Latest Articles
Our new G-G let slip an avalanche of heartfelt concern that recast our 236 years of indifference and guilt
Sep 17 2024
8 mins
The lust for power can be as great or greater driver of human effort as the good and humane
Sep 16 2024
11 mins
The promise a Covid royal commission has been renounced even as a sweeping inquiry is needed more than ever
Sep 16 2024
6 mins
David Mason: The Last Voyage
The Last Voyage
They came at us with rocks and spears, the oldest
of our soldiers falling with his head split open,
blood as red as his coat, while muskets rattled
from the long boat. The captain turned his back
on the attackers, shouting, perhaps, to stop
the shooting. So they stabbed him from behind
and he went face down in the water, and we,
the lucky ones, unshipped oars and got away.
I’ve thought about that day for sixty years
as every ghost I’ve lit a candle to
walks on my heart. And now the dark is large
and I have thought beyond a mast of stars,
remembering the sunlight and the blood,
and how they cooked his bones. He was no god.
What is the globe we charted? What are the waves
and rocks? What are these hurtling spears?
David Mason
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
