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Cry Me a River
The Tragedy of the Murray-Darling Basin; Quarterly Essay 77
by Margaret Simons
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Award-winning journalist Margaret Simons journeys through the troubled Murray-Darling Basin exploring the politics of water, drought and food.
The Murray-Darling Basin is the food bowl of Australia, and it's in trouble. What does this mean for the future - for water and crops, and for the people and towns that depend on it?
In Cry Me a River, acclaimed journalist Margaret Simons takes a trip through the Basin, all the way from Queensland to South Australia. She shows that its plight is environmental but also economic, and enmeshed in ideology and identity.
Her essay is both a portrait of the Murray-Darling Basin and an explanation of its woes. It looks at rural Australia and the failure of politics over decades to meet the needs of communities forced to bear the heaviest burden of change. Whether it is fish kills or state rivalries, drought or climate change, in the Basin our ability to plan for the future is being put to the test.
"The story of the Murray-Darling Basin ... is a story of our nation, the things that join and divide us. It asks whether our current systems - our society and its communities - can possibly meet the needs of the nation and the certainty of change. Is the Plan an honest compact, and is it fair? Can it work? Are our politics up to the task?" Margaret Simons, Cry Me a River
This issue also contains correspondence discussing Quarterly Essay 76, Red Flag, from Amy King, David Walker, John West, Richard McGregor, Henry Sherrell, Wanning Sun, Caroline Rosenberg, Sam Roggeveen, and Peter Hartcher
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Sending Them Home
Refugees and the New Politics of Indifference; Quarterly Essay 13
by Robert Manne
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In Sending Them Home, Robert Manne tells the stories of individual asylum seekers and finds in their experience the seeds of a devastating critique. Balancing sorrow and pity with a controlled anger, Manne develops a sustained argument about what could, and should, be done for the nine thousand refugees who remain in limbo on temporary protection visas.
Sending Them Home also contains a groundbreaking account of conditions in the offshore processing camps on Nauru, whose operations have until now been shrouded in secrecy, and a damning forensic investigation of the recent efforts to return - frequently against their will - many of those who sought our protection and whose countries remain in turmoil. Combining ethical reflection and acute political analysis, this essay initiates a new phase in the refugee debate.
'No one ought to pretend that the unanticipated arrival of the Iraqis, Afghans and Iranians did not pose real ... problems for Australia. However these problems arose not because these people were not genuine refugees. They arose, rather, precisely because the overwhelming majority of them were.' -Robert Manne, Sending Them Home
This issue also contains correspondence discussing Quarterly Essay 10, Made in England, from Phillip Knightley, Morag Fraser, Larissa Behrendt, Alan Atkinson, James Curran, Sara Wills, and Gerard Windsor
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Quarterly Essay 12 Made in England
Australia's British Inheritance
by David Malouf
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In Made in England, David Malouf looks at Australia's bond with Britain and wonders whether it wasn't the Mother Country which did most of the giving. This is an essay which presents British civilisation, the civilisation of Shakespeare and the Enlightenment and the Westminster system, as the irreducible ground on which any Australian achievement is based. Britain has always been the tolerant parent, and an older Australia could be both intensely patriotic and see itself as what it was, a transplan- tation of Britain. This relationship did not exclude America but it made for a sometimes complicated threesome of nations. This is a brilliant, deeply meditated essay by one of our finest writers about the traditions that shaped Australia and which connect it to one of the mightier traditions in world history.
"... Made in England is ... a case of one of Australia's most eminent novelists allowing himself to imagine, and by imagining to analyse, the hopes and glories, once and future, that were part of this new Britannia." -Peter Craven, Introduction
"Any argument for [the republic] based on the need to make a final break with Britain will fail." -David Malouf, Made in England
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Quarterly Essay 29 Love and Money
The Family and the Free Market
by Anne Manne
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In Love and Money, Anne Manne looks at the religion of work – its high priests and sacrificial lambs. As family life and motherhood feel the pressure of the market, she asks whether the chief beneficiaries are self-interested employers and child-care corporations.
This is an essay that ranges widely and entertainingly across contemporary culture: it casts an inquisitive eye over the modern marriage of Kevin Rudd and Therese Rein, and considers the time-bind and the shadow economy of care. Most fundamentally, it is an essay about pressure: the pressure to balance care for others and the world of work.
Manne argues that devaluing motherhood - still central to so many women's lives - has done feminism few favours. For women on the frontline of the work-centred society, it has made for hard choices. Eloquently and persuasively, Manne tells what happened when feminism adapted itself to the free market and argues that any true definition of equality has to take into account dependency and care for others.
'It is falling fertility … above all else, which gives women a political bargaining chip of a new and powerful kind. Policy makers, formerly deaf to mothers' needs, will have no choice but to listen.' -Anne Manne, Love and Money
'Anne Manne shows a depth and range of analysis that is rare in social-science writing today. Her arguments go behind the child-care debate, behind the work and family tension that is now in the foreground of most Australians' daily lives, to ask the really big questions.' -Steve Biddulph
'In Love and Money Anne Manne calls on us to imagine a radically different model of social and political life, one that centres around care rather than on gendered notions of the autonomous, unencumbered individual.' -Julie Stephens
Anne Manne is an Australian journalist and social philosopher who was has written widely on feminism, motherhood, childcare, family policy, fertility and related issues. She is a regular contributor to the Age and the Monthly. Her books include Quarterly Essay 29 Love and Money: The Family and the Free Market, The Life of I: the New Culture of Narcissism, and, Motherhood: How Should We Care for Our Children? – which was shortlisted for the 2006 Walkley non-fiction prize.
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Quarterly Essay 54 Dragon's Tail
The Lucky Country After the China Boom
by Andrew Charlton
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In Dragon's Tail, Andrew Charlton explores the supercharged rise of China and considers Australia's future as the Chinese dragon stirs and shifts.
China's rise has been perhaps the most significant economic event in two centuries, occurring 100 times more quickly and on a scale 1000 times larger than Britain's Industrial Revolution. Since 2000, Australia has been an essential part of this transformation, providing the raw materials to feed China's frantic manufacture of steel vertebrae for everything from cars and trucks to railways, apartments and office towers. China's appetite for resources has made us richer than ever before, but it has also drained the competitiveness from many parts of our economy, leaving us vulnerable.
In Dragon's Tail, Andrew Charlton shows that China's growth model is now reaching its limit, and the world's most populous economy faces a challenging transition. Whether China crashes, or crashes through, this will have dramatic implications for Australia, slowing the demand for our resources and forcing us to reassess the foundations of our wealth. Charlton looks at ways to revitalise the Australian economy and secure our prosperity in a changing world.
"Understanding China's growth model helps explain why australia has done so well in the twenty-first century. But it also explains why, at the same time, our economic anxiety is reaching a zenith: why holden is leaving, why the budget is in such an apparent quagmire, why house prices are soaring, why the dollar is so volatile. China's growth has brought us a windfall, but it is a precarious sort of prosperity." - Andrew Charlton, Dragon's Tail
Andrew Charlton is the author of Ozonomics, Fair Trade for All (written with Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz) and Quarterly Essay 44, Man-Made World, which won the 2012 John Button Prize. From 2008 to 2010 he was senior economic adviser to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. He previously worked for the London School of Economics and the United Nations and received his doctorate in economics from Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar.
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Quarterly Essay 22 Voting for Jesus
Christianity and Politics in Australia
by Amanda Lohrey
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
From the Hillsong Church to the Family First Party, Australia appears to be experiencing an evangelical revival. In Voting for Jesus, Amanda Lohrey investigates that revival – its shape and scope, and what it means for the mainstream churches and the nation's politics. She talks to young believers and analyses the machinations of the Christian Right. She discusses, with humour and insight, the appeal of the mega- church, the changing image of Jesus and the political theories of George Pell and Peter Jensen.
Voting for Jesus is also an essay about the use and abuse of religion in party politics. Examining the success of Family First, Lohrey argues that Christians in politics have far less influence than they would like – the government uses them when convenient and otherwise disregards them. Blending individual interviews with political argument, she makes a subtle case for the blessings of secularism and the variety of spiritual encounters it makes possible.
