treasurer duo since the 1970s to take on their roles while bringing up young children, this detail passed largely without notice. Why do we still accept that fathers will be absent? Why do so few men take parental leave in this country? Why is flexible and part-time work still largely a female preserve? And what have we learned from the parental experiment of the COVID-19 lockdowns? In the past half-century, women have revolutionised the way they work and live. But men's lives on average have changed remarkably little. Is it because men don't want to change? Or is it because, every day in various ways, they are told they shouldn't? Annabel Crabb deploys political observation, workplace research and her characteristic humour and intelligence to argue that gender equity cannot be achieved until men are as free to leave the workplace (when their family lives change) as women are to enter it.
#76
Red Flag
Waking Up to China's Challenge
2019
China has become a key nation for Australia’s future – for our security, economy and identity. But what are China’s intentions and strategy when it comes to Australia?
In this gripping account, Peter Hartcher shows that we are entering an era of undeclared contestation, whether for hearts and minds, mineral and agricultural resources, media outlets or sea lanes. Reactions include panic, xenophobia and all-the-way-with-the-USA – but the challenge now is to think hard about the national interest and respond with wisdom to a changed world.
This urgent, authoritative essay blends reporting and analysis in trademark Hartcher style, and covers the local scene as well as the larger geopolitical picture.
#77
Cry Me a River
The Tragedy of the Murray Darling Basin
2020
The Murray–Darling Basin is the food bowl of Australia, and it's in trouble. What does this mean for the future - for water and crops, and for the people and towns that depend on it? In Cry Me a River, acclaimed journalist Margaret Simons takes a trip through the Basin, all the way from Queensland to South Australia. She shows that its plight is environmental but also economic, and enmeshed in ideology and identity. Her essay is both a portrait of the Murray–Darling Basin and an explanation of its woes. It looks at rural Australia and the failure of politics over decades to meet the needs of communities forced to bear the heaviest burden of change. Whether it is fish kills or state rivalries, drought or climate change, in the Basin our ability to plan for the future is being put to the test. “The story of the Murray–Darling Basin...is a story of our nation, the things that join and divide us. It asks whether our current systems - our society and its communities - can possibly meet the needs of the nation and the certainty of change. Is the Plan an honest compact, and is it fair? Can it work? Are our politics up to the task?”
#78
The Coal Curse
Resources, Climate and Australia's Future
2020
Australia is a wealthy nation with the economic profile of a developing country - heavy on raw materials, and low on innovation and skilled manufacturing. Once we rode on the sheep's back for our overseas trade; today we rely on cartloads of coal and tankers of LNG. So must we double down on fossil fuels, now that COVID-19 has halted the flow of international students and tourists? Or is there a better way forward, which supports renewable energy and local manufacturing? Judith Brett traces the unusual history of Australia's economy and the ''resource curse'' that has shaped our politics. She shows how the mining industry learnt to run fear campaigns, and how the Coalition became dominated by fossil-fuel interests to the exclusion of other voices. In this insightful essay about leadership, vision and history, she looks at the costs of Australia's coal addiction and asks, where will we be if the world stops buying it? ''Faced with the crisis of a global pandemic, for the first time in more than a decade Australia has had evidence-based, bipartisan policy-making. Politicians have listened to the scientists and �?� put ideology and the protection of vested interests aside and behaved like adults. Can they do the same to commit to fast and effective action to try to save our children's and grandchildren's future, to prevent the catastrophic fires and heatwaves the scientists predict, the species extinction and the famines?'' Judith Brett, The Coal Curse
#79
The End of Certainty
Scott Morrison and Pandemic Politics
2020
Epidemics are mirrors. What has COVID-19 revealed about Australia, and about Scott Morrison and his government? In this gripping essay, Katharine Murphy goes behind the scenes to tell the story of the response to the crisis. Drawing on interviews with Morrison, Brendan Murphy, Josh Frydenberg, Sally McManus and other players, she traces how the key health and economic decisions were taken.
Her account is twinned with a portrait of the prime minister. She explores his blend of pragmatism and faith, and shows how a leader characterised by secrecy and fierce certainty learnt to compromise and reach out – with notable exceptions.
Now, as the nation turns inwards and unemployment rises, our faith in government is about to be tested anew. What does “We’re all in this together” truly mean? Will Morrison snap back to Liberal hardman, or will he redefine centre-right politics in this country?
