Eleanor Dark was the most successful of the nationally-inclined writers of the 1930s and 40s, many of whom were women. Some had their literary limitations, but in their various ways they strived for accuracy about Australia and its society – a marked contrast with those of the past 50 years. Dark's wonderful 'The Timeless Land' leads the pack

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Seventy-nine years ago today -- December 1, 1942, the RAN corvette went down after a desperate fight with Japanese aircraft, an action that many decades later saw Seaman Teddy Sheean rightly and finally awarded the VC his gallantry warranted. With that injustice righted, there are two others matters that need to be examined and set straight

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For most Australian authors the writing life is far from lucrative, with typical earnings less than might be gained by going on the dole. Ah, but that's not the sorry lot of all authors! If you write from the port side of politics, manage a little-read compendium of intersectionality such as Meanjin or Overland or if your name is Bruce Pascoe, check the mail for another cheque from the Copyright Agency

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2021 $30,000: For six First Nations artists in 2022 at the SA Art Gallery $18,000: For new work by four First Nations’ writers in Griffith Review – “Unsettling the status quo II” $60,000: For Magabala Books (Pascoe’s publisher)for three years. $19,590: First Nations master-classes 2020 $15,000: Supporting Indigenous performance writers $11,000: For artist  Vincent Namatjira […]

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2021 $18,000: Griffith Review $20,000: Guardian Australia -Weekly reviews of Australian books $10,000: Towards Overland Journal writers’ fees for Friday Features 2020 $15,000: Adelaide Writers’ Festival $10,000: Brisbane Writers’ Festival $7500: Byron Writers’ Festival $28,290: Byron Writers’ Festival $7500: Canberra Writers’ Festival $20,000: Melbourne Writers’ Festival panel sessions $25,000: Sydney Writers Festival, panel sessions $15,000: […]

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Miranda Devine's newly released 'Laptop from Hell' is a magisterial recounting of Hunter Biden's misadventures, corruption and the astonishing extent to which he has traded on his father's influence. Not, mind you, that the current US President is any better when it comes lies and self-interest. The fruit, as they say, seldom falls far from the tree

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It is a sad day when sportsmen are required to lead blameless lives and sporting administrators set themselves up as moral arbiters to judge and punish those who have strayed. Let us set Cricket Australia's Mr Richard Freudenstein an example by declining to ask, as Christ once did, if a man so quick to judge is himself free of transgressions' private stains

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Twelve ordinary Americans defied the baying of the leftist mob, ignored the media's slanderous misreporting, saw through prosecutorial misconduct and acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse on the strength of the evidence and only the evidence. George Pell should have been so blessed, but it seems brave and rational jurors are in short supply in our part of the world

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Politicians, CMOs and the press have never done citizens the courtesy of getting their stories straight. Masks are essential, then they're not, now they are again. Vaccines banish the Wuhan curse until, upon reflection, the serried chorus of quotable experts proclaim the need for boosters. Public trust is fraying, and that can only enhance the gain of function for chaos and confusion

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Federal governments have successfully relied upon the Constitution's external affairs power to support the enactment of a great number of laws over the years. Accordingly, were the the Morrison government inclined to act against the states' vaccine mandates, it would be simplicity itself step in and protect Australians from their premiers and chief health officers

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