"[W]hen Peter Costello waved his arms in the Hillsong auditorium and Steve Fielding was catapulted into the Senate, Christian spokesmen were quick to claim that Australia was undergoing a religious revival, though no-one thought to relay this information to Pope Benedict XVI. In August 2005, the Pope issued a dire warning: mainstream Christianity was dying out more quickly in Australia than anywhere else in the world." –Amanda Lohrey, Voting for Jesus
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Stop at Nothing
The Life and Adventures of Malcolm Turnbull; Quarterly Essay 34
by Annabel Crabb
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
What does Malcolm Turnbull stand for? In Stop at Nothing Annabel Crabb tells the story of the man who would be prime minister.
Based on extensive interviews with Turnbull as well as those who have worked with him, this is an essay full of revelations. Crabb delves into young Malcolm's university exploits - which included co-authoring a musical with Bob Ellis - and his remarkable relationship with Kerry Packer, the man for whom he was at first a prized attack dog, and then a mortal enemy. She asks whether Turnbull - colourful, aggressive, humorous and ruthless - has what it takes to re-invigorate the Australian Liberal Party in the wake of John Howard. She discusses his vexed relationship with Kevin Rudd, and the looming presence of Peter Costello.
This is a scintillating portrait by one of the country's most incisive reporters.
"How would Australia be different if he were prime minister? What are his most closely held policy convictions? I asked dozens of Malcolm Turnbull's political colleagues this question, asking them to name three. Many of them had to pause before responding. 'You'll have to excuse me. I'm eating some chocolate,' was the best initial response, from a Liberal on the other end of a phone line." Annabel Crabb, Stop at Nothing
This issue also contains correspondence discussing Quarterly Essay 33, Quarry Vision, from Patrice Newell, Bernard Keane, Robert Merkel, Brian Toohey, John Hewson, David Karoly, and Guy Pearse
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Beyond Belief
What Future for Labor?; Quarterly Essay 6
by John Button
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In Beyond Belief, John Button looks at what has gone wrong with the Labor Party.
What has happened to the faith of the True Believers and why is the ALP so bad at recruiting new members? He offers a tough-minded analysis of what went wrong in the last election and asks why the Labor Party has turned its back on its destiny as a party of reform.
Here is a very cool account of the factions which seem to stand for nothing but their own power bases, and the unions who both give and get little from the ALP. In a withering analysis, John Button looks at the quality of Labor members and the short-sightedness of a party turning its back on ideas. This is an essay by a man who still believes in Chifley's light on the hill but who thinks the only hope lies with New Believers.
'Beyond Belief represents one of the coolest and most disheartening accounts of a great political party this country has seen. This is the Australian Labor Party seen from the perspective of an elder statesman who has an absolute belief ... in the moral superiority of the Labor cause but who seriously doubts whether the ALP will ever achieve government again and who distinctly implies that in its present state it is not fit for it.' -Peter Craven, Introduction
'After the election debacle some people blamed the Tampa and September 11. But the simple fact is that the ALP had not built an adequate policy profile or built up sufficient enthusiasm and respect for its style of politics. Without these, it had no hope of differentiating its position on refugees and asylum seekers from the government's when this became the key issue of the election.' -John Button, Beyond Belief
This issue also contains correspondence discussing Quarterly Essay 5, Girt by Sea, from Alison Broinowski, Gerard Henderson, John Hirst, Philip Ruddock, Angela Shanahan, Robyn Spencer, and Mungo MacCallum.
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Quarterly Essay 35 Radical Hope
Education and Equality for Australia
by Noel Pearson
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In Radical Hope, one of Australia's most original and provocative thinkers turns his attention to the question of education. Noel Pearson begins with two fundamental questions: How to ensure the survival of a people, their culture and way of life? And can education transform the lives of the disadvantaged many, or will it at best raise up a fortunate few?
In an essay that is personal and philosophical, wide-ranging and politically engaged, Pearson discusses what makes a good teacher and recalls his own mentors and inspirations. He argues powerfully that underclass students, many of whom are Aboriginal, should receive a rigorous schooling that gives them the means to negotiate the wider world. He examines the long-term failure of educational policy in Australia, especially in the indigenous sector, and asks why it is always "Groundhog Day" when there are lessons to be learned from innovations now underway. This is an essay filled with ideas and arguments and information – from a little-known educational revolutionary named Siegfried Englemann, to the No Excuses ethos and the Knowledge Is Power program, to Barack Obama's efforts to balance individual responsibility and historical legacy. Pearson introduces new findings from research and practice, and takes on some of the most difficult and controversial issues. Throughout, he searches for the radical centre – the way forward that will raise up the many, preserve culture, and ensure no child is left behind.
"It is time to ask: are we Aborigines a serious people? … Do we have the seriousness necessary to maintain our languages, traditions and knowledge? … The truth is that I am prone to bouts of doubt and sadness around these questions. But I have hope. Our hope is dependent upon education. Our hope depends on how serious we become about the education of our people." -Noel Pearson, Radical Hope
'His essay is essential reading for all who care about the true nature of the society we have created in Australia.' -Alex Miller
'I confess to experiencing moments of joy when reading Noel Pearson's essay. The opening pages made the rest of the piece irresistable reading.' -Fred Chaney
'Over the years, Pearson has prompted quite a few conservative Australians to a change of heart. He's now inviting us to go a little bit further than [John Howard] was prepared to, but it's a project that we should be ready to support.' -Tony Abbott
Noel Pearson is the founder and director of the Cape York Partnership, and the author of Up From the Mission, two Quarterly Essays and many essays, articles and speeches.
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Whitefella Jump Up
The Shortest Way to Nationhood; Quarterly Essay 11
by Germaine Greer
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In Whitefella Jump Up, Germaine Greer suggests that embracing Aboriginality is the only way Australia can fully imagine itself as a nation. In a wide-ranging essay she looks at the interdependence of black and white and suggests not how the Aborigine question may be settled but how a sense of being Aboriginal might save the soul of Australia.
In a sweeping and magisterial essay, touching on everything from Henry Lawson to multiculturalism, Germaine Greer argues that Australia must enter the Aboriginal web of dreams.
"[Whitefella Jump Up] is an essay about sitting down and thinking where all the politics start and what kind of legend Australia wants to place at its heart." Peter Craven, Introduction
"I'm not here offering yet another solution to the Aborigine problem ... Blackfellas are not and never were the problem. They were the solution, if only whitefellas had been able to see it." Germaine Greer, Whitefella Jump Up
This issue also contains correspondence discussing Quarterly Essay 10, Bad Company, from Tim Duncan, Evan Thornley, John Quiggin, Michael Pusey, Graham Jones, Trevor Sykes, and Gideon Haigh
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Quarterly Essay 21 What's Left?
The Death of Social Democracy
by Clive Hamilton
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In the first Quarterly Essay of 2006, Clive Hamilton throws out a challenge to Australia's party of social democracy – to both its true believers and right-wing machine men. Will it be business-as-usual and creeping atrophy, or will the Labor Party find a new way of talking to individualistic, affluent Australia?
According to Hamilton, Labor and the Left must acknowledge that the social democracy of old – with its strong unions, public ownership of assets and distinct social classes – is dead. Prosperity, more than poverty, is the dominant characteristic of Australia today. Given this, should governments confine themselves to stoking the fires of the economy and protecting the interests of wealth creators? Or is there room for a political program that embodies new ideals but can also withstand economic scare tactics? This is an original and provocative account of our present political juncture by a man of the Left who accuses the Left of irrelevance. Any new progressive politics, Hamilton argues, will need to tap into the anxieties and aspirations of the nation, find new ways to talk about morality, and thereby address deeper human needs.
"The Australian Labor Party has served its historical purpose and will wither and die as the progressive force of Australian politics." -Clive Hamilton, What's Left?
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Quarterly Essay 18 Worried Well
The Depression Epidemic and the Medicalisation of Our Sorrows
by Gail Bell
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In The Worried Well, Gail Bell investigates Australia's depression epidemic. Why, she wonders, do well over a million Australians now take antidepressant drugs?
This is a fresh, frank and independent look at the depression culture and the move to medicalise sadness. Bell examines how the prescription culture operates, scrutinising the role of big drug companies and GPs and talking to those who take – and don't take – the new antidepressants, from anxious students to lonely retirees. She finds that drug companies have invested billions in an effort to simplify a profoundly complex mental condition, and that along the way ordinary problems of living have been transformed into medical conditions. She also finds that we, the consumers, have been happy to get on board: the vocabulary of depression – "serotonin", "bipolar", "genetic predisposition" – rolls off our tongues as if each of us had studied it at medical school. In this freeranging and elegant essay, Bell takes the pulse of Australia's "worried well" and looks at alternative cures for what ails us.