“Morrison’s a partisan, blue team to the core, but his political philosophy is hard to pin down, because it is predominantly trouble-shooting. By instinct, Morrison is a power player and a populist, not a philosopher; a repairer of walls, not a writer of manifestos … [his] conservatism is extreme pragmatism in defence of what he regards as the core of the nation.” Katharine Murphy, The End of Certainty
#80
The High Road
What Australia can learn from New Zealand
2020
Australia and New Zealand are often considered close cousins. But why, despite being so close, do we know so little about each other? And now, in the wake of COVID-19, is it time to change that? In this wise and illuminating essay, Laura Tingle looks at leadership, character and two nations in transition. In the past half-century, both countries have remade themselves amid shifting economic fortunes. New Zealand has been held up as a model for everything from privatisation to the conduct of politics to the response to COVID. Tingle considers how both countries have been governed, and the different way each has dealt with its colonial legacy. What could Australia learn from New Zealand? And New Zealand from Australia? This is a perceptive, often amusing introduction to two countries alike in some ways, but quite different in others.
#81
Getting to Zero
Australia's Energy Transition
2021
An essential guide to how Australia can tackle the climate crisis The world is overheating, and despite good intentions and significant efforts, emissions increase nearly every year. The challenge is immense, but there are solutions. In this lucid, inspiring essay, Alan Finkel maps Australia's path forward. He explains the solar and wind revolution, and addresses the challenge of intermittent supply. He introduces hydrogen, the energy hope of the future. He traces the rise and rise of the electric car. He shows how we can build a zero-emissions world. Taking into account economics, science and emotions, Getting to Zero is an essential guide to how Australia can tackle the climate crisis with realism and ingenuity. "Change is in the air. I sense we will live through a technological revolution this decade as exciting as the conquest of space in the 1960s. If Australia handles the challenge well, we can build an economy that takes advantage of the transition. If we cling to the past, we will miss opportunities that the rest of the world will seize."-Alan Finkel, Getting to Zero
#82
Exit Strategy
2021
In the wake of the pandemic, will we see a new politics of social security and concern for the future? Between the fires and the plague, Scott Morrison had no choice but to adapt his style of leadership. But does he have an exit strategy for Australia from the pandemic? In this original essay, George Megalogenis explores the new politics of care and fear. He shows how our economic officials learnt the lessons of past recessions and applied them to new circumstances. But where to from here? Megalogenis analyses the shifting dynamics of the federation and the appeal of closed borders. He discusses the fate of higher education - what happened to the clever country? And he what should government be responsible for in the 21st century, and does the Morrison government have the imagination for the job? 'Morrison has no political interest in talking about the future. But passivity does not reduce the threat of another outbreak. In any case, the future is making demands on Australia in other ways.' George Megalogenis has 35 years of experience in the media, including more than a decade in the federal parliamentary press gallery. His book The Australian Moment won the 2013 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Non-fiction and the 2012 Walkley Book Award and formed the basis for the ABC documentary series Making Australia Great .
#84
The Reckoning
How #MeToo is Changing Australia
2021
Tracing the impact of Australia's #MeToo moment This year, Australia's #MeToo moment erupted in the national parliament. In this electrifying essay, Jess Hill, the acclaimed author of See What You Made Me Do, traces the meaning of those events and what could happen next. What are the politics of rage? What couldn't Scott Morrison see? And what hope is there of real progress and accountability? Hill examines how the law, the media and politics can bring about - or stall - change. She shows how when #MeToo meets patriarchy, the results are unpredictable - from lasting reform to backlash. And she asks whether a conservative prime minister can do what is required to meet the moment.
#85
Not Waving, Drowning
Mental Illness and Vulnerability in Australia
2022
Around one-fifth of Australians will suffer from mental illness in any given year. And the pandemic is making things worse, especially in schools. Our mental health system is under stress and not fit for purpose. What is to be done?
In this brilliant mix of portraiture and analysis, Sarah Krasnostein tells the stories of three women and their treatment by the state while at their most unwell. What do their experiences tell us about the likelihood of institutional and cultural change?
Krasnostein argues that we live in a society that often punishes vulnerability, but shows we have the resources to mend a broken system. But do we have the will to do so, or must the patterns of the past persist into the future?
#87
Uncivil Wars
How Contempt Is Corroding Democracy
2022
In this original, eloquent essay, Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens explore the ethics and politics of public debate – and the threats it now faces.
