December 2019 Volume LXIII, Number 12, No. 561
The Epicentre of Our History
Vladimir Bukovsky: The Dissident Who Won
Kabalarians at the Gate
Ladies First
More Frightening than Brexit
The Bogus Aboriginal World of Bruce Pascoe
Contents
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When Julia Gillard was Minister for Education in the Rudd […]November 28, 2019
8 mins
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Vladimir Bukovsky, the great anti-Soviet dissident, died on November 4, disapppointed that the Moscow Spring so soon became the Putin autocracy. But of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary he was fully entitled to declare, “There we achieved something.”December 10, 2019
8 mins
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There is a semi-serious theory of nominative determinism, according to which a name may influence a person’s life choices. While it doesn't quite explain why seven-year-old Rhythm Pacheco is a politically correct scold, it does suggest Liberian lawyer Hitler Coleman has attempted to live down his name by defending the rule of lawDecember 22, 2019
8 mins
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The Workplace Gender Equality Agency has so assiduously promoted gender equality in its own workplace that its 'leadership team' of five is entirely female. To paraphrase George Orwell, all are equal in Equal Opportunities but some are more equal than othersDecember 13, 2019
7 mins
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It feels strange to write these words, but in a […]
November 28, 2019
8 mins
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Dark Emu's author, recipient of many awards and much acclaim, purports to have produced a work of scholarly insight and great authority. The truth, as I demonstrate in 'Bitter Harvest', is that it is a monumental fraud.December 5, 2019
13 mins
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Sir: It was interesting to read Barry Spurr’s article in the […]
November 28, 2019
5 mins
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If Australia's future is ever to match the blessing of its resources and potential of its people, the Green-Left mindset that has burdened the nation since the 1980s must be replaced by the self-confidence and nation-building activism that sustained us for nearly two centuriesDecember 11, 2019
18 mins
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The greater part of the wan measures under consideration amounts to feeble gestures at muzzling the firepower given to human rights and anti-discrimination tribunals over the past 50 years. You never fight battles on the enemy’s terms, but that is precisely what this legislation would doDecember 8, 2019
27 mins
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The 'Police Gazette' description of my grandmother is concise: 'About 40 years old, 5 foot 7 inches, medium build, fair complexion and hair: dresses shabbily and is addicted to drink.' God knows what the country girl had been through to arrive in this state. Selina is not the grandmother I expected to find when I started my family searchesFebruary 1, 2020
13 mins
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It is as if Donald Trump, like a character in a Franz Kafka story, is guilty of something, and even if nobody is entirely sure of the nature of the crime, that does not make him any less deserving of being ejected by any means necessary from 1600 Pennsylvania AvenueDecember 3, 2019
18 mins
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As a barrister and a connoisseur of English literature, Menzies understood well the power of words and meaning often forged over centuries. Nowhere was this more apparent than when Menzies and his colleagues decided on the name with which to christen their new political party seventy-five years agoDecember 18, 2019
18 mins
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It is difficult, at this stage, to see what will trigger a rebound of interest rates into more normal territory. And why is that? Because extremely low interest rates, contrary to conventional wisdom, tend to prevent the kind of robust economic recovery. What they are, and what they have now produced, is an ongoing madness afflicting central banksFebruary 7, 2020
16 mins
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One needed a working knowledge of Hokkien Chinese to understand Kuala Lumpur's rubber market of half a century ago. No such knowledge is required to grasp how government meddling in the interplay of buyers and sellers laid it low,December 23, 2019
6 mins
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Stories are theological. And because they are theological, they are […]
November 29, 2019
19 mins
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The only consensus we can manage in the modern West is to see the Christian past as a terrible place where our forebears believed things we’re too enlightened, too knowing, too “humane” to believe anymore. This isn’t a recipe for human flourishingDecember 24, 2019
17 mins
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If you were to unfurl the tattered skein of human […]
November 29, 2019
31 mins
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It is said that at a meeting of party officials […]
November 29, 2019
14 mins
