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First casualties

First casualties

For most, Australia’s Great War began before dawn on 25 April 1915 when the first diggers stumbled ashore at Anzac Cove to begin a nine-month misadventure that would claim 8700 Australian lives, end in a humiliating retreat and yet forge an unshakeable mythology of Australian pluck and heroism. In the
One Nation’s changing sources of support

One Nation’s changing sources of support

Opening his account of the latest Resolve Political Monitor (conducted 9–14 March), Age and Sydney Morning Herald chief political correspondent James Massola informed readers that “A rampant One Nation has begun taking support from the Albanese government.” A separate analysis opened in similar vein: “This is not a blip,” he
The innocence of Quentin Blake

The innocence of Quentin Blake

Quentin Blake, knighted for “services to illustration” in January this year, is probably the most prolific and successful British illustrator of all. The first of his more than 300 books, A Drink of Water, appeared in 1960, and he went on to provide the drawings for such children’s classics as
Price and Pearson, uneasy allies?

Price and Pearson, uneasy allies?

If it existed right now, the Indigenous Voice to Parliament would be faced with a troubling social policy question: should income management — sometimes referred to as welfare quarantining — ever be compulsory for people reliant on government income support? Income management has been facilitated by two schemes: the Basics
A poet in the provinces

A poet in the provinces

Gwen Harwood, remembered as one of the great Australian poets of the generation that included A.D. Hope, Judith Wright, James McAuley and Francis Webb, was also a prolific letter writer. Gregory Kratzmann, who edited a massive collection of her correspondence fifteen years ago, described her output as being of Tolstoyan
John Clarke and the power of satire

John Clarke and the power of satire

The Oxford English Dictionary defines satire as “the employment, in speaking or writing, of sarcasm, irony, ridicule, etc. in denouncing, exposing or deriding vice, folly, abuses, or evils of any kind.” That’s fine if a little flavourless, but then most dictionary definitions are. Most but not all. John Clarke, the
Illness and identity

Illness and identity

At the tender age of six, Rachel Aviv found herself confined in a psychiatric hospital. While her parents skirmished their way through a divorce, she had stopped eating. An imaginative child given to asking odd questions — “why don’t people have tails?” — she now made avoiding food her mission.
Cruel beauty

Cruel beauty

Engrossed, recently, in Charlotte Wood’s novel The Natural Way of Things, I began to wonder if it might make an opera. Keeping an ear out for musical possibilities is a standard condition of any composer’s reading, and in my own case, it mostly happens with poetry. After all, when you
Scott’s justice

Scott’s justice

“As at December 1988, Dr Scott Johnson was twenty-seven years of age. He was a citizen of the United States of America. He had everything to live for.” That’s where the head of New South Wales’s higher criminal courts began last week’s judgement concerning a death that has haunted Johnson’s
Buckle and strain

Buckle and strain

“To strip the wallpaper off the fairy tale of the Family House in which the comfort and happiness of men and children have been the priority,” writes Deborah Levy, in The Cost of Living, the second volume of her autobiography, “is to find behind it an unthanked, unloved, neglected, exhausted
Diagnoses in, now for action

Diagnoses in, now for action

Outlining his government’s “positive and ambitious agenda” at the National Press Club last week, Anthony Albanese reiterated a series of health policy commitments made during the election campaign: pledges to improve Medicare bulk-billing rates, limit pharmaceutical co-payments, build more urgent-care clinics, and launch a 24/7 health advice line and an

First casualties

First casualties
For most, Australia’s Great War began before dawn on 25 April 1915 when the first diggers stumbled ashore at Anzac Cove to begin a nine-month misadventure that would claim 8700 Australian lives, end in a humiliating retreat and yet forge an unshakeable mythology of Australian pluck and heroism. In the

One Nation’s changing sources of support

One Nation’s changing sources of support
Opening his account of the latest Resolve Political Monitor (conducted 9–14 March), Age and Sydney Morning Herald chief political correspondent James Massola informed readers that “A rampant One Nation has begun taking support from the Albanese government.” A separate analysis opened in similar vein: “This is not a blip,” he

The innocence of Quentin Blake

The innocence of Quentin Blake
Quentin Blake, knighted for “services to illustration” in January this year, is probably the most prolific and successful British illustrator of all. The first of his more than 300 books, A Drink of Water, appeared in 1960, and he went on to provide the drawings for such children’s classics as

Price and Pearson, uneasy allies?

Price and Pearson, uneasy allies?
If it existed right now, the Indigenous Voice to Parliament would be faced with a troubling social policy question: should income management — sometimes referred to as welfare quarantining — ever be compulsory for people reliant on government income support? Income management has been facilitated by two schemes: the Basics

A poet in the provinces

A poet in the provinces
Gwen Harwood, remembered as one of the great Australian poets of the generation that included A.D. Hope, Judith Wright, James McAuley and Francis Webb, was also a prolific letter writer. Gregory Kratzmann, who edited a massive collection of her correspondence fifteen years ago, described her output as being of Tolstoyan

John Clarke and the power of satire

John Clarke and the power of satire
The Oxford English Dictionary defines satire as “the employment, in speaking or writing, of sarcasm, irony, ridicule, etc. in denouncing, exposing or deriding vice, folly, abuses, or evils of any kind.” That’s fine if a little flavourless, but then most dictionary definitions are. Most but not all. John Clarke, the

Illness and identity

Illness and identity
At the tender age of six, Rachel Aviv found herself confined in a psychiatric hospital. While her parents skirmished their way through a divorce, she had stopped eating. An imaginative child given to asking odd questions — “why don’t people have tails?” — she now made avoiding food her mission.

Cruel beauty

Cruel beauty
Engrossed, recently, in Charlotte Wood’s novel The Natural Way of Things, I began to wonder if it might make an opera. Keeping an ear out for musical possibilities is a standard condition of any composer’s reading, and in my own case, it mostly happens with poetry. After all, when you

Scott’s justice

Scott’s justice
“As at December 1988, Dr Scott Johnson was twenty-seven years of age. He was a citizen of the United States of America. He had everything to live for.” That’s where the head of New South Wales’s higher criminal courts began last week’s judgement concerning a death that has haunted Johnson’s

Buckle and strain

Buckle and strain
“To strip the wallpaper off the fairy tale of the Family House in which the comfort and happiness of men and children have been the priority,” writes Deborah Levy, in The Cost of Living, the second volume of her autobiography, “is to find behind it an unthanked, unloved, neglected, exhausted

Diagnoses in, now for action

Diagnoses in, now for action
Outlining his government’s “positive and ambitious agenda” at the National Press Club last week, Anthony Albanese reiterated a series of health policy commitments made during the election campaign: pledges to improve Medicare bulk-billing rates, limit pharmaceutical co-payments, build more urgent-care clinics, and launch a 24/7 health advice line and an