Quarterly Essay
Format
Format
User Rating
User Rating
Release Date
Release Date
Date Added
Date Added
Language
Language
ebook
(0)
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
ebook
(0)
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.
ebook
(0)
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
ebook
(0)
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
ebook
(0)
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
ebook
(0)
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
ebook
(0)
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
ebook
(0)
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
ebook
(0)
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
ebook
(0)
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
ebook
(0)
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.
ebook
(0)
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
ebook
(0)
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
ebook
(0)
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.
ebook
(0)
Quarterly Essay 72 Net Loss
The Inner Life in the Digital Age
by Sebastian Smee
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
We live in an age of constant distraction. Is there a price to pay for this?
In this superb essay, renowned critic Sebastian Smee explores the fate of the inner life in the age of the internet. Throughout history, artists and thinkers have cultivated the deep self, and seen value in solitude and reflection. But today, with social media, wall-to-wall marketing and the agitation of modern life, everything feels illuminated, made transparent. We feel bereft without our phones and their cameras and the feeling of instant connectivity. It gets hard to pick up a book, harder still to stay with it.
Without nostalgia or pessimism, Sebastian Smee evokes what is valuable and worth cultivating: he guides us from the apparent fullness of the app-filled world towards a more complex sense of self, and the inner life. If we lose this, Smee asks, what do we lose of ourselves?
"Every day I spend hours and hours on my phone … We are all doing it, aren't we? It has come to feel completely normal. Even when I put my device aside and attach it to a charger, it pulses away in my mind, like the throat of a toad, full of blind, amphibian appetite."––Sebastian Smee, Net Loss
ebook
(0)
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.
ebook
(0)
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
ebook
(0)
Quarterly Essay 79 the End of Certainty
Scott Morrison and Pandemic Politics
by Katharine Murphy
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
What has the coronavirus pandemic revealed about Scott Morrison, and where is he taking Australia?
Epidemics are mirrors. What has COVID-19 revealed about Australia, and about Scott Morrison and his government? In this gripping essay, Katharine Murphy goes behind the scenes to tell the story of the response to the crisis. Drawing on interviews with Morrison, Brendan Murphy, Josh Frydenberg, Sally McManus and other players, she traces how the key health and economic decisions were taken.
Her account is twinned with a portrait of the prime minister. She explores his blend of pragmatism and faith, and shows how a leader characterised by secrecy and fierce certainty learnt to compromise and reach out – with notable exceptions.
Now, as the nation turns inwards and unemployment rises, our faith in government is about to be tested anew. What does "We're all in this together" truly mean? Will Morrison snap back to Liberal hardman, or will he redefine centre-right politics in this country?
"Morrison's a partisan, blue team to the core, but his political philosophy is hard to pin down, because it is predominantly trouble-shooting. By instinct, Morrison is a power player and a populist, not a philosopher; a repairer of walls, not a writer of manifestos … [his] conservatism is extreme pragmatism in defence of what he regards as the core of the nation." -Katharine Murphy, The End of Certainty
ebook
(0)
Quarterly Essay 20 a Time for War
Australia as a Military Power
by John Birmingham
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In A Time for War, John Birmingham ponders the Australian way of war. After East Timor and Bali, a combination of primal fear and primal ambition has transformed attitudes to our region, to security and to war as an instrument of politics. Australian defence policy has become more assertive and our armed forces are being radically restructured and hardened. Australia now has the capacity, and even the will, to act as a military power in its region.
A Time for War begins with a gripping account of Operation Anaconda, the 2002 battle in Afghanistan to which Australian special forces made a crucial contribution. Birmingham also looks at our war dreaming: the sanctification of Anzac Day and the eclipse of the Vietnam Syndrome.Ranging from Sir John Monash to Peter Cosgrove, from Rudyard Kipling to The One Day of the Year, he finds that our armed forces can now do no wrong, and that politicians have taken note. The new militarism is not simply a response to September 11, he argues - it marks a deeper shift in the culture.
