Edition 16
Unintended Consequences
- Published 5th June, 2007
- ISBN: 9780733321221
- Extent: 264 pp
- Paperback (234 x 153mm)
Forty years after the 1967 referendum recognised the first Australians as full citizens, Noel Pearson – Australia’s most innovative and effective Aboriginal leader – breaks new ground and eloquently advocates an agenda that learns from the mistakes of the past.
Some of the best writers and thinkers in Australia go beyond simple explanations and conspiracy theories to examine how unintended consequences shape our lives and our canon of heroes.
Murray Sayle considers how journalism can turn myths into reality, as he reflects for the first time on his chance encounters with Che Guevara in Cuba and the Bolivian jungle.
This collection moves from the big issues – war, bureaucracy, epidemics, planning and media – to compelling and quirky personal tales that reveal the long-term impact of small decisions.
We are surrounded by unintended consequences.
In this Edition
Two tales of a city
Aaron Wildavsky was a fiercely clever, combative kid from Brooklyn who became a professor of political science. He had little small talk but a great interest in ideas, and a willingness to listen and debate. He was firm, expected a firm response and responded...
A culinary adventure
In a Sydney restaurant in 1978, what was called a "maritime" salad exploded my notion of Australian restaurant fare. Strips of abalone, smoked trout, poached squid and butter beans on radicchio leaves made spokes of a wheel. At the hub was a cabbage leaf...
Lifting the curtains of mist
History is a nightmare through which we are all trying to get a good night's sleep.– Saul Bellow On a Sunday afternoon, the Parque La Carolina is abuzz with activity. Bordered by some of Quito's busiest streets, the park is slap bang in the centre...
Fantasy, paranoia, enthusiasm and reality
The peaceful revolution that swept away Communist rule in Czechoslovakia six months ago was engineered by leaders of the secret police in Moscow and Prague, according to a BBC documentary. It said secret police leaders in both countries jointly conspired to bring down the...
White guilt, victimhood and the quest for a radical centre
Selected for Best Australian Essays 2010Selected for Best Australian Political Writing 2009Shortlisted, 2007 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, The Alfred Deakin Prize for an Essay Advancing Public DebateShortlisted, 2007 Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards, The Harry Williams Award for a Literary or Media Work Advancing Public...
Castroism dies – Che lives!
Forty years ago, on 11 April 1967, The Times of London sensationally drew the attention of the world to Bolivia, one of the poorest countries of Latin America, and launched one of the most durable legends of the twentieth century. I wrote the report, which took...
Surrendering nationalism
TEN YEARS AGO, most Australians quietly cringed when Pauline Hanson wrapped herself in a cape of blue to launch her One Nation Party. Yet today there's nothing more fashionable or patriotic than draping oneself in the national flag. When, in January this year, Big...
The neglected holocaust
Australia's position on the neglected holocaust of AIDS, even in the immediate region, is overwhelmed by relentlessly beating the tribal drum about the spectre of global terrorism. This continues to eclipse the challenge of the HIV/AIDS pandemic from the collective consciousness. It also minimises...
Libertarian nation by stealth
libertarian – A person who holds the doctrine of the freedom of the will, as opp. to that of necessity ... Believing in free will. liberticide – A destroyer of liberty ... Destructive of liberty. – The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Vol. 1 Politics is a...
Reality beyond the whiteboard
In May 2003, a week after President Bush had declared victory in Iraq from the foredeck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, I made my first visit to Washington carrying the embossed green diplomatic passport of an Australian official. Our embassy had meticulously planned out a...
A toxic mix
In June, 2006, after we'd returned from the screening of the film Ten Canoes at the Cannes International Film Festival, I rang around Ramingining in remote North Central Arnhem Land to track down my co-director, Peter Djigirr. I wanted to explain that he had won an...
Lies, truths and other mysteries
Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K, for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning. Someone must have been telling lies about me too, for without having done anything wrong I was, one fine morning, subjected to my...
Where’s my girl?
Milli was born able to hold her head up, and kept this ability. She had sheeny, topaz eyes, dark hair and I loved her so much I let the doctor in the hospital give her a Hepatitis B vaccine containing mercury because I couldn't...
Who’d have thought …
"I agree with the gay Englishman [Irishman Oscar Wilde] who said you should either look like a work of art or, if you can't, wear one. Sometimes I do both!"– Julie Newmar In 1986 I was sitting at my desk – an old wooden thing...
Reap as you sow
Shortlisted, Queensland Media Awards, Freelance JournalismA succession of government inquiries dating back to the 1934 McCulloch Report in New South Wales show that over half a million Australians experienced childhood in an orphanage, children's home, training school, institution or some other form of out-of-home...
Buried in the labyrinth
Shortlisted, The 2007 Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism, Magazine Feature WritingThis is a story about the habits of mistrust that grow between citizens and government in a media-lubricated democracy.It is also a story about failure. Whether it is my failure or the failure...
From big trees, more trees grow
The womb-like basin of Terania Creek, with its narrow cervix of an entrance, faces south. In its moist embrace lies a rainforest little changed for more than forty-five million years. But in August 1979, war broke out over this peaceful valley near Lismore in...
The other side of the river
DAVID HAD THE address scribbled on the margin of an article he wanted to finish reading in the car. Ellen didn't know the area. The name was familiar – one of those long roads that stretched for miles, sometimes a main artery, at other times...
Purchase
Selected for Best Australian Stories 2007They had their hearts set on purchasing a piece of land up north, but not too far north. Coastal – or as near coastal as they might afford. Close to a town for supplies, but not too close to a town:...
Featured Contributors
Noel Pearson
Noel Pearson is an Indigenous Australian lawyer, land rights activist and Director of the Cape York Institute for Policy...
Rolf De Heer
Rolf de Heer is the director of Ten Canoes which has won numerous awards, including the Special Jury Prize...
Murray Sayle (1926–2010)
Murray Sayle was a distinguished Australian journalist, television documentary maker and novelist.His long career in print journalism began with...
Chris Wallace
Chris Wallace is an ARC DECRA Fellow at the National Centre of Biography, School of History, ANU and a...