'If the number of prescriptions truly reflects the numbers who are depressed, then we may need to re-design our tourist brochures. The sun-bronzed Aussie optimist with his no-worries attitude to calamity might be an outdated caricature.' -Gail Bell, The Worried Well
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American Revolution
The Fall of Wall Street and the Rise of Barack Obama: Quarterly Essay 32
by Kate Jennings
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Where were you when America elected Barack Obama?
Kate Jennings was in New York, eyes wide open, completing her take on an amazing time- 'the run-up to the election . . . a time when every day felt like a year and we became slightly crazed from worry but also mesmerised, unable to switch off the cable news stations, obsessively tracking the DOW, VIX, LIBOR spreads, polls in red states. So much at stake.' American Revolution
is a dazzling and perceptive look at the United States between hope and despair- an election-year kaleidoscope. Jennings describes how and why the US economy fell off a cliff and how an apparently endless run of primaries and an increasingly rancorous campaign culminated in a world-changing victory. She surveys the characters - Obama, Palin, McCain and the Clintons - and conveys the concepts - derivatives, bailouts and moral hazard. This is an essay that shows America in fascinating flux- it is witty and poetic, acute and evocative.
'The television networks are justifiably in raptures about the historic election of an African-American as the president. All the same . . . to reduce Obama to a label, to 'African-American,' does him - and us - a disservice. He wasn't elected for the colour of his skin; he was elected because he offered the hope of a wise, steady and healing leadership to a country bullied and battered in the name of patriotism, plundered and pillaged in the name of free markets, neglected and abandoned in the name of small government.' Kate Jennings, American Revolution
This issue also contains correspondence discussing Quarterly Essay 31, Now or Never, from Peter Cosier, Richard Branson, David Foster, Geoff Russell, Alanna Mitchell, Ian Lowe, Barney Foran, Barrie Pittock, Gwynne Dyer, and Tim Flannery.
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Trivial Pursuit
Leadership and the End of the Reform Era; Quarterly Essay 40
by George Megalogenis
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In Trivial Pursuit George Megalogenis considers Australia's political dead zone.
The Hawke, Keating and early Howard years were ones of bold reform; recently we have seen an era of power without purpose. But why? Is it down to powerful lobbies, or the media, or a failure of leadership, or all of the above? And whatever the case, how will hard decisions be taken for the future?
In Trivial Pursuit, Megalogenis dissects the cycle of polls, focus groups and presidential politics and what it has done to the prospect of serious, difficult reform. He argues that politics-as-usual has become a self-defeating game and mounts a persuasive case for a different style of leadership. From now on, he argues, it is the key divisions between young and old, and north and south, that will shape the nation's future. But can a hung parliament and a pragmatic Labor leader rise to the challenge?
"Rudd, Gillard and Abbott sought power in 2010 on the same dangerous premise, that no sacrifice is required to secure our future. Government on this basis is never worth it because the promise of painless change can never be kept. The voters knew it, which is why they spared them- selves the inevitable let-down by hanging the parliament." George Megalogenis, Trivial Pursuit
'One of Australia's most incisive political analysts' –The Australian
This issue also contains correspondence discussing Quarterly Essay 39, Power Shift, from Gareth Evans, Bruce Grant, Michael Wesley, Lyric Hughes Hale, Robert D. Kaplan, Harry Gelber, David Uren, Hugh White
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Quarry Vision
Coal, Climate Change and the End of the Resources Boom; Quarterly Essay 33
by Guy Pearse
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Australia's response to climate change must truly baffle outsiders. Why do our leaders pretend that they are leading the world in the battle against global warming? When do environmental risks outweigh economic benefits? Why dig deeper when the rest of the world is looking for alternatives to coal?
Why do our leaders pretend that they are leading the world in the battle against global warming? When do environmental risks outweigh economic benefits? Why dig deeper when the rest of the world is looking for alternatives to coal? This is an essay about 'quarry vision,' the belief that Australia's greatest asset is its mineral and energy resources - coal above all. How has this distorted our national politics and stymied action on climate change? In this powerful essay about the national interest, Guy Pearse dissects the Rudd government's climate change response- from the Garnaut report to the silver bullet of 'clean coal' and beyond. He exposes the shadowy world of the carbon lobbyists; how they think, operate and advance their agenda. He discusses the future of the coal industry and challenges the economic orthodoxy. Quarry vision, he argues, is a trap and a blind faith we can no longer afford.
'A generation ago, our leaders showed courage and vision in pushing for unilateral trade liberalisation - they knew it was good for Australia no matter how fast others acted. They were right to turn Australia's economy outward, and the establishment they challenged was wrong. Today the generation that was right on trade liberalisation has much of it wrong on climate change. They now wear the establishment mantle, and it is their turn to be challenged.' Guy Pearse, Quarry Vision
This issue contains correspondence relating to American Revolution by Kate Jennings from Gavin Kitching, and Christina Thompson
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Quarterly Essay 42 Fair Share
Country and City in Australia
by Judith Brett
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Once the country believed itself to be the true face of Australia: sunburnt men and capable women raising crops and children, enduring isolation and a fickle environment, carrying the nation on their sturdy backs. For almost 200 years after white settlement began, city Australia needed the country: to feed it, to earn its export income, to fill the empty land, to provide it with distinctive images of the nation being built in the great south land. But Australia no longer rides on the sheep's back, and since the 1980s, when "economic rationalism" became the new creed, the country has felt abandoned, its contribution to the nation dismissed, its historic purpose forgotten.
In Fair Share, Judith Brett argues that our federation was built on the idea of a big country and a fair share, no matter where one lived. We also looked to the bush for our legends and we still look to it for our food. These are not things we can just abandon. In late 2010, with the country independents deciding who would form federal government, it seemed that rural and regional Australia's time had come again. But, as Murray-Darling water reform shows, the politics of dependence are complicated. The question remains: what will be the fate of the country in an era of user-pays, water cutbacks, climate change, droughts and flooding rains? What are the prospects for a new compact between country and city in Australia in the twenty-first century?
'Once the problems of the country were problems for the country as a whole. But then government stepped back … The problems of the country were seen as unfortunate for those affected but not likely to have much impact on the rest of Australia. The agents of neoliberalism cut the country loose from the city and left it to fend for itself.' Judith Brett, Fair Share
'Brett is one of our most experienced and sober commentators on currents in the conservative/rural stream, and always deserves a hearing. Fair Share gives a clear and solid account on how we have come to focus on the Big Country as a problem.' -The Canberra Times
'A clear and compelling account of how the country went from being a key source of the nation's economy, pride and sense of self, to a problem that needs to be addressed.' -The Week
'An unalloyed expose of the plight of those who live in the countryside.' -Ross Fitzgerald, The Australian
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Quarterly Essay 10 Bad Company
The Cult of the CEO
by Gideon Haigh
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In Bad Company, Gideon Haigh scrutinises the way we have turned CEOs into tin gods. Is moral outrage the appropriate response to the collapses of Enron or HIH or are we all implicated in a crazy system? Haigh argues that the attempt to create great entrepreneurs of the new caste of CEOs by giving them shares is doomed to failure and inherently absurd. In a tough-minded, vigorous demolition job on the culture that produced the cult of the CEO, Haigh writes a mini-history of business and shows how the classic traditions of capitalism are mocked by the managerialism of the present.
"The world where the CEO is deemed to be a 'genius' at least equal to a great actor or a great sportsman is a world in which ... Gideon Haigh refuses to believe." -Peter Craven, Introduction
"The making of the modern CEO has been a story of more: more power, more discretion, more ownership, more money, more demands, more expectations and, above all, more illusions. More, as so often, has brought less ..." -Gideon Haigh, Bad Company
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Bipolar Nation
How To Win the 2007 Election; Quarterly Essay 25
by Peter Hartcher
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In Bipolar Nation, Peter Hartcher discusses the fantasies and realities at the heart of our politics. When our political leaders look at us, what do they see? What are the hopes, fears and dreams of the Australian electorate, and how might they be turned to election- winning advantage? What, most fundamentally, do we want in a prime minister?
In this scintillating and original essay, Peter Hartcher investigates today's "bipolar nation", where Australians are more economically secure, yet existentially as anxious as ever. He explains how the Lucky Country and the Frightened Country will be the two grand themes of the election year, and discusses how John Howard will set out to craft an election-winning strategy on that basis. He revisits Donald Horne's Lucky Country, looks at the legacy of Paul Keating, and analyses Kevin Rudd's many- layered effort to out-manoeuvre the Prime Minister.