'It being an RSL, we would stand each night at six o'clock for the praye rof remembrance. It was always a moving occasion, a strange suspended moment when the pokies and racing channel, the piped music and the drunken bullshitting all fell away … Friends from overseas who witnessed the quiet ceremony never failed to be impressed. One, a poet from Czechoslovakia, had always thought Australians to be a shallow, soulless, materialistic people, but she changed her mind after her first experience of the ode to the fallen among the half-empty schooners and chip packets." John Birmingham, A Time for War
This issue also contains correspondence discussing Quarterly Essay 19,Relaxed & Comfortable, from David Kemp, Graham Richardson, David Corlett, Don Aitkin, Ian Marsh, Matthew Sharpe, and Judith Brett
ebook
(0)
Girt by Sea
Australia, the Refugees and the Politics of Fear
by Mungo MacCallum
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In Girt By Sea Mungo MacCallum provides a devastating account of the Howard government's treatment of the refugees as well as delineating the factors in Australian history which have worked towards prejudice and those which have worked against it; ranging from Calwell's postwar immigration policy to the recent revelations of beat-ups and distortions in the 2001 election campaign.
This is a powerful account of how the government played on what was ultimately the race issue. In an essay which is, by terms, witty, dry and bitingly understated, Mungo MacCallum asks what epithets are appropriate for a prime minister who has brought us to this pass. He also raises the question of whether Australia's contemporary treatment of refugees has anything in common with the sane and decent policies that have characterised the better moments in our history.
'… it will take a long time to recover from the campaign of hate and fear which was deemed to be necessary to return the Howard government in the first year of the new millennium.' -Mungo MacCallum, Girt By Sea
'This most cold-eyed of one time Canberra chroniclers brings to this story all his wit and dryness and power of mind. It's a sad tale ... though it is everywhere enlivened by MacCallum's … tendency to suggest that spades really are bloody shovels at the end of the day.' -Peter Craven
'A document of immense power … MacCallum's essay will stand as a record of Australia's shame and depravity. It will haunt us. ' -Julian Burnside, Australian Book Review
'Mungo's assertion that Howard is a man with no vision, only division, to his name and his recognition that Howard will never have the approval of those elites he so gratuitously desires, is a blistering strike at the Liberal man.' -Geoff Parkes, Journal of Australian Studies
Mungo MacCallum has long been one of Australia's most influential and entertaining political journalists, in a career spanning more than four decades. Mungo has worked with the Australian, the Age, the Financial Review, Sydney Morning Herald and numerous magazines, as well as the ABC, SBS, Channel Nine and Channel Ten. His books include the bestselling Mungo: The Man Who Laughs, The Good, the Bad and the Unlikely: Australia's Prime Ministers and The Whitlam Mob.
ebook
(0)
Quarterly Essay 78 the Coal Curse
Resources, Climate and Australia's Future
by Judith Brett
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Australia is a wealthy nation with the economic profile of a developing country – heavy on raw materials, and low on innovation and skilled manufacturing. Once we rode on the sheep's back for our overseas trade; today we rely on cartloads of coal and tankers of LNG. So must we double down on fossil fuels, now that COVID-19 has halted the flow of international students and tourists? Or is there a better way forward, which supports renewable energy and local manufacturing?
Judith Brett traces the unusual history of Australia's economy and the "resource curse" that has shaped our politics. She shows how the mining industry learnt to run fear campaigns, and how the Coalition became dominated by fossil-fuel interests to the exclusion of other voices. In this insightful essay about leadership, vision and history, she looks at the costs of Australia's coal addiction and asks, where will we be if the world stops buying it?
"Faced with the crisis of a global pandemic, for the first time in more than a decade Australia has had evidence-based, bipartisan policy-making. Politicians have listened to the scientists and … put ideology and the protection of vested interests aside and behaved like adults. Can they do the same to commit to fast and effective action to try to save our children's and grandchildren's future, to prevent the catastrophic fires and heatwaves the scientists predict, the species extinction and the famines?" -Judith Brett, The Coal Curse
ebook
(0)
Quarterly Essay 65 the White Queen
One Nation and the Politics of Race
by David Marr
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Most Australians despise what Pauline Hanson stands for, yet politics in this country is now orbiting around One Nation.
In this timely Quarterly Essay, David Marr looks at Australia's politics of fear, resentment and race. Who votes One Nation, and why? How much of this is due to inequality? How much to racism? How should the major parties respond to anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim voices? What damage do Australia's new entrepreneurs of hate inflict on the nation?
Written with drama and wit, this is a ground-breaking look at politics and prejudice by one of Australia's best writers.
