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
The Ageing Population
Sir: Oliver Friendship raises some important issues relating to the ageing of the Australian population (“Our Ageing Population and the Constraints on State Power”, April 2021).
He notes, correctly, that higher immigration cannot realistically solve the issues associated with an ageing population. While the “Big Australia” lobby continues to claim that higher levels of immigration are needed to combat population ageing, the unavoidable reality is that immigrants grow old too. Higher immigration has almost no long-run effect on changing the age structure and simply increases the total size of the population. This creates bigger problems in the future.
The infrastructure costs alone associated with rapid, immigration-led population growth are eye-watering. The infrastructure costs of settling one new immigrant have been estimated at $100,000. In 2018-19 net overseas migration to Australia was 244,000, implying an infrastructure bill of $24.4 billion for that financial year…
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