"The Lucky Country finally started to make its own luck, and Howard has taken out a political monopoly on it. The Frightened Country still harbours dark anxieties, some old and some new. Howard, the necromancer of our national psyche, conjures our fears to frighten us, and then offers to banish them again to soothe us. He understands the Bipolar Nation." Peter Hartcher, Bipolar Nation
This issue also contains correspondence discussing Quarterly Essay 24, No Fixed Address, from Eric Rolls, and correspondence discussing Quarterly Essay 23, The History Question, from Kate Grenville, and Inga Clendinnen.
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Quarterly Essay 36 Australian Story
Kevin Rudd and the Lucky Country
by Mungo MacCallum
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In Australian Story, Mungo MacCallum investigates the political success of Kevin Rudd. What does he know about Australia that his opponents don't? This is a characteristically barbed and perceptive look at the challenges facing the government and the country. MacCallum argues that the things we used to rely on are not there anymore. On the Right, the blind faith in markets has recently collapsed. The Left lost its guiding light with the demise of the socialist dream.
In entertaining fashion, MacCallum dissects the myths that made Australia: the idea of the Lucky Country, with endless pastures, a workingman's paradise, a new Britannia, and more. In newly uncertain times, MacCallum argues, Rudd has sought to tap into these myths, in the process reclaiming them from John Howard.
Australian Story is both a canny assessment of the Rudd government's election-winning approach and a broader meditation on the nation's core traditions at a time of major change and challenge.
"Rudd has made it clear that he is looking forward to a long time in office …If the polls are to be believed, he is still seen as the best man for the job by an overwhelming majority of Australians. But why? What is it about this repetitive, boring, God-bothering nerd that appeals to the proverbially laid-back, cynical, disengaged public?" -Mungo MacCallum, Australian Story
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Quarterly Essay 52 Found in Translation
In Praise of a Plural World
by Linda Jaivin
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Whether we're aware of it or not, we spend much of our time in this globalised world in the act of translation. Language is a big part of it, of course, as anyone who has fumbled with a phrasebook in a foreign country will know, but behind language is something far more challenging to translate: culture. As a traveller, a mistranslation might land you a bowl of who-knows-what when you think you asked for noodles, and mistranslations in international politics can be a few steps from serious trouble. But translation is also a way of entering new and exciting worlds, and forging links that never before existed.
Linda Jaivin has been translating from Chinese for more than thirty years. While her specialty is subtitles, she has also translated song lyrics, poetry and fiction, and interpreted for ABC film crews, Chinese artists and even the English singer Billy Bragg as he gave his take on socialism to some Beijing rockers. In Found in Translation she reveals the work of the translator and considers whether different worldviews can be bridged. She pays special attention to China and the English-speaking West, Australia in particular, but also discusses French, Japanese and even the odd phrase of Maori. This is a free-ranging essay, personal and informed, about translation in its narrowest and broadest senses, and the prism – occasionally prison – of culture.
"About six years ago, President George W. Bush was delivering a speech at a G8 summit, when, made impatient by the process of translation, he interrupted his German interpreter: 'Everybody speaks English, right?' …" -Linda Jaivin, Found in Translation
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Quarterly Essay 8 Groundswell
The Rise of the Greens
by Amanda Lohrey
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Who are the Greens, where do they come from and where are they going? In the wake of the Cunningham by-election and the Tasmanian results Amanda Lohrey, novelist and political thinker, looks at the philosophical background of the Greens, the history of the campaigns to save the wilderness and the election figures that suggest the Greens are making powerful advances towards becoming the major 'minor' party in Australia.
This is a compelling portrait of the Greens and of their leader Bob Brown which depicts them as the most formidable attempt that has been made on the Left to deal with the damage of globalisation.
'In Australia it is the Green, not the Democrats, who have emerged as the authentic representatives of this developing constituency … They are not a collection of ersatz Liberals … [they] are clear on the bottom-line accounting … There is a crucial sense in which the Greens know where they come from.' -Amanda Lohrey, Groundswell
'Bob Brown in Amanda Lohrey's characterisation is certainly a man for all seasons. She emphasizes the skepticism as well as the spirituality and the kind of personal integrity that can hush a House of Parliament by force not of charisma but of conviction.' -Peter Craven
'She takes us systematically and in economic detail through the origins of the Green Movement as a new paradigm of what politics is or should be about – the ecological, the knowledgeable, respectful and restrained use of nature.' -Canberra Times
'Bringing her novelist's eye to the history of environmental politics, Amanda Lohery paints a vivid picture of the Greens' formative decades.' -the Age
Amanda Lohrey has written two Quarterly Essays, Groundswell: The Rise of the Greens and Voting for Jesus: Christianity and Politics in Australia. She is also the author of the novella Vertigo and of the short story collection, Reading Madame Bovary, which won the Fiction Prize and the Steele Rudd Short Story Award in the 2011 Queensland Literary Awards. Her novel, The Philosopher's Doll, was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. In 2012 she was awarded the Patrick White Literary Award.
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The History Question
Who Owns the Past?; Quarterly Essay 23
by Inga Clendinnen
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In The History Question, Inga Clendinnen looks past the skirmishes and pitched battles of the history wars and asks what's at stake - what kind of history do we want and need? Should our historians be producing the "objective record of achievement" that the Prime Minister has called for? For Clendinnen, historians cannot be the midwives of national identity and also be true to their profession: history cannot do the work of myth.
For Clendinnen, historians cannot be the midwives of national identity and also be true to their profession: history cannot do the work of myth. Clendinnen illuminates the ways in which history, myth and fiction differ from one another, and why the differences are important. In discussing what good history looks like, she pays tribute to the human need for storytelling but notes the distinctive critical role of the historian. She offers a spirited critique of Kate Grenville's novel The Secret River, and discusses the Stolen Generations and the role of morality in history-writing. This is an eloquent and stimulating essay about a subject that has generated much heat in recent times: how we should record and regard the nation's past.
"Who owns the past? In a free society, everyone. It is a magic pudding belonging to anyone who wants to cut themselves a slice, from legend-manufacturers through novelists looking for ready-made plots, to interest groups out to extend their influence." Inga Clendinnen, The History Question
This issue also contains correspondence discussing Quarterly Essay 22,Voting for Jesus, from Marion Maddox, Edmund Campion, Peter Jensen, Paul Collins, Tim Costello, Andrew Dunstall, Bill James, Angela Shanahan, Tamas Pataki, and Amanda Lohrey
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Quarterly Essay 46 Great Expectations
Government, Entitlement and an Angry Nation
by Laura Tingle
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Rather than relaxed and comfortable, Australians are disenchanted with politics and politicians. In Quarterly Essay 46 Laura Tingle shows that the reason for this goes to something deep in Australian culture: our great expectations of government.
Since the deregulation era of the 1980s, Tingle finds, governments can do less, but we wish they could do more. From Hawke to Gillard, each prime minister has grappled with this dilemma. Keating sought to change expectations, Howard to feed a culture of entitlement, Rudd to reconceive the federation. Through all of this, and back to our origins, runs an almost childlike sense of the government as saviour and provider that has remained constant even as the world has changed.
Now we are an angry nation, and the Age of Entitlement is coming to an end. What will a different politics look like? And, Tingle asks, even if a leader surfs the wave of anger all the way to power, what answer can be given to our great expectations?
"It is wrong to see the anger of the last few years as a 'one-off,' which might go away at the next election. The things we are angry about betray the changes that have been taking place over recent decades. Politicians no longer control interest rates, the exchange rate, or wages, prices or industries that were once protected or even owned by government. Voters are confused about what politicians can do for them in such a world." -Laura Tingle, Great Expectations
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In Denial
The Stolen Generations and the Right; Quarterly Essay 1
by Robert Manne
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In this national bestseller Robert Manne attacks the right-wing campaign against the Bringing them home report that revealed how thousands of Aboriginal children had been taken from their parents.
What was the role of Paddy McGuinness as editor of Quadrant? How reliable was the evidence that led newspaper columnists from Piers Akerman in the Sydney Daily Telegraph to Andrew Bolt in the Melbourne Herald Sun to deny the gravity of the injustice done?