In a healthy democracy we need the capacity to disagree. Yet Aly and Stephens note a growing tendency to dismiss and exile opponents, to treat them with contempt. This toxic partisanship has been imported from the United States, where it has been corrosive – and a temptation for both left and right. Aly and Stephens analyse some telling examples and look back to heroes of democracy who found a better way forward.
This compelling essay draws on philosophy, literature and history to make an urgent case about the present.
#88
Lone Wolf
Albanese and the New Politics
2022
A prime minister in the making, and a nation on the move. In Lone Wolf, Katharine Murphy offers a new portrait of Anthony Albanese. She reveals a leader who has always had to think three steps ahead, who was an insurgent for much of his professional life, but had to learn to listen and devise ‘strategies of inclusivity’ to win the 2022 election.
Following that victory, Greens leader Adam Bandt voiced hopes for ‘a great era of progressive reform,’ but it is Albanese and Labor who will ultimately decide whether that potential is reached or not.
Drawing on interviews with Albanese, Bandt, Penny Wong, Jim Chalmers, Mark Butler, Katy Gallagher, Simon Holmes à Court, Zoe Daniel and more, Murphy’s brilliant essay draws out the meaning of an eventful political year. She offers a telling character study of the prime minister, investigates the success of the teals and the Greens, and looks to the challenges of the future.
‘Taking the party leadership was both a beginning and an ending. Insurgency was done. New skills were required … Albanese knew how to recruit people to a cause and to get them to a similar place. He’d been doing that since his teens. But to win, he had to learn to listen, to trust his team and to lead, understanding that sometimes leadership involves holding back rather than imagining it’s all on you.’ Katharine Murphy, Lone Wolf
#89
The Wires That Bind
Electrification and Community Renewal
2023
A compelling vision of green energy at a local level
The country is at a crossroads. In The Wires That Bind, inventor, engineer and visionary Saul Griffith reveals the world that awaits us if we make the most of Australia’s energy future.
Griffith paints an inspiring yet practical picture of empowered local communities acting collectively when it comes to renewable energy, and benefiting financially. He considers both equity and security – an end to dependence on foreign oil, for instance. He explores the rejuvenation of regional Australia, as well as the rise of a new populist movement driven by Australian women. And he explodes once and for all the trees v. jobs binary.
This is an electrifying essay about building a better world, one community at a time.
‘We need a realistic and achievable vision for the future because the future is coming fast. We have only about one-quarter of one century, twenty-five years, one human generation, to get ourselves out of this climate quandary. If we get this right, if we design the incentives and the policies and the regulations correctly, communities will thrive. Every Australian will benefit economically, socially and even health-wise. So let’s hit the road.’ Saul Griffith, The Wires That Bind
#90
Voice of Reason
On Recognition and Renewal
2023
Why a First Nations Voice to Parliament is a ‘constitutional moment’ that offers a new vision of Australia
At Uluru, an invitation was issued to the Australian people. With the upcoming referendum, the nation will decide whether to accept that invitation. In this compelling, fresh and imaginative essay, Megan Davis draws out the significance and the promise of this “constitutional moment” – what it could mean for recognition and justice.
Davis presents the Voice to Parliament as an Australian solution to an Australian problem. For Indigenous people, it is a practical response to “the torment of powerlessness.” She highlights the failure of past policies, in areas from child protection to closing the gap, and the urgent need for change. She also brings out the creative and imaginative dimensions of the Voice. Fundamental to her account is the importance of truly listening. In explaining why the Voice is needed from the ground up, she evokes a new vision of Country and community.
“When people say this is about changing Australian identity, it’s not. It’s about location; we are located here together, we are born here, we arrive here, we die here and we must coexist in a peaceful way. The fundamental message that many elders planted in the Uluru Statement is that the country needs peace, and the country cannot be at peace until we meet; the Uluru Statement is the beginning of that.” Megan Davis, Voice of Reason
#92
The Great Divide
Australia's Housing Mess and How to Fix It
2023
What caused Australia's housing crisis—and how we might fix it
One of the great mysteries of Australian life is that a land of sweeping plains, with one of the lowest population densities on the planet, has a shortage of land for houses. As a result, Sydney is the second most expensive place to buy a house on Earth, after Hong Kong.