"This woman went to prison, danced the cha-cha on national television for a couple of years, and failed so often at the ballot box she became a running joke. But the truth is she never left us. She was always knocking on the door. Most of those defeats at the polls were close-run things. For twenty years political leaders appeased Hanson's followers while working to keep her out of office. The first strategy tainted Australian politics. The second eventually failed. So she's with us again – the Kabuki make-up, that mop of red hair and the voice telling us what we already know: 'I'm fed up.'" -David Marr, The White Queen
ebook
(0)
Quarterly Essay 70 Dead Right
How Neoliberalism Ate Itself and What Comes Next
by Richard Denniss
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
How did the big banks get away with so much for so long? Why are so many aged-care residents malnourished? And when did arms manufacturers start sponsoring the Australian War Memorial?
In this passionate essay, Richard Denniss explores what neoliberalism has done to Australian society. For decades, we have been led to believe that the private sector does everything better, that governments can't afford to provide the high-quality services they once did, but that security and prosperity for all are just around the corner. In fact, Australians are now less equal, millions of workers have no sick leave or paid holidays, and housing is unaffordable for many. Deregulation, privatisation and trickle-down economics have, we are told, delivered us twenty-seven years of growth ... but to what end?
In Dead Right, Denniss looks at ways to renew our democracy and discusses everything from the fragmenting Coalition to an idea of the national interest that goes beyond economics.
'Neoliberalism, the catch-all term for all things small government, has been the ideal cloak behind which to conceal enormous shifts in Australia's wealth and culture ... Over the past thirty years, the language, ideas and policies of neoliberalism have transformed our economy and, more importantly, our culture' -Richard Denniss, Dead Right
ebook
(0)
Quarterly Essay 81 Getting to Zero
Australia's Energy Transition
by Alan Finkel
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
The world is overheating, and despite good intentions and significant efforts, emissions increase nearly every year. The challenge is immense, but there are solutions.
In this lucid, inspiring essay, Alan Finkel maps Australia's path forward. He explains the solar and wind revolution, and addresses the challenge of intermittent supply. He introduces hydrogen, the energy hope of the future. He traces the rise and rise of the electric car. He shows how we can build a zero-emissions world.
Taking into account economics, science and emotions, Getting to Zero is an essential guide to how Australia can tackle the climate crisis with realism and ingenuity.
"Change is in the air. I sense we will live through a technological revolution this decade as exciting as the conquest of space in the 1960s. If Australia handles the challenge well, we can build an economy that takes advantage of the transition. If we cling to the past, we will miss opportunities that the rest of the world will seize." -Alan Finkel, Getting to Zero
ebook
(0)
Quarterly Essay 69 Moment of Truth
History and Australia's Future
by Mark McKenna
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Australia is on the brink of momentous change, but only if its citizens and politicians can come to new terms with the past.
In this inspiring essay, Mark McKenna considers the role of history in making and unmaking the nation. From Captain Cook to the frontier wars, from Australia Day to the Uluru Statement, we are seeing fresh debates and recognitions. McKenna argues that it is time to move beyond the history wars, and that truth-telling about the past will be liberating and healing.
This is an urgent essay about a nation's moment of truth.
'The time for pitting white against black, shame against pride, and one people's history against another's, has had its day. After nearly fifty years of deeply divisive debates over the country's foundation and its legacy for Indigenous Australians, Australia stands at a crossroads – we either make the commonwealth stronger and more complete through an honest reckoning with the past, or we unmake the nation by clinging to triumphant narratives in which the violence inherent in the nation's foundation is trivialised.' -Mark McKenna, Moment of Truth
ebook
(0)
Quarterly Essay 58 Blood Year
Terror and the Islamic State
by David Kilcullen
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Last year was a "blood year" in the Middle East – massacres and beheadings, fallen cities, collapsed and collapsing states, the unravelling of a decade of Western strategy. We saw the rise of ISIS, the splintering of government in Iraq, and foreign fighters – many from Europe, Australia and Africa – flowing into Syria at a rate ten times that during the height of the Iraq War. What went wrong?
In Blood Year, David Kilcullen calls on twenty-five years' experience to answer that question. This is a vivid, urgent account of the War on Terror by someone who helped shape its strategy, as well as witnessing its evolution on the ground. Kilcullen looks to strategy and history to make sense of the crisis. What are the roots and causes of the global jihad movement? What is ISIS? What threats does it pose to Australia? What does its rise say about the effectiveness of the War on Terror since 9/11, and what does a coherent strategy look like after a disastrous year?