In a powerful indictment of past government policies towards the indigenous Australians, Robert Manne has written a brilliant polemical essay which doubles as a succinct history of how indigenous Australians were mistreated and an exposure of the ignorance of those who want to deny that history.
'In complex intellectual conflicts, there will always be argument about whether the antagonists are committed to finding the truth or to winning the battle. This essay tells us that Robert Manne is intent on finding the truth.' – Morag Fraser, editor Eureka Street
'[In Denial] is a work of both the head and the heart. It is carefully researched and powerfully expressed. It needs to be widely read. – The Hon. P.J. Keating, former Prime Minister of Australia
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Quarterly Essay 48 After the Future
Australia's New Extinction Crisis
by Tim Flannery
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Australia is home to many animals and plants found nowhere else on earth, making Australians caretakers of a unique heritage in a land that tolerates few mistakes. Yet, in After the Future, Tim Flannery shows that this country is now on the brink of a new wave of extinctions, which threatens to leave our national parks as "marsupial ghost towns." Why are species becoming extinct despite the tens of millions of dollars being spent to protect nature? And what more should be done?
In this passionate and illuminating essay, Flannery tells the story of the human impact on the continent. He revisits his Future Eaters hypothesis, discussing how firestick farming helped to shape the ecology and preserve native fauna. He looks at the way recent governments, in tandem with an indifferent populace and a rabid libertarian right, have let environmental knowledge and commitments erode. Finally, he describes new approaches to wildlife conservation and argues that Australia must take the lead on these. This is an essay that rings the alarm on behalf of the natural world, and asks us to think again about protection of its irreplaceable riches.
'Such is the depth of public ignorance about Australia's extinction crisis that most people are unaware that it is occurring, while those who do know of it commonly believe that our national parks and reserves are safe places for threatened species. In fact the second extinction wave is now in full swing, and it's emptying our national parks and wildlife reserves as ruthlessly as other landscapes.' -Tim Flannery, After the Future
'Flannery is known as a passionate advocate for conservation, but rarely has he sounded so angry.' -Fiona Capp, Sydney Morning Herald
'He's a scientist of world standing, a prolific and bestselling writer, a noted explorer, passionate about the Australian environment, and believes global warming is a calamitous crisis facing us all. Tim Flannery is also a controversial, outspoken stirrer who promises … to tread on toes if he has to, to get his blunt views across.' –Kerry O'Brien, The 7:30 Report
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Quarterly Essay 37 What's Right?
The Future of Conservatism in Australia
by Waleed Aly
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Where did the Right go wrong? With the departure of George W. Bush and John Howard, conservative parties in the US and Australia entered a period of turmoil. Foreign affairs, economics, the environment – all were issues to be avoided. Most profoundly, conservatives no longer seemed to have a compelling vision of the future – and arguably still don't. How did the Right end up in this state? How might conservatism renew itself?
In this illuminating essay, Waleed Aly begins by unravelling the terms "Right" and "Left," arguing that these have become meaningless. He contends that conservative parties have backed themselves into a corner by embracing free-market extremism, and that an illiberal social politics – including prescribing who or what is Australian – is not the answer, electorally tempting though it may be.
Aly discusses what a better conservatism might look like. He predicts that the key issues of the day, such as climate change and the financial crisis, mean a reactionary brand of politics is unlikely to work because public opinion is swiftly leaving it behind. He draws on the work of conservative thinkers, past and present, to sketch the kind of conservatism that seems scarce in Australia, but which would be a welcome presence here. This is a supple, clear and original argument for political change.
"Our political discourse is drenched in Left and Right because it is so deeply impoverished. These terms are the hallmark of a political conversation that is obsessed with teams and uninterested in ideas." -Waleed Aly, What's Right?
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Quarterly Essay 45 Us and Them
On the Importance of Animals
by Anna Krien
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
For the first time in history, humans sit unchallenged at the top of the food chain. As we encroach on the wild and a vast wave of extinctions gathers force, how has our relationship with animals changed?
In this dazzling essay, Anna Krien investigates the world we have made and the complexity of the choices we face. From pets to the live cattle trade, from apex predators to scientific experiments, Krien shows how we should – and do – treat our fellow creatures. As she delves deeper, she finds that animals can trigger primal emotions in us, which we are often unwilling to acknowledge. This is a clear-eyed meditation on humanity and animality, us and them, that brings out the importance of animals in an unforgettable way.
"I am not weighing up whether our treatment of animals is just, because it isn't. That age-old debate is a farce – deep down we all know it. The real question is, just how much of this injustice are we prepared to live with?" -Anna Krien, Us and Them
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Quarterly Essay 39 Power Shift
Australia's Future Between Washington and Beijing
by Hugh White
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In Power Shift, Hugh White considers Australia's future between Beijing and Washington. As the power balance shifts, and China's infl uence grows, what might this mean for our nation?
Throughout our history, we have counted fi rst on British then on American primacy in Asia. Now the rise of China as an economic powerhouse challenges US dominance and raises questions for Australia that go well beyond diplomacy and trade – questions about our place in the world, our loyalties and our long-term security.
Will China replace the US as regional leader? If so, we will be dealing with an undemocratic and vastly more powerful nation. Will China wield its power differently from the US? If so, should we continue to support America and so divide Asia between our biggest ally and our biggest trading partner? How to defi ne the national interest in the Asian century?
This visionary essay considers the shape of the world to come and the implications for Australia as it seeks to carve out a place in the new world order.
"This year China overtook Japan to become the world's second-biggest economy. It is already bigger, relative to the US, than the Soviet Union ever was during the Cold War. A Chinese challenge to American power in Asia is no longer a future possibility but a current reality. Few issues are more important to Australia's future than how this plays out. You would not know it to listen to our leaders." -Hugh White, Power Shift
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That Sinking Feeling
Asylum Seekers and the Search for the Indonesian Solution; Quarterly Essay 53
by Paul Toohey
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Paul Toohey searches for the solution our politicians have been unwilling or unable to find, and asks whether, amid the diplomatic turmoil, we've now missed our chance.
Tony Abbott promised to stop the boats. With the help of Kevin Rudd's 'PNG solution,' he has. But at what cost?
In Quarterly Essay 53, Paul Toohey tells the dramatic stories of asylum seekers heading from Java to Australia, investigates people-smuggling and witnesses the aftermath of a sinking at sea.
Toohey also examines Australian attitudes to boat people, and what politicians have made of these. He assesses the diplomatic fall-out from turning back boats and asks- have we missed our chance for an Indonesian solution, a realistic alternative to the brutally effective system we now have? This is an unflinching look at people at their worst and best - and most ruthless and most vulnerable - by one of Australia's finest reporters.
'Any hope for a genuine regional solution rested with Indonesia, the final stepping stone to Australia . . . Why did neither Howard, in his better times with Indonesia, or Labor, from 2007, seek a one-on-one solution with Indonesia? 'The Indonesian Solution.' Those words would have been the most convincing political statement any Australian government could ever deliver to Australian voters on asylum seekers.' Paul Toohey, That Sinking Feeling
This issue contains correspondence relating to Lost in Translation by Linda Jaivin from Rowan Callick, Brian Nelson, Julie Rose, John Minford, and Linda Jaivin
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Quarterly Essay 55 a Rightful Place
Race, Recognition and a More Complete Commonwealth
by Noel Pearson
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
The nation has unfinished business. After more than two centuries, can a rightful place be found for Australia's original peoples?
Soon we will all decide if and how indigenous Australians will be recognised in the constitution. In the words of Professor Greg Craven: "We have a committed prime minister, and a committed opposition. We have a receptive electorate. There will never be a better time. We have no choice but to address the question. If constitutions deal with fundamental things, our indigenous heritage is pretty fundamental."
In A Rightful Place, Noel Pearson shows how the idea of "race" was embedded in the constitution, and the distorting effect this has had. Now there is a chance to change it – if we can agree on a way forward. Pearson shows what constitutional recognition means, and what it could make possible: true equality and a renewed appreciation of an ancient culture. This is a wide-ranging, eloquent call for justice, an essay of remarkable power that traverses history and culture to make the case for change.