The escalation in house prices is a pain that has altered Australian society; it has increased inequality and profoundly changed the relationship between generations—between those who have a house and those who don't. It has caused a rental crisis, a dearth of public housing and a mortgage crunch.
Things went seriously wrong at the start of the twenty-first century, when there was a huge and permanent rise in the price of housing. In this crisp, clarifying and forward-looking essay, Alan Kohler tells the story of how we got into this mess—and how we might get out of it.
"The growth in the value of Australian land has fundamentally changed society, in two ways. First, generations of young Australians are being held back financially by the cost of shelter, especially if they live somewhere near a CBD and especially in Sydney or Melbourne; and second, the way wealth is generated has changed. Education and hard work are no longer the main determinants of how wealthy you are; now it comes down to where you live and what sort of house you inherit from your parents. It means Australia is less of an egalitarian meritocracy." Alan Kohler, The Great Divide
Authors
Tim Flannery
Author · 27 books
Tim Flannery is one of Australia's leading thinkers and writers. An internationally acclaimed scientist, explorer and conservationist, he has published more than 130 peer-reviewed scientific papers and many books. His books include the landmark works The Future Eaters and The Weather Makers, which has been translated into more than 20 languages and in 2006 won the NSW Premiers Literary Prizes for Best Critical Writing and Book of the Year. He received a Centenary of Federation Medal for his services to Australian science and in 2002 delivered the Australia Day address. In 2005 he was named Australian Humanist of the Year, and in 2007 honoured as Australian of the Year. He spent a year teaching at Harvard, and is a founding member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, a director of the Australian Wildlife Conservancy, and the National Geographic Society's representative in Australasia. He serves on the board of WWF International (London and Gland) and on the sustainability advisory councils of Siemens (Munich) and Tata Power (Mumbai). In 2007 he co-founded and was appointed Chair of the Copenhagen Climate Council, a coalition of community, business, and political leaders who came together to confront climate change. Tim Flannery is currently Professor of Science at Maquarie University, Sydney.
Linda Jaivin
Author · 8 books
Linda Jaivin is the author of twelve books, including the forthcoming (May 2021) The Shortest History of China and the novel The Empress Lover, published in April 2014 as well as the travel companion Beijing, published in July 2014. Other major publications include the Quarterly Essay: Found in Translation (late 2013), five novels and a novella, a collection of essays (Confessions of an S&M Virgin) and a China memoir (Monkey and the Dragon). Her first novel was the internationally bestselling comic erotic Eat Me. The Empress Lover follows A Most Immoral Woman, which is set in China and Japan in 1904 and based on a true story. She is also a translator from Chinese and a playwright. She was the winner of the 2014 New South Wales Writers Fellowship.
Guy Pearse
Author · 3 books
Guy Pearse is the author of High and Dry. He joined the Liberal Party in 1989 and was a speech-writer for former environment minister Robert Hill. He has also been an industry lobbyist, consultant and spin doctor.
Amanda Lohrey
Author · 12 books
Amanda Lohrey is a novelist and essayist. She was educated at the University of Tasmania and Cambridge. She lectured in Writing and Textual Studies at the Sydney University of Technology (1988-1994), and since 2002 at the School of English, Media Studies and Art History at the University of Queensland in Brisbane.
David Marr
Author · 12 books
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information. Eminent Australian journalist, author, and progressive political and social commentator. David Marr is the multi-award-winning author of Patrick White: A Life, Panic and The High Price of Heaven, and co- author with Marian Wilkinson of Dark Victory. He has written for the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, The Saturday Paper, The Guardian Australia and the Monthly. He has been editor of the National Times, a reporter for Four Corners and presenter of ABC TV’s Media Watch. He is also the author of two previous bestselling biographical Quarterly Essays: Power Trip: The Political Journey of Kevin Rudd and Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott. His areas of expertise include Australian politics, law, censorship, the media and the arts. David Marr began his career in 1973 and is the recipient of four Walkley awards for journalism. He also appears as a semi-regular panellist on the ABC television programs Q&A and Insiders.
Anne Manne
Author · 2 books
Anne Manne is a Melbourne writer. She has been a regular columnist for the Australian and the Age. More recently her essays on contemporary culture such as child abuse, pornography, gendercide and disability have all appeared in The Monthly magazine. Her essay ‘Ebony: The Girl in the Room’ was included in The Best Australian Essay’s: A Ten Year Collection. Her book, Motherhood: How should we care for our children, was a finalist in the Walkley Award for Best Non-Fiction Book of 2006. She has written a Quarterly Essay, ‘Love and Money: The family of the Free Market’ and a memoir, So this is Life: Scenes from a country childhood.