"As things stand in mid-2015, Western countries . . . face a larger, more unified, capable, experienced and savage enemy, in a less stable, more fragmented region. It isn't just ISIS – al-Qaeda has emerged from its eclipse and is back in the game in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Syria and Yemen. We're dealing with not one, but two global terrorist organisations, each with its own regional branches, plus a vastly larger radicalised population at home and a massive flow of foreign fighters." -David Kilcullen, Blood Year
Winner of the 2015 Walkley Award for best long feature writing.
ebook
(0)
Quarterly Essay 88 Lone Wolf
Albanese and the New Politics: Quarterly Essay 88
by Katharine Murphy
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
A prime minister in the making, and a nation on the move.
In Lone Wolf, Katharine Murphy offers a new portrait of Anthony Albanese. She reveals a leader who has always had to think three steps ahead, who was an insurgent for much of his professional life, but had to learn to listen and devise "strategies of inclusivity" to win the 2022 election.
Following that victory, Greens leader Adam Bandt voiced hopes for "a great era of progressive reform," but it is Albanese and Labor who will ultimately decide whether that potential is reached or not.
Drawing on interviews with Albanese, Bandt, Penny Wong, Jim Chalmers, Mark Butler, Katy Gallagher, Simon Holmes à Court, Zoe Daniel and more, Murphy's brilliant essay draws out the meaning of an eventful political year. She offers a telling character study of the prime minister, investigates the success of the teals and the Greens, and looks to the challenges of the future.
"Taking the party leadership was both a beginning and an ending. Insurgency was done. New skills were required … Albanese knew how to recruit people to a cause and to get them to a similar place. He'd been doing that since his teens. But to win, he had to learn to listen, to trust his team and to lead, understanding that sometimes leadership involves holding back rather than imagining it's all on you." Katharine Murphy, Lone Wolf
ebook
(0)
Quarterly Essay 83 Top Blokes
The Larrikin Myth, Class and Power
by Lech Blaine
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Who can be a larrikin and how is it used politically?
The figure of the larrikin goes deep in Australian culture. But who can be a larrikin, and what are its political uses?
This brilliant essay looks at Australian politics through the prisms of class, egalitarianism and masculinity. Lech Blaine examines some "top blokes," with particular focus on Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese, but stretching back to Bob Hawke and Kerry Packer. He shows how Morrison brought a cohort of voters over to the Coalition side, "flipping" what was once working-class Labor culture.
Blaine weaves his own experiences through the essay as he explores the persona of the Aussie larrikin. What are its hidden contradictions – can a larrikin be female, or Indigenous, say? – and how has it been transformed by an age of affluence and image?
ebook
(0)
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
ebook
(0)
The Reckoning: Quarterly Essay 84
by Jess Hill
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
This year, Australia's #MeToo moment erupted in the national parliament. In this electrifying essay, Jess Hill, the acclaimed author of See What You Made Me Do, traces the meaning of those events and what could happen next.
What are the politics of rage? What couldn't Scott Morrison see? And what hope is there of real progress and accountability? Hill examines how the law, the media and politics can bring about – or stall – change. She shows how when #MeToo meets patriarchy, the results are unpredictable – from lasting reform to backlash. And she asks whether a conservative prime minister can do what is required to meet the moment.
ebook
(0)
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
ebook
(0)
Quarterly Essay 19 Relaxed and Comfortable
The Liberal Party's Australia
by Judith Brett
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
What is the Liberal Party's core appeal to Australian voters? Has John Howard made a dramatic break with the past, or has he ingeniously modernised the strategies of his party's founder, Sir Robert Menzies?
For Judith Brett, the government of John Howard has done what successful Liberal governments have always done: it has made its stand firmly at the centre and presented itself as the true guardian of the national interest. In doing this, John Howard has taken over the national traditions of the Australian Legend that Labor once considered its own. Brett offers a lucid short history of the Liberals as well as an original account of the Prime Minister, arguing that, above all, he is a man obsessed with the fight against Labor. She explores both his inventiveness in practising the politics of unity and his great ruthlessness in practising the politics of division. She incorporates fascinating interview material with Liberal voters, shedding light on some of the different ways in which the Liberals appeal as the natural party of government. Full of provocative ideas, Relaxed and Comfortable will change the way Australians see the last decade of national politics.