"As long as we have a constitution that characterises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples on the basis of race, it will have deleterious implications for their citizenship. It must be removed … This is not just a matter of symbolism. I think this will be a matter of psychology. The day we come to regard ourselves as people with a distinct heritage, with distinct cultures and languages but not of a distinct race will be a day of psychological liberation. And it will also be liberating for those in the wider community …" Noel Pearson, A Rightful Place
'Noel Pearson's searing Quarterly Essay is a watershed moment for this country, a call for us to deal with unfinished business that tarnishes our nation … a landmark essay' -Patricia Karvelas, The Australian
'Clarity, goodwill, flexibility and realism ... Noel Pearson offers them in abundance.' -Paul Kelly
'A Rightful Place is an admirable addition to the Pearson oeuvre – intellectually braceing and cogently argued.' -Henry Reynolds
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Quarterly Essay 49 Not Dead Yet
Labor's Post-Left Future
by Mark Latham
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
With an election looming and criticism of the ALP now a national pastime, Mark Latham considers the future for Labor. The nation has changed, but can the party?
With wit and insight, Latham reveals an organisation top-heavy with factional bosses protecting their turf. At the same time Labor's traditional working-class base has long been eroding. People who grew up in fibro shacks now live in double-storey affluence. Families once resigned to a lifetime of blue-collar work now expect their children to be well-educated professionals and entrepreneurs.
Latham explains how Labor has always succeeded as a grassroots party, and argues for reforms to clear out the apparatchiks and dead wood. Then there are the key policy challenges: what to do about the Keating economic legacy, education and poverty. Latham examines the rise of a destructive and reactionary far-right under the wing of Tony Abbott. He also makes the case that climate change is the ultimate challenge – and even opportunity – for a centre-left party.
Not Dead Yet is an essential contribution to political debate, which addresses the question: how can Labor reinvent itself and speak to a changed Australia?
"The grand old party of working-class participation has become a virtual party. In no other part of society … could an organisation function this way and expect to survive. This is the core delusion of 21st-century democracy, that political parties can fragment and hollow out, yet still win the confidence of the people." -Mark Latham, Not Dead Yet
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Quarterly Essay 31 Now or Never
A Sustainable Future for Australia?
by Tim Flannery
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Sometime this century, after 4 billion years, some of Earth's regulatory systems will pass from control through evolution by natural selection, to control by human intelligence. Will humanity rise to the challenge?
This landmark essay by Tim Flannery is about sustainability, our search for it in the twenty-first century, and the impact it might have on the environmental threats that confront us today. Flannery discusses in detail three potential solutions to the most pressing of the sustainability challenges: climate change. He argues that Australia has a special responsibility when it comes to climate change, and that our prime minister could be a critical player on the global stage in Copenhagen in December 2009 - but only if we take swift and effective action and make sharp cuts in emissions. Brilliant and terrifying, Now or Never is a call to arms by Australia's leading thinker and writer on the natural world.
"Throughout the latter part of 2007 and into 2008, I found it increasingly hard to read the scientific findings on climate change without despairing ... I think that there is now a better than even chance that, despite our best efforts, in the coming two or three decades Earth's climate system will pass the point of no return." -Tim Flannery, Now Or Never
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Quarterly Essay 2 Appeasing Jakarta
Australia's Complicity in the East Timor Tragedy
by John Birmingham
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In the second Quarterly Essay, John Birmingham takes apart the folly of twenty-five years of Australian policy on East Timor. How did Gough Whitlam and Richard Woolcott in 1975 saddle this country with a policy that was bound to lead to the intervention of 1999? Why were shrewder voices ignored and why did we persist with an unworkable model? Where does this leave us with an Indonesia still dominated by the old power elites? And what was the tragedy like for the people of East Timor? John Birmingham has written a passionate narrative history of the East Timor question which never turns away from the slaughter and sorrow of the people who suffered it.
Appeasing Jakarta is an analysis of what happened in 1975 when we condoned Indonesia's intervention and what happened in 1999 when we stood against it ...John Birmingham is deadly in his disdain for the way a defunct paradigm...was clung to like a dogma...but [this] is also an essay about the human cost...written in flowing colours with a strong narrative streak and a swashbuckling power of dispatch... -Peter Craven, Introduction
It was a policy of wilful blindness, made possible only because we were always somewhere else when the trigger was pulled."" -John Birmingham, Appeasing Jakarta
John Birmingham's books include the cult memoir He Died with a Felafel in His Hand, Leviathan: The Unauthorised Biography of Sydney and the fiction series Weapons of Choice. He is the author of two Quarterly Essays, Appeasing Jakarta: Australia's Complicity in the East Timor Tragedy and A Time for War: Australia as a Military Power. He is a regular contributor to the Monthly.
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Quarterly Essay 16 Breach of Trust
Truth, Morality and Politics
by Raimond Gaita
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In the fourth Quarterly Essay of 2004, Raimond Gaita confronts essential questions about politics as it is practised today. What do politicians mean when they talk about "trust"? Why is truthfulness important? Are we as politically and morally divided as the Americans? Does the war on terror authorise leaders to do things that once were considered beyond the pale?
Gaita argues for a conception of politics in which morality is not an optional extra. He discusses why successful politicians must at times be economical with the truth, but shows a way beyond cynicism on the one hand and moralising on the other. Politics, he says, is conceivably a noble vocation, as well as potentially a tragic one. He looks closely at patriotism and its distortions, and the temptation to betray our deepest values in the act of protecting ourselves. Combining gentle evocation with gloves-off argument, Breach of Trust is a clarion call from one of Australia's leading thinkers.
"I have never met anyone who believes that politicians should never lie ... But of course there are limits. They are not set in the heavens, but in culture." -Raimond Gaita, Breach Of Trust
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Quarterly Essay 3 the Opportunist
John Howard and the Triumph of Reaction
by Guy Rundle
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In the third Quarterly Essay, Guy Rundle comes to grips with John Howard, the prime minister who, on the eve of an election, seems to have turned round his political fortunes by spurning refugees and writing blank cheques for America's War on Terror.
This is a brilliant account of John Howard's dominant ideas, his concerted 'dreaming' with its emphasis on unity and national identity that reveals him to be the most reactionary PM we have ever had, the only political leader who would allow ideas like those of One Nation to dominate the mainstream of Australian politics in order to improve his political chances. Rundle puts Howard in the context of the economic liberalism he shares with his colleagues and opponents and the conservative social ideology that sets him apart. It is a complex portrait in a radical mirror which relates John Howard to everything from Menzies's 'forgotten people' to the inadvertent glamour of the government's antidrug advertising. It is also a plea for right-thinking people of every political persuasion to resist the call to prejudice and reaction.
'A portrait of a political opportunist who is also ... a sincere reactionary: putting back the clock because he believes in it, but also fanning the whirlwind of unreason in order to save his political skin.' -Peter Craven, Introduction
'The coincident occurrence of the asylum seeker confrontation and the attack on the U.S. has made visible the most dangerous and damaging thing he has done to the Australian polity...and that is to deepen contempt for such protection as we did have from unbridled executive power, mass hysteria, the rush to surrender our freedoms and offer them up on the alter of crisis.' -Guy Rundle, The Opportunist
Guy Rundle was a co-founding editor of Arena, a magazine of political and social comment. Formerly a theatre critic for the Age, he has written and produced a number of TV programs and stage shows, and contributes regularly to the Age , the Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald and Spiked, and is currently Crikey's global correspondent-at-large. He is the author of two Quarterly Essays, The Opportunist: John Howard and the Triumph of Reaction and Bipolar Nation: How to Win the 2007 Election. His most recent book is the award-winning Down to the Crossroads: On the Trail of the 2008 US Election.
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Quarterly Essay 41 the Happy Life
The Search for Contentment in the Modern World
by David Malouf
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In The Happy Life, David Malouf returns to one of the most fundamental questions and gives it a modern twist: what makes for a happy life?
With grace and profundity, Malouf discusses new and old ways to talk about contentment and the self. In considering the happy life – what it is, and what makes it possible – he returns to the "highest wisdom" of the classics, looks at how, thanks to Thomas Jefferson's way with words, happiness became a "right", and examines joy in the flesh as depicted by Rubens and Rembrandt.
In a world become ever larger and impersonal, he fi nds happiness in an unlikely place. This is an essay to savour and reflect upon by one of Australia's greatest novelists.
"How is it, when the chief sources of human unhappiness, of misery and wretchedness, have largely been removed from our lives … that happiness still eludes so many of us? … What is it in us, or in the world we have created, that continues to hold us back?" -David Malouf, The Happy Life
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Rabbit Syndrome
Australia and America; Quarterly Essay 4
by Don Watson
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In Rabbit Syndrome Don Watson takes an analytical look at the ways in which the Australian imagination has always been dominated by America.