- Taken from The Life of I: The New Culture of Narcissism
Saul Griffith
Author · 4 books
Saul Griffith (born 1974) is an Australian American inventor. He is the founder or co-founder of seven companies, including Otherlab (where he is currently CEO), Makani Power, and Instructables.
Anna Goldsworthy
Author · 5 books
Anna Goldsworthy is an Australian classical pianist and writer. In October 2009 her memoir Piano Lessons was released in Australia by publisher Black Inc. In November 2010 it will be published in the US by St Martin's Press (Macmillian). From 2010 she will be Artistic Director of the Port Fairy Spring Music Festival. Anna is also a Board Member of the Australian Book Review, Artist-in-Residence at Janet Clarke Hall at the University of Melbourne, and a founding member of the Seraphim Trio.
Clive Hamilton
Author · 11 books
Clive Hamilton AM FRSA is an Australian public intellectual and Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics and the Vice-Chancellor's Chair in Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University. He is a member of the Board of the Climate Change Authority of the Australian Government, and is the Founder and former Executive Director of The Australia Institute. He regularly appears in the Australian media and contributes to public policy debates. Hamilton was granted the award of Member of the Order of Australia on 8 June 2009 for "service to public debate and policy development, particularly in the fields of climate change, sustainability and societal trends". (From Wikipedia.)
Ian Lowe
Author · 2 books
Ian Lowe is emeritus professor of science, technology and society at Griffith University and president of the Australian Conservation Foundation. He studied engineering and science at the University of New South Wales and earned his doctorate in physics from the University of York. In 1991 he gave the ABC’s Boyer Lectures. He is the author of many books, including A Big Fix and Living in the Hothouse.
Peter Hartcher
Author · 6 books
Peter Hartcher is the political and international editor of The Sydney Morning Herald. His books include Bubble Man, The Sweet Spot and To the Bitter End. His first Quarterly Essay, Bipolar Nation, was published in 2007.
Richard Denniss
Author · 5 books
Richard Denniss is the Chief Economist and former Executive Director of The Australia Institute. He is a prominent Australian economist, author and public policy commentator, and a former Adjunct Associate Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. Dr Denniss was described by Mark Kenny in the Sydney Morning Herald as "a constant thorn in the side of politicians on both sides due to his habit of skewering dodgy economic justifications for policy".
Mark Latham
Author · 4 books
Mark William Latham, a former Australian politician, was leader of the Federal Parliamentary Australian Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition from December 2003 to January 2005.
Anna Krien
Author · 6 books
Anna Krien is the author of Night Games: Sex, power and sport, which won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award, Into the Woods: The battle for Tasmania’s forests and Us and Them: On the importance of animals (Quarterly Essay 45). Anna’s work has been published in the Monthly, the Age, the Big Issue, The Best Australian Essays, Griffith REVIEW, Voiceworks, Going Down Swinging, Colors, Frankie and Dazed & Confused.
Annabel Crabb
Author · 7 books
Annabel Crabb has been a journalist since 1997, beginning her career at Adelaide’s Advertiser and moving on to cover politics first for the Age and then for the Sydney Morning Herald, where she was a columnist and sketch-writer. She is the author of Losing It: The Inside Story of the Labor Party in Opposition (2005) and the Quarterly Essay Stop at Nothing: The Life and Adventures of Malcolm Turnbull, which won a 2009 Walkley Award. She is presently the ABC’s chief online political writer.
Laura Tingle
Author · 5 books
Laura Tingle is chief political correspondent for ABC TV’s 7.30. She won the Paul Lyneham Award for Excellence in Press Gallery Journalism in 2004, and Walkley awards in 2005 and 2011. She is the author of Chasing the Future: Recession, Recovery and the New Politics in Australia and four acclaimed Quarterly Essays, Great Expectations, Political Amnesia, Follow the Leader and The High Road.
Mark McKenna
Author · 5 books
There are multiple authors with this name in this data base. This one is Mark^^^McKenna
Karen Hitchcock
Author · 4 books
Karen Hitchcock is the author of the award-winning short-story collection Little White Slips and Dear Life: On caring for the elderly (Quarterly Essay 57) and a regular contributor to the Monthly. She is a staff physician in acute and general medicine at a large city public hospital, and has a PhD in English and creative writing.
