I am writing a book with the working title of Australia after socialism that explains the Australian intellectual left since the early 1990s. Tim Rowse in a review in Arena Magazine No. 4 of Meaghan Morris Ecstasy and Economics, described her approach thus: Unlike those who practice political biography, she holds no brief for […]
Arrivals and Departures then and now
Often books written long ago and now forgotten shed much light on the present. An example recently read is James Jupp’s 1966 Arrivals and Departures on post- World War II immigration to Australia. He shows how Australian policymakers engaged in endless self-congratulation about what a success the program had been and how welcoming they were […]
Past electoral lessons
Delight of second-hand bookshopping is finding curiosities that shed unexpected light on present. Two old examples of British electoral studies read recently have some lessons for present.
Labor goes back to 1997?
In many respects modern Labor has returned to the type of inward musing that it engaged in after 1996. Then there was an assortment of vaguely defined rhetoric about the party’s perceived excessive social liberalism, these critics however were very vague as to exactly what alternative policies they proposed, instead they preferred to focus on […]
Race, history and politics
Why it is that a hostility towards indigenous Australians is a core principle for some Australian conservatives? Some light on this is shed by the history of history.
Catholic activists and racism
Interesting to note the incorporation of Australian Catholic conservatives into the Australian conservative movement. This is apparent in the recent anti-Muslim rhetoric of Greg Sheridan and Kevin Andrews which echoes themes of less prominent Catholic activists such as Bill Muehelberg and Cory Bernardi. This is an interesting shift. Defence of White Australia was a core […]