Why are they so much better than we are? Even when it comes to producing books like the Updike "Rabbit" sequence that tell us what we are like? Why are they also a land of executioners who have nevertheless created the least bad empire the world has seen? Can we really expect to be deputies to America? And what about our own sacred story (the progressive one) that we have sold for the sake of the Americanisation of our own society? If we can't have a friendly independent relationship with America, why don't we go the whole hog and join them? In a dark, brooding, moody essay, Don Watson plays on the paradoxes of Australia's feeling about America and offers a scathing view of an Australian culture that is asking to be engulfed by its great and powerful friend because the mental process is already so advanced. This is a brilliant meditation round a set of paradoxes that are central to our long-term anxieties and hopes.
"... this is a Quarterly Essay that plays on our most fundamental fears, including the most terrifying of all, that we shall cease to exist because we have never been." Peter Craven, Introduction
"The Australian story does not work anymore, or not well enough ... to hang the modern story on ... The most useful thing is to recognise that ... we took the biggest step we have ever taken towards the American social model. And this has profound implications for how we think of Australia and how we make it cohere." Don Watson, Rabbit Syndrome
This issue also contains correspondence discussing Quarterly Essay 3, The Opportunist, from John Birmingham, Paul Bongiorno, Christopher Pearson, Tony Walker, and Guy Rundle
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Clivosaurus
The Politics of Clive Palmer: Quarterly Essay 56
by Guy Rundle
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In Clivosaurus, Guy Rundle observes Palmer close up, examining his rise to prominence, his beliefs, his deals and his politics – not to mention his poetry. Rundle shows that neither the government nor the media have been able to take Palmer's measure.
Who is Clive Palmer, and what does his ascent say about Australia's creaking political system?
In Clivosaurus, Guy Rundle observes Palmer close up, examining his rise to prominence, his beliefs, his deals and his politics - not to mention his poetry. Rundle shows that neither the government nor the media have been able to take Palmer's measure. Convinced they face a self-interested clown, they have failed to recognise both his tactical flexibility and the consistency of his centre-right politics.
This is a story about the Gold Coast, money in politics, Canberra's detached political caste and the meaning of Palmer's motley crew. Above all, it is a brilliantly entertaining portrait of 'the man at the centre of a perfect storm for Australian democracy, a captain steering his vessel artfully in the whirlpool.'
'In the first half of the year we saw Tony Abbott treated with deference to his values and beliefs, as his chaotic and lying government slid from one side of the ring to the other, while Clive Palmer, ploughing a steady course on a range of key issues, was treated as the inconstant one. No wonder no one could tell what he was going to do next - they weren't even bothering to look at where he had come from.' Guy Rundle, Clivosaurus
This issue also contains correspondence discussing Quarterly Essay 55, A Rightful Place, from Megan Davis, Rachel Perkins, Celeste Liddle, John Hirst, Henry Reynolds, Peter Sutton, Paul Kelly, Robert Manne, and Fred Chaney.
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Quarterly Essay 9 Beautiful Lies
Population and Environment in Australia
by Tim Flannery
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In the first Quarterly Essay of 2003, Tim Flannery launches an attack on the various lies that we tell ourselves about our resources, our past and our future. The lie of terra nullius that made us ignore the Aborigines' knowledge of the environment. The lie of the Snowy Mountains Scheme that did untold damage to our river system for the sake of white immigration. The lie that rushing to preserve wilderness will save endangered species. Tim Flannery is also skeptical about the myths of multiculturalism, and he argues that we cannot sustain a larger population given our resources. In his conclusion, he asks how we can discharge our responsibility to the refugees who are the victims of American policies we collude with.
'This essay is written as a thundering no to the characteristic Australian assumption that 'She'll be right' ... This is a Quarterly Essay written in the passionate belief that we need a coherent policy on population ... If we do not have one, we will never be in a position to do justice to ... the dispossessed people of the earth; indeed our children's children will ... think we have dishonoured their birthright.' -Peter Craven, Introduction
'The refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol will almost certainly, in time, be remembered as the greatest failure of the Howard government - Tampa, detention camps and Iraq notwithstanding.' -Tim Flannery, Beautiful Lies
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Quarterly Essay 27 Reaction Time
Climate Change and the Nuclear Option
by Ian Lowe
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Australia is at a crossroads: if we are to halt global warming, do we need to stride resolutely into a nuclear future?
In this engrossing and persuasive essay, Ian Lowe discusses his one-time belief in the benefits of nuclear power and explains why that belief has faltered. He engages with the leading environmentalists, like James Lovelock, who advocate going nuclear, as well as with the less savoury aspects of the Australian politicking. He discusses whether other countries might need to use nuclear power, even if Australia doesn't, and offers an authoritative survey of Australia's energy alternatives - from solar and wind power to clean coal. Above all, he explains why taking up the nuclear option would be a decisive step in the wrong direction - economically, environmentally, politically and socially.
"Promoting nuclear power as the solution to climate change is like advocating smoking as a cure for obesity. That is, taking up the nuclear option will make it much more difficult to move to the sort of sustainable, ecologically healthy future that should be our goal." -Ian Lowe, Reaction Time
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Quarterly Essay 47 Political Animal
The Making of Tony Abbott
by David Marr
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Tony Abbott is the most successful Opposition leader of the last forty years, but he has never been popular. Now Australians want to know: what kind of man is he, and how would he perform as prime minister?
In this dramatic portrait, David Marr shows that as a young Catholic warrior at university, Abbott was already a brutally effective politician. He later led the way in defeating the republic and, as the self-proclaimed "political love child" of John Howard, rose rapidly in the Liberal Party. His reputation as a head-kicker and hard-liner made him an unlikely leader, but when the time came, his opposition to the emissions trading scheme proved decisive.
Marr shows that Abbott thrives on chaos and conflict. Part fighter and part charmer, he is deeply religious and deeply political. What happens, then, when his values clash with his need to win? This is the great puzzle of his career, but the closer he is to taking power, the more guarded he has become.
"Since witnessing the Hewson catastrophe at first hand, Abbott has worn a mask. He has grown and changed. Life and politics have taught him a great deal. But how this has shaped the fundamental Abbott is carefully obscured. What has been abandoned? What is merely hidden on the road to power? What makes people so uneasy about Abbott is the sense that he is biding his time, that there is a very hard operator somewhere behind that mask, waiting for power." -David Marr, Political Animal
Winner of the 2013 John Button Prize
'This is no character assassination. Marr is not afraid to praise Abbott in places and respects his political skills and intelligence.' -Michael McGuire, The Advertiser
'David Marr is as brilliant a biographer and journalist as this country has produced.' -Peter Craven, Australian Spectator
'If you want to hit a man where it hurts, hit him in the groin. David Marr doesn't miss in his Quarterly Essay profile.' -Chris Wallace, Canberra Times
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Quarterly Essay 44 Man-Made World
Choosing Between Progress and Planet
by Andrew Charlton
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Witnessing at first-hand the failure of the Copenhagen Climate Conference and wondering what went wrong, Andrew Charlton realised the truth of a colleague's words: 'The world is split between those who want to save the planet and those who want to save themselves.'
In this groundbreaking essay, Charlton discusses the rift that will shape our future- progress versus planet- rich versus poor. In recent times environmentalists have argued with mounting force that the growth of human activity on our planet is unsustainable. We are, they claim, on a collision course with destiny. But, the developing world counters, environmental threats, dire as they may be, are not the only challenges we face. Indeed, these can seem a distant danger compared to the daily tragedies of life in slums and villages.
Across the globe, economists and environmentalists vie over who has the right response to climate change, population growth and food scarcity. In Australia, this battle has plunged our politics into one of its most tumultuous periods. In Man-Made World Charlton evaluates some of the proposed solutions - renewable and nuclear energy, organic and genetically modified food - argues that our descendants will only thank us if we find a way to preserve both the natural world and human progress.
'Progress has its price. Each step of human advancement has left a foot-print on the planet. Today our two defining challenges are managing climate change and eliminating global poverty. In Copenhagen we learned that these challenges are inseparable.' Andrew Charlton, Man-Made World.
This edition of Quarterly Essay also includes a piece by one of Australia's leading writers, Richard Flanagan, entitled The Australian Disease; On the Decline of Love and the Rise of Non-freedom.
