![teller II](https://quadrant.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/teller-II.png)
A Good Word for Banks … and Royal Commissions
To say Australians do not like their banks is to say nothing, as it strikes me on the strength of personal observation alone that the Big Four occupy a place in the public heart not far removed from parking tickets, pubic lice and any and every English team contesting the Ashes. Interestingly though, Australians don’t get personal – their loathing is institutional, not directed at tellers behind the curtain. Even their bosses who fared so badly in the witness box at the recent banking royal commission don’t draw the extreme ire that in other countries might lead to riots and public burnings. Australians are good like that, ‘laid back’ in this wonderful country a synonym for ‘sane’.
When fury at the banks does erupt it is short-lived. As the banking inquiry bared the shoddy, sleazy and grasping policies of the major financial institutions there were eruptions of spleen almost as creatively vituperative as anything that ever passed Paul Keating’s lips. But then reality reasserts…
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