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
Saturday Matinee
after Study for Going to the Pictures 1941 by Russell Drysdale
Preview
It’s Saturday again. The tall man and the child in short pants
walk hand in hand. They are going to the movie matinee.
National Anthem
The tall man sings with gusto God save the King
the king who is monarch of their town and the boy has heard men say
they will die for king and country. The boy in short pants wonders
would the king wear a golden, jeweled crown
would the king die for the tall man, for red dust and flies
The Newsreel
War in black and white, explosions, boom and bang
ships-sink-buildings-burn-soldiers-run-with-rifles-dodge-bullets
and words the boy’s ears like: luftwaffe, blitz, determination, stiff upper lip
The Feature Film
Set in a small town but not the town of the boy in short pants
another child, another family, another time and a green valley
that wasn’t green and scarecrow men blackened with coal
who rise up from tunnels in the earth, melt into the doors of houses
each one grey like…
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
