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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
Winners and losers
So for the moment it’s all over bar the shouting. Two of our country independents have shown their agrarian socialist colours and Ms. Gillard is back in power.
Sure, there’s an obvious element of ‘the lady doth protest too much, methinks’ about Julia Gillard’s claims that her new government has legitimacy. The plain fact is that it has almost no legitimacy. Her party got fewer seats in parliament. Her party got massively fewer first preference votes. Her party may, or may not, even lose in terms of the far less significant second preference votes.
Legitimacy may well be in the eye of the beholder, and in our system it is simply a fact that once every 50 or 100 years this sort of thing will happen, but that fact in no way is the same thing as saying this new Gillard/Green/independent government has legitimacy.
For the same reason it has no mandate either. It’s one of those rare cases where all that succeeds is success. It will either govern well, and gain a weird sort 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