Robyn Davidson
Author · 6 books
Robyn Davidson was born on a cattle property in Queensland, Australia. She went to Sydney in the late sixties, then spent time studying in Brisbane before moving to Alice Springs, where the events of this book begin. Since then, she has traveled extensively, living in London, New York, and India. In the early 1990s, she migrated with and wrote about nomads in northwestern India. She is now based in Melbourne, but spends several months a year in the Indian Himalayas.
Don Watson
Author · 14 books
Watson grew up on a farm in Gippsland, took his undergraduate degree at La Trobe University and a Ph.D at Monash University and was for ten years an academic historian. He wrote three books on Australian history before turning his hand to TV and the stage. For several years he combined writing political satire for the actor Max Gillies with political speeches for the former Premier of Victoria, John Cain. In 1992 he became Prime Minister Paul Keating's speech-writer and adviser and his best-selling account of those years, Recollections of a Bleeding Heart': Paul Keating Prime Minister, won both the The Age Book of the Year and non-fiction Prizes, the Brisbane Courier Mail Book of the Year, the National Biography Award and the Australian Literary Studies Association's Book of the Year. In addition to regular books, articles and essays, in recent years he has also written feature films, including The Man Who Sued God, starring Billy Connolly and Judy Davis. His 2001 Quarterly Essay Rabbit Syndrome: Australia and America won the inaugural Alfred Deakin Prize in the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards. Death Sentence, his book about the decay of public language, was also a best seller and won the Australian Booksellers Association Book of the Year. Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words was published in 2004 and continued to encourage readers to renounce what he perceives to be meaningless corporate and government jargon that is spreading throughout Australia and embrace meaningful, precise language. More recently Watson contributed the preface to a selection of Mark Twain's writings, The Wayward Tourist. His latest book, American Journeys is a narrative of modern America from Watson's travels in the United States following Hurricane Katrina. It was published by Knopf in 2008 and won both the The Age Book of the Year non-fiction and Book of the Year awards.[4]. It also won the 2008 Walkley Award for the best non-fiction book.
Mungo MacCallum
Author · 8 books
Mungo Wentworth MacCallum (21 December 1941 – 9 December 2020) was an Australian political journalist and commentator. From the 1970s to the 1990s he covered Australian federal politics from the Canberra Press Gallery for The Australian, The National Times, The Sydney Morning Herald, Nation Review and radio stations 2JJ / Triple J and 2SER. He wrote political commentary for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) current affairs and news analysis program The Drum, frequently wrote for the magazine The Monthly, and contributed political commentary to Australia's national Community Radio Network, columns for the Byron Shire Echo and The Northern Star, and a weekly cryptic crossword for The Saturday Paper. He also authored several books, including Run, Johnny, Run, written after the 2004 Australian federal election. His autobiographical narrative of the Australian political scene, Mungo: the man who laughs – has been reprinted four times. How To Be A Megalomaniac or, Advice to a Young Politician was published in 2002, and Political Anecdotes was published in 2003. In December 2004, Duffy & Snellgrove published War and Pieces: John Howard's last election.
Inga Clendinnen
Author · 8 books
Inga Clendinnen, AO, FAHA was an Australian author, historian, anthropologist, and academic.
Margaret Simons
Author · 6 books
Margaret Simons (b 1960) is an Australian academic, freelance journalist and author. She is currently the media commentator for Crikey and has written ten books. She is currently Director of the Centre for Advanced Journalism at the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, the University of Melbourne. Simons was a finalist for a Walkley Award for journalism in 2007 for the story Buried in the Labyrinth, about the release of a pedophile into the community, published in Griffith Review and her book The Content Makers – Understanding the Future of the Australian Media was longlisted for the 2008 non-fiction book Walkley award. Simons also writes for The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Monthly. For many years, she wrote the "Earthmother" gardening column for The Australian. Simons has a doctorate from the University of Technology, Sydney and was co-founder, with Melissa Sweet, of the community-funded news site YouComm News. She lives in Melbourne. (from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margare...)