This issue also contains correspondence discussing Quarterly Essay 43, Bad News, from Nick Cater, Jay Rosen, Tim Flannery, Mark Latham, Jack Waterford, Rodney Tiffen, Ian Lowe, and Robert Manne.
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Power Trip
The Political Journey of Kevin Rudd; Quarterly Essay 38
by David Marr
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Power Trip shows the making of Kevin Rudd, prime minister. In Eumundi, where Rudd was born, David Marr investigates the formative tragedy of his life: the death of his father and what came after. He tracks the transformation of a dreamy kid into an implacably determined youth, already set on the prime ministership. He examines Rudd's years as Wayne Goss's right-hand man in Queensland, his relentless work in federal Opposition – from Sunrise to AWB – and finally his record as prime minister.
In Rudd's Queensland years, Marr finds strange patterns that will recur: a tendency to chaos, a mania for control and a strange mix of heady ambition and retreat. All through this dazzling and revelatory essay, Marr seeks to know what drives an extraordinarily driven man. As Power Trip concludes, he enters into a conversation with the prime minister in which much becomes clear.
"Rudd had sold himself to the Australian people as a new kind of leader: a man of intellect and values out to reshape the future. If he isn't that, people are asking, what is he? And who is he? ... Millions of words have been written about him since he emerged from the Labor pack half-a-dozen years ago, but Rudd remains hidden in full view." David Marr, Power Trip
This issue also contains correspondence discussing Quarterly Essay 37, What's Right?, from John Hirst, George Brandis, Tom Switzer, Andrew Norton, George Megalogenis, Jean Curthoys, Martin Krygier, and Waleed Aly
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The Good Fight
What Does Labor Stand For?; Quarterly Essay 100
by Sean Kelly
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
The 100th issue of Australia's leading agenda-setting journal of politics, culture and debate
In Quarterly Essay 100, Sean Kelly considers the enigma of the Albanese government. With wide yet shallow support, will it change the country? Does it have big ideas, or is it content just to become "the natural party of government"?
Kelly gives a definitive account of Albanese's political style and asks what lies behind it. In speaking to a fragmented, disengaged electorate, the Prime Minister places a high value on moderation. Often that means ducking fights with entrenched interests. But this runs the risk of embedding an ever more unequal nation, led by a government that can seem gutless.
In this subtle and brilliant essay, Kelly explores whether Labor is still up for the good fight.
"Labor has cast itself as a version of what the conservatives once were: the defender of the way things are. This may well appeal to large numbers of Australians, as it did in this last election. [But] Labor's task, historically, has been to change things on behalf of those who desperately need them to change." -Sean Kelly, The Good Fight
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Highway to Hell
Climate Change and Australia's Future; Quarterly Essay 94
by Joëlle Gergis
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Australia is in peril. Do we truly grasp the impact of a warming planet – in particular, what it will mean for our sunburnt country? As temperatures rise, the climates of our capital cities will change. The sea will rise, and we will see increased fire and drought.
In this powerful essay, Joëlle Gergis, a leading climate scientist, depicts the likely future in vivid and credible detail. Working from the science, she discusses the world's and Australia's efforts to combat climate change. She outlines how far Australia is from keeping its promises to cut emissions. She takes aim at false solutions and the folly of "adaptation" rather than curbing fossil fuel use. This is an essay about government paralysis and what is at stake for all of us. It's about getting real, in the face of an unprecedented threat.
"How many disasters does it take to wake people up to the fact that Australia's climate is becoming more extreme, with today's destruction set to be dwarfed by things to come? Do people realise that adapting to climate change won't be possible in some parts of the country?" Joëlle Gergis, Highway to Hell
This essay contains correspondence relating to Quarterly Essay 93 Bad Cop from Niki Savva, Thomas Mayo, Lachlan Harris, Mark Kenny, Robert Wood, Paul Strangio, and Lech Blaine
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Quarterly Essay 24 No Fixed Address
Nomads and the Fate of the Planet
by Robyn Davidson
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
After many thousands of years, the nomads are disappearing, swept away by modernity. Robyn Davidson has spent a good part of her life with nomadic cultures – in Australia, north-west India, Tibet and the Indian Himalayas – and she herself calls three countries home. In this Quarterly Essay, she draws on her unique experience to delineate a vanishing way of life.
In a time of environmental peril, Davidson argues that the nomadic way with nature offers valuable lessons. Cosmologies such as the Aboriginal Dreaming encode irreplaceable knowledge of the natural world, and nomadic cultures emphasise qualities of tolerance, adaptability and human interconnectedness. She also explores a notable paradox: that even as classical nomadism is disappearing, hypermobility has become the hallmark of modern life. For the privileged, there is an almost unrestricted freedom of movement and an ever-growing culture of transience and virtuality.
No Fixed Address is a fascinating and moving essay, part lament, part evocation and part exhilarating speculative journey.
'I watched him out of the corner of my eye. A man unused to sitting still, restless hands, darting eyes. Looking for water, feed, camping places, villages for food and medicine, thinking '... when will the cotton here be harvested, should we risk that jungle area ...' - calculating, observing, comparing, deducing, holding massive amounts of information in the head, juggling it around - the paradigm of human intelligence. This was what nomadism required - resilience, resourcefulness, versatility, flexibility.' -Robyn Davidson, No Fixed Address
'No Fixed Address is a fascinating and learned account of lives unknown to most of us ... remarkable.' -Eric Rolls, author of A Million Wild Acres
'It's her clear-eyed no bullshit honesty that I most admire. Robyn Davidson is, without doubt, free. And being free is hard work.' -Anna Krien, Dumbo Feather
Robyn Davidson is an award-winning writer who has travelled and published widely. Her books include Tracks, Desert Places, Quarterly Essay 24: No Fixed Address – Nomads and the Fate of the Planet and, as editor, The Picador Book of Journeys. Her essays have appeared in Granta, the Monthly, the Bulletin, Griffith Review and in several previous editions of the Best Australian Essays, among others.
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Quarterly Essay 62 Firing Line
Australia's Path to War
by James Brown
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Going to war may be the gravest decision a nation and its leaders make. At the moment, Australia is at war with the Islamic State. We also live in a region that has become much more volatile, as China asserts itself and America seeks to hold the line.
What is it like to go to war? How do we decide to go to war? Where might we go to war in the future? Will we get that decision right? In this vivid, urgent essay, James Brown looks to history, strategy and his own experience to explore these questions. He examines the legacy of the Iraq War and argues that it has prevented a clear view of Australia's future conflicts. He looks at how we plug into the US war machine, now that American troops are based in Darwin. And he sheds fascinating light on the extraordinary concentration of war powers in the hands of the Prime Minister – and how this might go wrong. This powerful essay argues that we have not yet begun to think through the choices that may confront us in years ahead.
'When you live in a country like ours, the dirty business of war is a stranger. That is the blessed legacy of a place where soldiers are rarely seen, and then only on parade. Where war means Anzac Day, and Anzac Days are all the same. There are few moments in modern Australia when you might pause to ask the most consequential of questions . . . What is it that we are willing to fight for?' -James Brown, Firing Line
'[James Brown] is a fine writer, clear and persuasive and capable of adroit tactical moves.' -Weekend Australian
'Brown's survey of this complicated landscape yields some striking phrases and arresting moments. He is a natural and precise writer with a vivid sense of place.' -Australian Book Review
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Quarterly Essay 57 Dear Life
On Caring for the Elderly
by Karen Hitchcock
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In this moving and controversial Quarterly Essay, doctor and writer Karen Hitchcock investigates the treatment of the elderly and dying through some unforgettable cases. With honesty and deep experience, she looks at end-of-life decisions, frailty and dementia, over-treatment and escalating costs.
Ours is a society in which ageism, often disguised, threatens to turn the elderly into a "burden" – difficult, hopeless, expensive and homogenous. While we rightly seek to curb treatment when it is futile, harmful or against a patient's wishes, this can sometimes lead to limits on care that suit the system rather than the person. Doctors may declare a situation hopeless when it may not be so.
We must plan for a future when more of us will be old, Hitchcock argues, with the aim of making that time better, not shorter. And we must change our institutions and society to meet the needs of an ageing population. Dear Life is a landmark essay by one of Australia's most powerful writers.
"The elderly, the frail are our society. They are our parents and grandparents, our carers and neighbours, and they are every one of us in the not-too-distant future . . . They are not a growing cost to be managed or a burden to be shifted or a horror to be hidden away, but people whose needs require us to change." -Karen Hitchcock, Dear Life