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Hutus called the Tutsis cockroaches to dehumanise them, and columnist Katie Hopkins was sacked for using the term to describe illegal immigrants. But when a Remainer such as novelist Ian McEwan likens all who voted Leave to verminous pests, he and his petulant slur are hailed by fellow members of the elite for wit, style and, if you can believe it, 'panache'December 17, 2019
11 mins
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The Austrian émigré economist Friedrich Hayek didn’t much like the […]
November 29, 2019
5 mins
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Alistair Moffat's To the Island of Tides tracks the fabled St Cuthbert to Lindisfarne. A travel book, certainly, but also a bid to chart a soul unduly troubled by climate fears, Trump and Brexit. Set aside this BBC veteran's tendency to over-think and what remains is a worthwhile exercise in the pursuit of history and meaningDecember 26, 2019
11 mins
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There is something more than a little strange in recommending a deeply flawed book. But in the case of Jung Chang's 'Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister' it is appropriate, if only as a counterfoil to other and even less worthy biographies of the remarkable Soong siblingsDecember 19, 2019
9 mins
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In the novel that inspired the film which cast Robert Mitchum as the stalking, vengeful Max Cady, his quarry, played by Gregory Peck, has civilised instincts peeled away until he exults in violent retribution no less than his tormentor,. It is an ending the Hollywood of 1962 had not yet come to accept, though its day would come soon enoughDecember 28, 2019
30 mins
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The people behind 'Downton Abbey' have turned back the clock even further, illustrating the big story of America's birth in 1606 via the lives of the little people who brought it about. 'Jamestown' is more fun than high culture or history lessons -- a lush, sumptuous and expensive soap, in other wordsDecember 14, 2019
16 mins
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Murder. Means nothing to the ear. In English it could […]
November 29, 2019
20 mins
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Henry Green gathered our great and notable writers into the leaves of one literary work, just as he planted the first seeds of a lovely garden as Sydney expanded around it. He welcomed people into his home to share its beauty, people who wrote books of fiction and non-fiction reflecting Australian lifeFebruary 29, 2020
10 mins
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The whirring wheels were music to Immacolato, what did it […]
November 29, 2019
12 mins
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The yen to be taken seriously is the most craven of vices and leads to the worst outcomes. Consider, as but one example, the generations of very serious people -- state and federal politicians, mostly -- who pondered how best to manage Australia’s energy needs. The result: the world's highest energy pricesDecember 27, 2019
9 mins
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Autumn Figs My Autumn becomes a slow succession of ripening […]
November 29, 2019
2 mins
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The Morning After The mellow morning air brought with it […]
November 29, 2019
1 mins
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Brushstrokes made flesh (after the painting ‘Grandma’ by Miki Carmi) […]
November 29, 2019
2 mins
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Lamp Posts on the Edge of Water The night is […]
November 29, 2019
1 mins
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Oak Leaves at Christmas Time Puis çà, puis là, comme […]
November 29, 2019
2 mins
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Observing L.S. Lowry’s people between the mills they circulate figures […]
November 29, 2019
2 mins
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Green Passage The Patch General Store A mighty arboreal surge […]
November 29, 2019
1 mins
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A Potassium Hit’s the Thing A handy snack to fill […]
November 29, 2019
1 mins
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Twain on the Murray I wish that Time could bring […]
November 29, 2019
2 mins
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Boardrider Again the television surfer. Arms of ambivalence, he crouches, […]
November 29, 2019
2 mins
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On Seeing Mary in Guanyin I read that Japan’s secret […]
November 29, 2019
1 mins
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The Professor’s Peanut Butter Tell me a tale, Muse, of […]
November 29, 2019
7 mins
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Climber Since a steep winter walk crocked my left knee […]
November 29, 2019
1 mins
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Two fragments on bivalves I a whelp shakes off […]
November 29, 2019
1 mins
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The Peerless Pair Long ago, they set the mental Parameters […]
November 29, 2019
1 mins
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From Sheffield, England In Australia, many of our grandparents got […]
November 29, 2019
1 mins
