War Without, Rot Within: The Collapse of Australian Party Politics

Arena Quarterly no. 3

Guy Rundle

Sep 2020

The central political fact of our time…is the total de-representation of whole sectors of the population from the polity, or from any notion of a social whole, on a staggering and unprecedented scale.

Fuelling ‘The China Threat’

Arena Quarterly no. 3

Scott Burchill

Sep 2020

The new moral panic about ‘the China threat’, and the comparative indifference in Australia about significantly more intrusive forms of foreign interference by the United States and the United Kingdom, for example, is orientalist and often racist: China is not a member of the Western club, so it is suspect.

‘The Aboriginal Gulag’: The Northern Territory’s Criminal Legal System

Arena Online

John B. Lawrence SC

22 Oct 2020

It is no longer an overworked, under-resourced and at times chaotic legal system. It is now not fit for purpose and has become a depraved jailing machine consuming Aboriginal men, women and children at an ever-increasing rate.

Stay in your Lane: the oxymoron of ‘authentic fiction’ (Part I)

Arena Online

H. C. Gildfind

22 Oct 2020

Are these judges…genuinely concerned about cultural appropriation? Or are they actually concerned about the accusations of cultural appropriation that are likely to result (via social media) if they award and publish a story that turns out to be written by someone who doesn’t identify clearly and directly with their subject matter?

Plagued by Chaos: An Inside View on the Anti-lockdown Protests

Arena Online

Scobie McKay

22 Oct 2020

As lockdown restrictions slowly ease, a peruse of the encrypted networks used by anti-lockdown protesters reveals the extent to which confused allegiances and conspiracy theories have plagued the movement.

The coming COVID science sh*tstorm: responding to the Great Barrington Declaration

Arena Online

Jeremy Baskin

15 Oct 2020

‘Not again’ will be the first thought of many climate-change veterans. They will recognise in the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) echoes of the dispiriting and distracting climate-science wars. Released on 7 October, the declaration is a brief statement promoted by three eminent epidemiologists. It is highly critical of lockdown approaches to tackling COVID-19 and argues […]

A continent that burns. And a world that’s getting hotter. Welcome to the Pyrocene.

Arena Online

Cam Walker

15 Oct 2020

The world has heated as a result of human activity and now all fire events occur in a warmer environment. This is well documented. We have known it for years.

Erasing Culture: The Attack on Critical Education

Arena Online

Jasmin Pfefferkorn

15 Oct 2020

Continuing education and suitable funding for educational initiatives are crucial because racism is not only historical—it is both contemporary and dynamic.

The Toxic Business as usual Budget will be no elixer for rapid COVID-induced economic decline

Arena Online

Jon Altman

8 Oct 2020

The government has baulked at a desperately needed and once-in-a-generation chance to structurally change the Australian economy to make it more sustainable, greener and fairer.

Kafka on Steroids: Summarising the Extradition Hearing of Julian Assange

Arena Online

Felicity Ruby

8 Oct 2020

Embarrassing the powerful is the harm for which the publisher is on trial, while those who have committed the crimes revealed are free to strike again, to profit again and to continue killing in cold blood.

From the Archive

Green Pathways to a People’s Future

Arena Quarterly no. 1

Adam Bandt

‘Fire’ may be an appropriate way to think and talk about the climate-change emergency, not just because we are literally dealing with a burning world but also because it does not bring with it the concerns associated with ‘rule by emergency’.

From the Archive

New Arena Rising…

Arena Magazine no. 163

Alison Caddick

A new Arena for dangerous times: responding to world events and cultural trajectories—participating in the emerging debates

Childhood masked

Arena Online

Carla Pascoe Leahy

8 Oct 2020

Childhood has contracted to the home in this plague year, shrinking radically to the family within the home.

Editorial, Arena no. 3: Defence After the Rise of China

Arena Quarterly no. 3

John Hinkson

Sep 2020

Rather than addressing the realities of our place in the region, the Morrison government’s emerging defence strategy is an attempt to hold the old assumptions in place. It is utopian conservatism at its worst.

Eyewitness to the Agony of Julian Assange

Arena Online

John Pilger

2 Oct 2020

I have sat in many courts and seldom known such a perversion of due process. This is due revenge.

Government abandons the arts: what’s to be done?

Arena Online

Kevin Murray

1 Oct 2020

Rather than an organic ‘culture’ with its own shared meanings, the arts ‘industry’ is an aggregate of individual interests.

We need to use less fossil gas rather than increase supply: demand-side answers for gas regulators

Arena Online

Jim Crosthwaite

1 Oct 2020

The southern states do not need more fossil gas. Energy needs can be met with existing resources, if smart demand-side tools are employed. Corporations should not be allowed to build new infrastructure to explore, process, store and transport fossil gas. More exploration onshore or offshore is not necessary.

Après moi, le déluge: Artists after Art

Arena Quarterly no. 3

Justin Clemens

Sep 2020

The ‘artist’ is no longer simply an individual maker, an avant-garde visionary, a person exploring the specifics and limits of a medium, or indeed any of the other familiar figures of aesthetic modernity. Instead, the ‘artist’ is marked out by their success at doing exactly what late capitalism demands; that is, everything, and in a flagrantly vacuous way.
The Alan Roberts Prize