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
Nero’s Torches: A Metaphor for Justice in Victoria
The painting Nero’s Torches, by Henryk Siemiradzki (above), now hanging in the National Museum, Krakow, shows the Roman emperor watching the burning of Christians, whom he made a scapegoat for the burning of Rome in 46 AD, a crime Nero himself was suspected of committing. Could we find in this picture a metaphor for Cardinal George Pell’s treatment by the Victorian court system?
A recent article by Gavin Silbert QC, Victoria’s former Chief Crown Prosecutor, titled “Pell v The Queen” (Victorian Bar News, Issue 168), concerned the trials and appeals of George Pell. Silbert retired in March 2018 at about the time of Cardinal Pell’s committal hearing. His article was important because it was the first public comment by a person who appears to have played a role in the prosecution process of Cardinal Pell. The article provoked a letter of response in the next issue of the same journal by R.P. Dalton QC, Michael Waugh and J.X. Smith. Silbert responded to their letter in…
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
