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
What Lies Beneath
The dead angophora slowly scatters its bark
like a burns patient shedding her bandages, the bald
wood redolent of charred, oozing skin. Cool air kisses
the sandstone ledge and whispers of the long gone sea.
There is not enough fairness in this world. Some houses
are miraculously spared, others flattened by a firestorm
sweeping through the long paddocks, the hamlet, the valley.
Hard to look at such wholesale carnage and not cry.
Hard to believe the grafts will take, that the house
will rise again, high on its blackened stumps. This
is a place where people have always had to start
from scratch, crawling forward on blistered knees, skin
stretched tight enough to cover a snare drum, hands now
applauding new skin that is itchy, mottled and alive.
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