"Where Keating spoke to the nation, Howard spoke from it – straight from the heart of its shared beliefs and commonsense understandings of itself." -Judith Brett, Relaxed and Comfortable
ebook
(0)
Red Flag
Waking Up To China's Challenge; Quarterly Essay 76
by Peter Hartcher
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
A gripping examination of China's intentions and strategy when it comes to Australia.
China has become a key nation for Australia's future – for our security, economy and identity. But what are China's intentions when it comes to Australia?
In this gripping account, Peter Hartcher shows how Beijing stepped up its campaign for influence, over hearts and minds, mineral and agricultural resources, media outlets and sea lanes. Reactions so far have included panic, xenophobia and all-the- way-with-the-USA, but the challenge now is to think hard about the national interest and respond with wisdom to a changed world.
This urgent, authoritative essay blends reporting and analysis, and covers the local scene as well as the larger geopolitical picture. It casts fresh light on Beijing's plans and actions, and outlines a way forward.
"Australia and China have got rich together. For Australia, that is quite enough. But China's government wants more. As much power and influence over Australia as it can possibly get, using fair means or foul. But ... what Beijing can get is limited not only by China's abilities, but also by Australia's will. In each case where Chinese officials or agents attempted to intrude, they met Australian resistance. And failed. For all its power, China is neither all-powerful nor irresistible. Australia can shape its engagement with Beijing." Peter Hartcher, Red Flag
This issue contains correspondence relating to Men at Work by Annabel Crabb from Grant Marjoribanks, Maddison Connaughton, Angela Shanahan, Marian Baird, Andrew Wear, Mark Tennant, Andrew Thackrah, and Annabel Crabb
ebook
(0)
Quarterly Essay 14 Mission Impossible
The Sheikhs, the U.S. and the Future of Iraq
by Paul McGeough
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In the second Quarterly Essay of 2004, Paul McGeough offers a dramatic account of why Iraq remains in chaos despite desperate American efforts to create a model democracy in the Middle East. According to McGeough, Iraq to this day remains a tribal society. It cannot be governed without the cooperation of the true powers in the land, the tribal and religious sheikhs. Those who have ruled Iraq in the past, including Saddam Hussein and the British before him, understood this fact. The Americans, by contrast, seem to have missed the point.
In Mission Impossible, Paul McGeough enters the world of key Iraqi tribal and religious leaders. There are vivid portraits of the sheikhs' role in the fall and capture of Saddam, as well as their part in the growing insurgency. There are glimpses, too, of a history that once involved Lawrence of Arabia and Gertrude Bell, and which pre-dates Islam, stretching back thousands of years. Combining reportage and analysis in brilliant fashion, this groundbreaking essay is well timed to coincide with the next major phase in Iraq's troubled history.
"Throughout the history of their region, the sheikhs have been the powerbrokers, deciding who would reign between the great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates." -Paul McGeough, Mission Impossible
ebook
(0)
Quarterly Essay 63 Enemy Within
American Politics in the Time of Trump
by Don Watson
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In Enemy Within, Don Watson takes a memorable journey into the heart of the United States in the year 2016 – and the strangest election campaign that country has seen.
Travelling in the Midwest, Watson reflects on the rise of Donald Trump and the "thicket of unreality" that is the American media. Behind this he finds a deeply fearful and divided culture. Watson considers the irresistible pull – for Americans – of the Dream of exceptionalism, and asks whether this creed is reaching its limit. He explores alternate futures – from Trump-style fascism to Sanders-style civic renewal – and suggests that a Clinton presidency might see a new American blend of progressivism and militarism. Enemy Within is an eloquent, barbed look at the state of the union and the American malaise.
