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
Scuttling Our Navy and Other Matters
SIR: Michael Evans (“Look Seaward, Australia”, June 2016) represents a welcome intervention in this key field, especially coming from a former soldier. There is nothing new about it though. A former Governor of New South Wales, Rear Admiral Peter Sinclair, once famously commented that Australia was a maritime nation with a continental mindset. Of course, it is a maritime nation and has been at least since Governor Phillip arrived in 1788. Australia’s prosperity has always depended on overseas trade, a reality that drove our intervention in the First World War, whatever the continentalists might claim.
The Royal Australian Navy has always understood the reality and for decades has had plans for a credible maritime capability locked away in its vaults, only to be sunk by the Army and RAAF, not to mention the politicians and bureaucrats. During my stewardship of the Australia Defence Association in the 1980s and 1990s, we constantly promoted the significance for Australia of a…
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
