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
A Personal Program of Political Action
The Hon. Tony Abbott was Prime Minister of Australia from 2013 to 2015. This is a slightly edited version of his speech to the CPAC conference at Sydney in August.
* * *
The referendum now before our nation is an absolutely critical moment in our history. Are we going to be a nation of constitutional equality that reflects Bob Hawke’s immortal words that this is a country with no “hierarchy of descent” and with “no privilege of origin”? Or are we going to be a nation where some people have a special Voice based on how long some of their ancestors have been here?
Thank God for Warren Mundine and Jacinta Price: two magnificent Australians who cherish their Aboriginal ancestry and heritage, but who refused to be defined by it. One, a proud Walpiri-Celtic Australian woman; the other a proud Bundjalung Anglo-Celtic Australian man. Just as I am myself an English, Welsh, Dutch Australian who happens to live in what was once Gadigal country, which is now the great city of…
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
