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
That Other Watergate Scandal
When the Watergate movie All the President’s Men came to Canberra in 1977, I rushed to the cinema. Half an hour into this engrossing drama, a middle-aged man in the row in front of me turned around and cursed me, “Thanks to you, I can’t see any more of this and I’m going home.” I was upset by his outburst, but in my high tension, I’d been heedlessly kicking the back of his seat.
I’m sure all the Press Gallery tribe were equally engrossed. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (“Woodstein” for short) and the Washington Post broke the mould and won glory with their investigative journalism. They demonstrated the White House’s guilt for the Watergate burglary and forced the first-ever resignation of a US President, namely the Republican’s Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon. Forty or so members of his fiefdom were convicted. Journos ever since, including myself, have fantasised about ourselves making history and millions with exposures of high-ranking evil-doers.
There…
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
