While five great powers — Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal — were forging maritime empires between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, a sixth, Russia, was carving out an equally grandiose realm spanning Europe and Asia — not to mention claiming Alaska for a few decades before selling it
The story of working-class chancers who parlay a great talent into fame and fortune is a well-thumbed parable of English popular culture. Maybe because it’s so rare. Charles Dickens started his working life as a child in a rat-infested factory making shoe polish, but because he wrote A Christmas Carol,
“I remember the days when you could go into government meetings… and representatives from the US Trade Representative Office would say ‘We can’t do that because it would violate our international commitments,’” American economist Douglas Irwin told an audience at the Productivity Commission in February. “That would shut down the
Ever since my review copy of Nathan Thrall’s A Day in the Life of Abed Salama lobbed onto my doorstep, I’ve been thinking of synchronicity, that twentieth-century psychoanalyst’s term for the uncanny appearance of a cluster of coincidences. For Carl Jung, synchronicity is a sign of what he chose to
So, Anzac Day is with us once again. As it is a day for remembering, I began drafting this piece with the thought that it is now ten years since the beginning of the much-anticipated centenary of Anzac: those four long years of commercial and state-sponsored events and projects marking
One Sunday morning nearly four years ago Kevin McCann was surprised to learn that an organisation he chaired was being hounded in the New Corp tabloids for being under “China’s grip” and “lobbying against Australia’s national interests.” It was quite a shock for the former Macquarie Group chair, one-time partner
We seem to be getting a run of films based on true events and actual people: think of One Life and Killers of the Flower Moon for example. The latest are The Great Escaper and Wicked Little Letters, but they, like the others, also allow for extra characters and events
“The heat,” says the sweaty Border Force official in Darwin, as if it explains all his problems. He’s on the government payroll in this tropical garrison town instead of comfortably cool down south in Melbourne where he belongs, where hail is predicted for the big horse race running this week.
History casts a shadow over the Middle East at the best of times, and none more so than now. Take the phrase “two-state solution,” which has become the political currency of the moment. Few, if any, longer historical shadows have fallen across the Middle East than this reference to an
One-term federal governments in Australia are rare. The most recent — led by Labor’s James Scullin in 1931 — was one of the many victims (political and otherwise) of the Great Depression. That’s the good news for Anthony Albanese. Closer to the present day, though, Labor was forced into minority
Just a few days before Christmas 2023 the federal government announced a tough new vehicle efficiency standard for motor vehicles. The standard — which would belatedly have brought Australia into line with most other advanced economies — encountered predictable opposition from Peter Dutton and his Coalition colleagues and from affected
Just a few days before Christmas 2023 the federal government announced a tough new vehicle efficiency standard for motor vehicles. The standard — which would belatedly have brought Australia into line with most other advanced economies — encountered predictable opposition from Peter Dutton and his Coalition colleagues and from affected
While five great powers — Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal — were forging maritime empires between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, a sixth, Russia, was carving out an equally grandiose realm spanning Europe and Asia — not to mention claiming Alaska for a few decades before selling it
The story of working-class chancers who parlay a great talent into fame and fortune is a well-thumbed parable of English popular culture. Maybe because it’s so rare. Charles Dickens started his working life as a child in a rat-infested factory making shoe polish, but because he wrote A Christmas Carol,
“I remember the days when you could go into government meetings… and representatives from the US Trade Representative Office would say ‘We can’t do that because it would violate our international commitments,’” American economist Douglas Irwin told an audience at the Productivity Commission in February. “That would shut down the
Ever since my review copy of Nathan Thrall’s A Day in the Life of Abed Salama lobbed onto my doorstep, I’ve been thinking of synchronicity, that twentieth-century psychoanalyst’s term for the uncanny appearance of a cluster of coincidences. For Carl Jung, synchronicity is a sign of what he chose to
So, Anzac Day is with us once again. As it is a day for remembering, I began drafting this piece with the thought that it is now ten years since the beginning of the much-anticipated centenary of Anzac: those four long years of commercial and state-sponsored events and projects marking
One Sunday morning nearly four years ago Kevin McCann was surprised to learn that an organisation he chaired was being hounded in the New Corp tabloids for being under “China’s grip” and “lobbying against Australia’s national interests.” It was quite a shock for the former Macquarie Group chair, one-time partner
We seem to be getting a run of films based on true events and actual people: think of One Life and Killers of the Flower Moon for example. The latest are The Great Escaper and Wicked Little Letters, but they, like the others, also allow for extra characters and events
“The heat,” says the sweaty Border Force official in Darwin, as if it explains all his problems. He’s on the government payroll in this tropical garrison town instead of comfortably cool down south in Melbourne where he belongs, where hail is predicted for the big horse race running this week.
History casts a shadow over the Middle East at the best of times, and none more so than now. Take the phrase “two-state solution,” which has become the political currency of the moment. Few, if any, longer historical shadows have fallen across the Middle East than this reference to an
One-term federal governments in Australia are rare. The most recent — led by Labor’s James Scullin in 1931 — was one of the many victims (political and otherwise) of the Great Depression. That’s the good news for Anthony Albanese. Closer to the present day, though, Labor was forced into minority
Just a few days before Christmas 2023 the federal government announced a tough new vehicle efficiency standard for motor vehicles. The standard — which would belatedly have brought Australia into line with most other advanced economies — encountered predictable opposition from Peter Dutton and his Coalition colleagues and from affected
Just a few days before Christmas 2023 the federal government announced a tough new vehicle efficiency standard for motor vehicles. The standard — which would belatedly have brought Australia into line with most other advanced economies — encountered predictable opposition from Peter Dutton and his Coalition colleagues and from affected
