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
Loving Care
Watching an old bushfire
red as sin on a video,
I saw an ordinary footpath
outside some precious home.
The house was burning giddily
behind a high stone fence,
but on the regulation footpath
beds of fire were contained
where pine bark burned in an ordered way—
pine bark laid with loving care
to keep down the weeds, and neaten things—
nobody had thought of fire.
It didn’t keep down the fire
which blazed in right-angled beds—
oblong, square, along the fence
and around the trees
which themselves burned aloud
with fervour, almost blasphemy,
above the rectangular beds of six-inch flames—
the radiant feathery flowers.
All this proves how little we know
of the planet we spend our lives on
we think that it can be neatened
till it gives us a fiery lesson.
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
