Latest Articles
From a perspective of some eighty years it is possible to misunderstand or underestimate the intensity of the fears—but also the hopes and aspirations—of the British people as they faced up to another colossal existential challenge, less than a full generation after what, it was now suddenly clear, had only been the first world war.
Sep 10 2024
11 mins
The Republican presidential contender is an acquired taste. Given the alternative, it's a taste persnickety conservatives should make the effort to acquire
Sep 09 2024
4 mins
Inventing the Dismissal
A piece of paper from Malcolm Fraser’s files destroyed Sir John Kerr’s post-1975 reputation. Kerr was hated and abused by those who maintained the rage, but a single sheet of paper, an A4 paper plane, toppled the last standing remnants of the man in the top hat. The document, lethally loaded with a handful of scribbled words, proved, according to the latest history of the dismissal, that “Fraser was ready and prepared. The defeat of Whitlam was comprehensive—it was a joint Kerr-Fraser effort.”[1] Paul Kelly and Troy Bramston, who wrote this, are wrong: misled by the wrong words on the wrong piece of paper.
Philip Ayres’s 1987 biography of Malcolm Fraser first revealed Fraser’s claim that on the morning of the dismissal Kerr rang and asked four questions which indicated he was about to dismiss the Labor government. It was plausible. It was no secret that the phone call had taken place. In Matters for Judgment Kerr wrote that after speaking with Gough Whitlam, “I…
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
