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 Incoherent Roadmap to Net Zero
In 2021 we were confidently told that it would cost $78 billion to rewire the grid for renewables and that the average annual household electricity bill would fall by $275 under Labor because, as Anthony Albanese explained, ‘we have done the modelling’2.
Despite the Prime Minister’s assurances, the cost of transforming the grid by 2030 is estimated to be $1,500 billion (not $78 billion) and the full cost to 2060 is up to $9,000 billion[1]. Also, retail prices in Victoria are to increase by 25 per cent from July 2023, and more pain is in store for households and business when the hedging and contracts roll over and the doubling of wholesale electricity prices fully impact retail prices. As Nick Cater wrote “renewables vision is blind to the cost of calamity”[2].
It is time the Victorian public are made fully aware of the enormous cost of a reckless transition to renewables and the huge amount of land (up to 12 million ha) to become renewable infrastructure.
The…
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
