Latest Articles
We are encouraged to rely more and more on government officials to do for us what we could equally well do for ourselves—and, maybe more importantly, not to do what might help us solve our own problems.
Sep 08 2024
10 mins
If we imagine a metric called the Pinocchio Scale, which measures the number of lies told by a politician as a percentage of his or her overall public statements, our current prime minister (for want of a better description), Airbus Albo, has moved well into uncharted territory.
Sep 06 2024
5 mins
All Under Heaven: China Reconstructs its History
In October 2018, I wrote an article for The Australian titled “Kowtowing to China Will Only Lead Us to Hong Kong”. Since then, of course, not only has the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong been extinguished, along with the safeguards of an independent judiciary system, but Beijing has made its move on Australia. This has taken many forms, although the so-called shadow trade war which followed the Morrison government’s call for an independent inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 looms largest in our minds. None of this has prevented Kevin Rudd criticising Scott Morrison for being “hairy chested” in his attitude to Xi Jinping. If only the Coalition government got “the balance right”—or spoke to Beijing with “respect”, as New Zealand’s Trade Minister Damien O’Connor advises—Australia and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) could return to an era of strategic partnership. Bill Hayton’s The Invention of China (2020) is a very good place to start in any…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
Aug 29 2024
6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
Aug 16 2024
2 mins