John Hirst
Author · 8 books
John Bradley Hirst, FASSA (9 July 1942 – 3 February 2016) was an Australian historian and social commentator. He taught at La Trobe University from 1968 until his retirement in 2006, edited Historical Studies—Australia's leading historical journal—from 1977 to 1980, and also served on the boards of Film Australia and the National Museum of Australia. He has been described as an "historian, public intellectual, and active citizen". He wrote widely on Australian history and society, publishing two well-received books about colonial New South Wales. Hirst also frequently published opinion pieces in the media.
John Birmingham
Author · 38 books
John Birmingham grew up in Ipswich, Queensland and was educated at St Edmunds Christian Brother's College in Ipswich and the University of Queensland in Brisbane. His only stint of full time employment was as a researcher at the Defence Department. After this he returned to Queensland to study law but he did not complete his legal studies, choosing instead to pursue a career as a writer. He currently lives in Brisbane. While a law student he was one of the last people arrested under the state's Anti Street March legislation. Birmingham was convicted of displaying a sheet of paper with the words 'Free Speech' written on it in very small type. The local newspaper carried a photograph of him being frogmarched off to a waiting police paddy wagon. Birmingham has a degree in international relations.
Paul McGeough
Author · 3 books
Foreign Correspondent, Sydney Morning Herald Paul McGeough is an author and award-winning foreign correspondent specializing in frontline reporting. As Chief Correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia's leading quality newspaper, McGeough has reported for the last eight years from the US, Iraq and Afghanistan on war and the change wrought in the world in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks which he witnessed in the streets of New York. Seventeen years ago McGeough was in Baghdad during the US bombing campaign in the First Gulf War. Most recently, he has reported from Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon during the post 9/11 wars in those countries; and from Pakistan, Iran, the Palestinian Occupied Territories and the US. In Afghanistan in 2001, McGeough survived a Taliban ambush in which three of his media colleagues were killed in the last days of the war. The Irish-born McGeough is a former managing editor of The Sydney Morning Herald. Among many acknowledgements for his work, McGeough has twice been named Australian Journalist of the Year. In the aftermath of 9/11, he received an award for excellence in international reporting from the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. He has won numerous Walkley Awards - the Australian equivalent of the Pulitzer. And in 2006, his on-line video reporting also was acknowledged internationally. He regularly appears on television and radio as a commentator and analyst on world affairs, including on CNN, CBS, Fox and various other U.S. networks. He also had made appearances on the BBC, RTE (Ireland ) and all the key TV and radio news networks in Australia. Awards:
- 2003 Walkley Award for Journalism Leadership
- 2010 Douglas Stewart award and Book of the Year for "Kill Khalid" at the 2010 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards
Germaine Greer
Author · 17 books
Germaine Greer is an Australian born writer, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century. Greer's ideas have created controversy ever since her ground-breaking The Female Eunuch became an international best-seller in 1970, turning her overnight into a household name and bringing her both adulation and criticism. She is also the author of Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility (1984), The Change: Women, Ageing and the Menopause (1991), and most recently Shakespeare's Wife (2007).
David Malouf
Author · 23 books
David Malouf is the author of ten novels and six volumes of poetry. His novel The Great World was awarded both the prestigious Commonwealth Prize and the Prix Femina Estranger. Remembering Babylon was short-listed for the Booker Prize. He has also received the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. He lives in Sydney, Australia.
Kate Jennings
Author · 4 books
Kate Jennings is a poet, essayist, short-story writer and novelist. Both her novels, Snake and Moral Hazard, were New York Times Notable Books of the Year. She has won the ALS Gold Medal, the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction and the Adelaide Festival fiction prize. Born in rural New South Wales, she has lived in New York since 1979. Her most recent books are Stanley and Sophie, Quarterly Essay 32: American Revolution and Trouble: Evolution of a Radical.
Alan Finkel
Author · 1 books
Alan Finkel served as Australia’s chief scientist from 2016 to 2020. He is a neuroscientist, engineer and entrepreneur. He led the 2017 National Electricity Market Review and the 2019 development of the National Hydrogen Strategy, and chaired the 2020 panel developing the Low Emissions Technology Roadmap. He is currently special adviser to the Australian government on low-emissions technologies
Judith Brett
Author · 9 books
Judith Brett is the author of Quarterly Essay 19, Relaxed and Comfortable: The Liberal Party’s Australia, Robert Menzies’ Forgotten People and Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class: From Alfred Deakin to John Howard and a regular commentator for The Monthly. She is professor of politics at La Trobe University.
