Essay Archives

The endless seminar

‘The only kind of revolution possible is a cultural one. Simply to change the people in control of parliament...

By Glyn Davis

The politics of prosperity

‘Luck always seems to be against those who depend on it.'THIS IS A lucky country. The challenge is to...

By Tom Conley

More than a gift from the gods

THE CONCEPT OF comparative advantage is perhaps the single most powerful idea in economics. It is taught to every...

By Jonathan West (dec.)

The resource curse

Shortlisted, 2010 Australian Human Rights Commission Awards, Print Media Category; Longlisted, 2010 John Button Prize, Articles and Essays; Shortlisted, 2010 Queensland...

By Marcia Langton

Who cares for Cohen?

THERE WAS A time when romance flourished at sea, when ships traversed the globe under clouds of steam, set...

By Jorge Sotirios

Ngati Skippy

FROM DEEP INSIDE the tunnel, a tinny engine revs. It’s Storm Man, half Ned Kelly, half Phantom, a living...

By Rachel Buchanan

Violence against women

THE CULTURAL AND social bases for violence against women have been a focus of public attention for at least...

By James Spigelman

We are all learners now

Shortlisted, 2010 Australian Human Rights Commission Awards, Print Media Category I AM NOT an ocean person. I don’t like the...

By Michele Grossman

Thousandth miles

PHUC COMES TO give me flowers and my husband a bottle of wine. He has to catch two buses...

By Tangea Tansley

A humanist on thin ice

I FEEL LUCKY to have visited both of Earth’s polar ice caps. Seven years ago I voyaged to Antarctica...

By Tom Griffiths

The greatest spoiler

‘The hard-nosed realists who claim there is no need for another world have clearly not been reading the newspapers.’–...

By Brendan Gleeson

Garden cities of tomorrow

A PROJECTED AUSTRALIAN population of thirty-six million people by 2050 is being touted as a figure to fear. The...

By Tone Wheeler