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
Special Moment in Hidden Valley
At Hidden Valley town camp, after a recent deluge of rain, spinifex and scrub stretch in windswept folds. This Alice Springs town camp is a hard place with acute health problems and faintly foreboding atmospherics but it is beautiful at the same time. As we near the town camp I notice the sign that says alcohol is prohibited beyond this point. My friend and I have four old warm cans of beer in the car. I wonder what we should do. Neither of us says anything so I ignore the sign and drive ahead into a world that is not our own.
Town camps are the last frontier. Most Australians know little about them, and what they do know is often negative. Yet as my visits to town camps increase I am starting to realise how important they are to the people who live there.
If you live in Alice Springs for a long time you inevitably give someone a lift to a town camp. Or at least you might get asked to. But this isn’t a normal trip. We are visiting Hidden Valley to try and catch up with Liam…
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
