Australian politics, society & culture

The Monthly Essays

Deserve’s got nothing to do with it
Kim Beazley has been charming mall-goers. And getting angry. And developing a knack for snappy one-liners. Is it too late?
By John Birmingham
“Ohmygod, Kim would so love to fight a war on terror!” It was an odd, unguarded thing to say, couched in the modern patois of teenspeak. This global language, a child of Hollywood and American mall culture, is so much closer to the actual internal voice of everyone under 40 that when a professional spin doctor forgets
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Drought essay: There’s mud in Manangatang
It’s raining at last in the bush, where there is no confidence, only hope.
By John Harms
If you want to find out about Australia you shouldn’t take a trip to the bush. It will tell you about the bush, or wherever you are in the bush, but I’m not sure it will tell you much about Australia, where eight out of ten of us live in A.D. Hope’s parasite cities and fill our soft selves with any mythology that
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Drought essay: Goulburn, NSW
By E.M. Holdsworth
Conversation overheard between two men on Auburn Street, Goulburn: “Didya hear? Council’s lifted the water restrictions from Level 5 to Level 5 extreme.” “What comes after that?” “That’s when you drink your own piss, mate, with a twist of lemon.” Over the last few months politicians of all persuasions
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Drought essay: Cambrai, South Australia
By Kerryn Goldsworthy
On a Tuesday in June, only a day or two before it finally began to bucket down, an article appeared on page two of the Adelaide Advertiser headed: “Please adopt a starving goat.” Leesa Lewis, director of the Australian Association for Dairy Goats, was appealing to “city people” for financial help, perhaps in the form
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Drought essay: Orange, NSW
By Celina Ribeiro
“I’m going to die,” pants Jess Wright. “Good,” says Mrs Jennings. “Do it quietly.” It is a cold Friday night in central-western New South Wales. The Kinross Wolaroi School indoor pool is the makeshift home of the Orange Icebreakers swim team, and this is their last training session before the winter break. Coach
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No flowers
Boys don't cry, nor are they given over to soppy goodbyes
By Neil Murray
Eighteen months ago my father came alone to spend a weekend with me. His purpose was clear: to pay for his funeral and instruct me in the arrangements. He said he couldn’t talk to my mother about it so he had to tell me. For about a year or so I’d been periodically receiving his tools – crowbars, axes, shovels, bench
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Murdoch’s war
How a lovestruck teenager, an angry man and an ambitious baron made sure bad news was no news on the path to Iraq
By Robert Manne
On the road to the invasion of Iraq, and through the two and a half years of bloody chaos since Baghdad’s fall, almost every Australian news-paper owned by Rupert Murdoch has supported each twist and turn of the American, British and Australian policy line. Oddly enough, however, during 2002 the humble Hobart Mercury
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Fields of dreams
The battle for the Timor Sea, home of oil, gas, hot air and hope
By Tony Clifton
Now here’s a puzzle, and it’s right on Australia’s sea-girt northern doorstep. Under the sea between Australia and Timor – but much closer to Timor than Australia – sits a huge geological formation known as Greater Sunrise. It contains perhaps $50 billion or more worth of gas and oil. Not a drop of this oil, or a
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From BoHo to PoHo
Plaques and decay. Can Kings Cross survive a $30 million facelift?
By Linda Jaivin
“Enjoy Coca-Cola.” The massive red-and-white command flashes from the top of William Street and over the three-way intersection where William meets Darlinghurst Road meets Victoria Street, the “cross” of Kings Cross. The Coke sign is a landmark, the eternal light of the Cross’s night. But there has always been more to
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Young Libs in the Chocolate Factory
Tomorrow’s Liberal leaders have issues with gays, greenies, young mums, Malcolm Fraser - and each other
By Chloe Hooper
A group of Young Liberals are touring Hobart’s Cadbury chocolate factory. They are warned – along with the other guests – not to take photographs or use recording equipment. They must not put their fingers in the giant vats of cocoa, touch any confectionary as it passes along the network of conveyor belts, or pick up
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“Oh my god. He’s done it again”
Dobbing on Dr Raad
By Nicholas Shakespeare
Dr Maurice Raad was a large, chubby South African, 53 years old, with a prominent mole on his right cheek. He appeared harassed on his first morning. As he bustled about the room, opening and closing cupboards, he chatted about Tasmania. He was new to the island but looked forward to working in Swansea at least five
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Over here, over fed, over-funded
As destitute universities count their pennies, students at one Australian institution count their blessings
By Charles Firth
I am standing in the kitchen of the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra, worrying whether you can contract diabetes simply by looking at too many sweets. Roy Kirkland, ADFA’s pastry chef, is showing off the desserts he has been making to feed the 100 academic staff and 1,000 students on campus. He begins with
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So happy we could scream
Still comfortable but relaxed no more in John Howard’s Australia
By John Birmingham
It’s a hell of a thing, to see the dead come back to life. But that’s what it felt like driving through my hometown. When I left Ipswich in the early 1980s the place seemed to be teetering on the edge of a death spiral. Steam-age industries that had supported generations of miners and factory workers were wheezing out
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Fear & Loathing at the ABC
By Margaret Simons
Modern ABC buildings show their bones. Their innards seem exposed to the light. The architecture is a thing of soaring, light-filled atriums, the foyers like stripped down cathedrals or airport departure lounges, without the comings and goings. One is invited to awe. Move into the back offices, though, and you get
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Run and hide
Ken Trewick and the amazing race sting
By John Harms
Ken Trewick is late. Which is very unlike Ken Trewick. He told me he’d pick me up at 9.30. And as I stand in the sunshine on the footpath outside my brother’s old Queensland house, I wonder what’s going on. Not that I know Ken too well. I’ve met him a few times I suppose, and I’ve heard some of his story. But I’m
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