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
If Only Cash Could Fix Culture
Is this a leg-pull among bored pollies, bureaucrats and Aboriginal Industry bigshots? The feds have earmarked $8 million to create a “high-quality First Nations-led national Aboriginal Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Support”. Excellence indeed, when across the Australian continent every key indicator of the kids’ safe upbringing is going in hellish directions. (See Part 1 and Part 2 of this series).
This “high-quality” Centre for Excellence is supposed to be Aboriginal-designed to boost Aboriginal-led research “grounded in Aboriginal knowledge and theoretical frameworks” (whatever they are) and “build an evidence base” for the kids and parents. The urgency time-scale — while chaos reigns outback — is 2023-25 with funding to 2027.
The latest news on the Excellence Centre is within an Aboriginal themed and decorated document that emerged in January from the Department of Social Services. It is tactfully christened “Safe and Supported – the National…
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
