Journal
Articles
Truth, lies and diplomacy
IN 1604, SIR Henry Wotten – an English diplomat travelling through Augsburg – composed an epigram for the guest...
Signing up to the social contract
AMONG THE MOST lovely and quirky of the books I own is a hardback compendium called The Book of...
Weaponising privilege
Even then, ‘the strip’ was a parody of itself. But the Cross was still an idea, a state of mind. It was a place of organised crime, corrupt police, exploitation, inequality and violence – but it was also a place to find likeminded people, to escape judgment. Which is what makes the story of reform here so extraordinary – vulnerable people who gathered together to seek acceptance ended up working together for survival, liberation and change. Harm minimisation was shaped by a crisis that ultimately engendered credibility and resolve. From those beginnings, it continues to grow.
Bashar al-Assad
I asked her to draw her home for me Ben Quilty Using the old cryptographs Heba, at the age of six, has managed...
The compound
A TROPICAL SUMMER. 2006: A Monday. Wendy, the story: the compound, the day, her telling me in Mackay her...
Hail Hydra
‘DO YOU TRUST me?’ An earnest question. ‘I do.’ An earnest answer. And then that ancient, global gesture of earnest intimacy:...
Less than 20/20 vision
EVEN A PERFECT metaphor runs its course. For decades, 2020 has offered a convenient label for conferences and strategic...
Let the river flow
THE TWO MEN stand knee-deep in river water the colour of pickled cucumbers. ‘My name is Dick Arnold and I’m...
Archival secrets and hidden histories
IN DECEMBER 2005, Gough Whitlam was at the National Archives of Australia in Canberra speaking on the occasion of...
Surrounded
IN TERMS OF the event, the make or type of bikes surely doesn’t matter now, but it weirdly did...
Iris
I was told experience mattered. This is a lie, at least when it comes to light. I’ve drunk decades of it and...
A great experiment
IT’S EASY TO get lost in the disruption: our obsession with technology and how to regulate it; minimise our...
