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
Mobutu, Authenticité and the Dark Heart of the Uluru Statement
“History is calling”, or so the leaders of the Uluru campaign to enshrine a First Nations Voice in the Constitution tell us. The slogan is calculated to exploit the ignorance of Australian history so diligently cultivated by our schools and universities in recent decades. Ironically, in drafting the “Statement from the Heart” in 2017, the Uluru delegates fell victim to their own ignorance of history, in ways that fatally undermine the document’s moral force.
The Statement quotes or paraphrases four men the Uluru delegates considered to have made a significant contribution to the Aboriginal rights movement: anthropologist Bill Stanner, Labor Party leader Gough Whitlam, Yolngu activist Galarrwuy Yunupingu and Lebanese jurist Fouad Ammoun. The references are not provided in the text, appearing instead in the Final Report of the Referendum Council. Whatever one may think of their politics, all four have or had a certain way with words. The delegates’ original work is a…
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