"If, as seems likely, Clinton wins, it will not be out of love, or even hope, but rather out of fear. She can win by simply letting her deplorable opponent lose. On the other hand, she's nothing if not adaptable, and she could yet see the chance to lead the nation's social and economic regeneration … Call it a New Great Awakening or a New New Deal; it would owe something to both, and to Bernie Sanders as well, but also to her need to be more than the first woman president." -Don Watson, Enemy Within
'Must read...[Don Watson] is the ideal person to survey Trump's America' -The Weekend Australian
'A fascinating journey through the United States...' -ABC Brisbane, Weekend Bookworm
ebook
(0)
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
ebook
(0)
Quarterly Essay 51 the Prince
Faith, Abuse and George Pell
by David Marr
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
The leading Catholic in the nation and spiritual adviser to Tony Abbott, Cardinal George Pell has played a key role in the greatest challenge to face his church for centuries: the scandal of child sex abuse by priests.
In The Prince, David Marr investigates the man and his career: how did he rise through the ranks? What does he stand for? How does he wield his authority? How much has he shaped his church and Australia? How has he handled the scandal?
Marr reveals a cleric at ease with power and aggressive in asserting the prerogatives of the Vatican. His account of Pell's career focuses on his response as a man, a priest, an archbishop and prince of the church to the scandal that has engulfed the Catholic world in the last thirty years. This is the story of a cleric slow to see what was happening around him; torn by the contest between his church and its victims; and slow to realise that the Catholic Church cannot, in the end, escape secular scrutiny.
The Prince is an arresting portrait of faith, loyalty and ambition, set against a backdrop of terrible suffering and an ancient institution in turmoil.
"He knows children have been wrecked. He apologises again and again. He even sees that the hostility of the press he so deplores has helped the church face the scandal. What he doesn't get is the hostility to the church. Whatever else he believes in, Pell has profound faith in the Catholic Church. He guards it with his life. Nations come and go but the church remains." David Marr, The Prince
ebook
(0)
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
ebook
(0)
Uncivil Wars
How Contempt Is Corroding Democracy; Quarterly Essay 87
by Waleed Aly
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Why is public debate increasingly polarised - and what can we do about it?
Is our democracy corroding? In this original, eloquent essay, Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens explore the ethics and politics of public debate - and the threat it now faces.
In a healthy society we need the capacity to disagree. Yet Aly and Stephens note a growing tendency to disdain and dismiss opponents, to treat them with contempt. This toxic partisanship has been imported from the United States, where it has been a temptation for both left and right. Aly and Stephens discuss some telling examples, analyse the role of the media, and look back to heroes of democracy who found a better way forward.
Arguing that democracy cannot survive contempt, they draw on philosophy, literature and history to make an urgent case about the present.
'So what do we owe those with whom we might profoundly, even radically, disagree? In our time, the answer increasingly seems to be: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We've come to regard our opponents as not much more than obstructions in the road, impediments standing between us and our desired end. We have grown disinclined to consider what it might mean to go on together meaningfully as partners within a shared democratic project. To put it bluntly, we see no future with our political opponents because we feel we have nothing to learn from them.' Waleed Aly & Scott Stephens, Uncivil Wars
This issue also contains correspondence discussing Quarterly Essay 86, Sleepwalk to War, from Malcolm Turnbull, Kevin Rudd, Michael J. Green, Kishore Mahbubani, Sam Roggeveen, Peter Varghese, Rory Medcalf, Emma Shortis, Dennis Altman, Hugh White
ebook
(0)
Exit Right
The Unravelling of John Howard; Quarterly Essay 28
by Judith Brett
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
In Exit Right, Judith Brett explains why the tide turned on John Howard. This is an essay about leadership, in particular Howard's style of strong leadership which led him to dominate his party with such ultimately catastrophic results.
In this definitive account, Brett discusses how age became Howard's Achilles heel, how he lost the youth vote, how he lost Bennelong, and how he waited too long to call the election. She looks at the government's core failings - the policy vacuum, the blindness to climate change, the disastrous misjudgment of WorkChoices - and shows how Howard and his team came more and more to insulate themselves from reality.
With drama and insight, Judith Brett traces the key moments when John Howard stared defeat in the face, and explains why, after the Keating-Howard years, the ascendancy of Kevin Rudd marks a new phase in the nation's political life.
