Latest Articles
Used as cudgels in divorce actions, domestic violence orders all too often reward perjurers and ruin innocent lives
Sep 19 2024
36 mins
The vice-presidential candidate, like many former critics, came to accept Trump was ahead of the curve on economic nationalism
Sep 18 2024
17 mins
The punditocracy won't admit that, when it comes to Trump's sharp tongue, he's a novice compared to, say, Paul Keating
Sep 18 2024
4 mins
Hal G.P. Colebatch: Four Poems
Emergency Ward
In this mad-house
Suddenly erupting about me
Of orderlies running with trolleys,
T-shirted young interns,
Bloodstained cops
And screams,
I look up and keep hold
Of the one certain thing:
My daughter’s hand
Hal G.P. Colebatch
Emergency Ward II
What words so lovely
As these ones from the intern:
“You can go home now”?
Hal G.P. Colebatch
Matchstick House
My mother’s present to me
when I was eight years old:
A little house she made for me
from glued-together matchsticks,
with bright flowers drawn
against the tiny walls,
a red paper roof,
and bright curtains
drawn on the drawn-on windows.
Promise of a home
we would one day have again.
Hal G.P. Colebatch
Today
Today is my birthday.
Today the nurses brought me a cake.
Today I made it without a walking-frame
To the end of the ward and back.
Today a square of sticking-plaster
Replaces the tube in my arm.
Today I ran my hand over my scalp
And felt the prickles
Of my hair starting to grow again.
Today my favourite nurse gave me a hug.
Today I put on my own clothes.
Today the sun is shining.
Today my wife and daughter
Arrived to take me home.
Hal G.P. Colebatch
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