"It is when a leader's grip on political power starts to slip, when his threats and bribes miss their mark, when he starts to make uncharacteristic mis- takes and when what had once been strengths reveal their limitations, that we can see most clearly the inner workings of that leadership. This essay is about John Howard's leadership, seen through the prism of its failings." Judith Brett, Exit Right
This issue contains correspondence relating to Reaction Time by Ian Lowe from Guy Pearse, Robert Merkel, Michael Angwin, Christine Milne, Mark Diesendorf, and Ian Lowe.
ebook
(0)
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.
ebook
(0)
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
ebook
(0)
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?
ebook
(0)
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
ebook
(0)
The Prosperity Gospel
How Scott Morrison Won and Bill Shorten Lost; Quarterly Essay 74
by Erik Jensen
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
A dazzling and insightful look at the Australian federal election 2019
What went wrong for Labor and how did Scott Morrison achieve his remarkable victory? In this dazzling report from the campaign trail, Erik Jensen homes in on the insecurities that drive Bill Shorten and the certainties that helped Scott Morrison win. He considers how each man reflects, challenges and comforts the national character.
Who are Morrison's "quiet Australians"? What did Shorten Labor fail to see? And will fear always trump hope in politics? The Prosperity Gospel sheds new light on the politics of a divided nation.
"Arthur Sinodinos says the election is a crapshoot. He's in a car park in Nowra, waiting for Morrison. 'The momentum has been with us at different times, especially in Queensland,' he says. 'Central Queensland, even the outer suburbs of Brisbane. It's a narrow pathway to victory, with the odds going the other way. But it ain't over until it's over.' Despite everything, Arthur Sinodinos has an honest face. He does not look confident." –Erik Jensen, The Prosperity Gospel
This issue also contains correspondence discussing Quarterly Essay 73, Australia Fair, from Susan Carland, James Walter, Carol Johnson, Travers McLeod, Isabelle Reinecke, and Rebecca Huntley
ebook
(0)
Bad Cop
Peter Dutton's Strongman Politics; Quarterly Essay 93
by Lech Blaine
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
Where will Dutton lead the Coalition?
Who is Peter Dutton, and what happened to the Liberal Party? In Bad Cop, Lech Blaine traces the making of a hardman – from Queensland detective to leader of the Opposition, from property investor to minister for Home Affairs. This is a story of ambition, race and power, and a politician with a plan.
Dutton became Liberal leader with a strategy to win outer-suburban and regional seats from Labor. Since then we have seen his demolition of the Voice and a rolling campaign of culture wars. What does Peter Dutton know about the Australian electorate? Has he updated Menzies' Forgotten People pitch for the age of anxiety, or will he collapse the Liberals' broad church? This revelatory portrait is sardonic, perceptive and altogether compelling.
"Dutton doesn't need to become prime minister to redraw the battle lines of Australian politics. His fight with Albanese over parochial voters was always going to drag the political conversation rightwards: on race, immigration, gender and the pace of a transition away from fossil fuels … Dutton's raison d'être? Make Australia Afraid Again. Then he will offer himself as the lesser of two evils. A serious strongman for the age of anxiety."-Bad Cop, Lech Blaine
ebook
(0)
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.
ebook
(0)
Follow the Leader
Democracy and the Rise of the Strongman; Quarterly Essay 71
by Laura Tingle
Part of the Quarterly Essay series
What is true political leadership, and how do we get it? What qualities should we wish for in our leaders? And why is it killing season for prime ministers?
In this wise and timely essay, Laura Tingle argues that democratic leaders build a consensus for change, rather than bludgeon the system or turn politics into a popularity contest. They mobilise and guide, more than impose a vision. Tingle offers acute portraits – profiles in courage and cunning – of leaders ranging from Merkel and Howard to Macron and Obama. She discusses the rise of the strongman, including Donald Trump, for whom there is no map, only sentiment and power. And she analyses what has gone wrong with politics in Australia, arguing that successful leaders know what they want to do, and create the space and time to do it. After the Liberal Party's recent episode of political madness, where does this leave the nation's new prime minister, Scott Morrison?
"The Liberal Party has been ripped apart and our polity is the worse off for having one of its major political parties rendered largely ungovernable … Malcolm Turnbull's fate came down to a series of judgements made not just by him, but by his colleagues, who spent much of his prime ministership failing to follow the leader and also failing in their own collective responsibility for leadership." Laura Tingle, Follow the Leader
This issue contains correspondence relating to Dead Right by Richard Denniss from John McTernan, W. Max Corden, John Quiggin, Kristina Keneally, Adam Creighton, Danielle Wood, Damien Freeman, Michael Keating, Roderick Best, Richard Denniss