The Monthly Essays
ECONOMICS
What Gina Wants: Gina Rinehart’s quest for respect and gratitude
Nick Bryant
Lang Hancock thought journalists were either “socialists” or “communists”. Gina, too, is deeply scornful of the press. Very few reporters...
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POLITICS
One Morning with Malcolm: Turnbull Speaks on Life in Politics
Robert Manne
Paul Keating was the prime minister deemed most responsible by Liberals for imposing the yoke of political correctness on the shoulders of...
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SOCIETY
The Insult: An incurious encounter takes flight
Peter Robb
It was getting dark and the plane for Darwin was almost full. Well back in Economy, the two seats between me and the window were empty. The...
More ...Infomation Idol: How Google is Making Us Stupid
Gideon Haigh
Google is synonymous, too, with speed and simplicity. But nothing about it has been speedier or simpler than its rise. It is not a decade...
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SOCIETY
Across the Great Divide: Public versus Private Schools
Catherine Ford
In the mid 1970s, my conservative, town-dwelling parents uprooted us on a whim. From our comfortable home in a fantastically uneventful...
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SOCIETY
One-sport Wonders
Malcolm Knox
It’s the type of dewy summer morning when you can be sunburnt by 8 am. On the cricket field, 10 year olds in whites are hoping the hard...
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WORLD
An Unknown Soldier: A father’s World War II keepsake sparks a harrowing journey
Robin Barker
In April 2009, I attempted to climb Mount Kinabalu in Sabah, Borneo. Kinabalu is a stark granite freak of a mountain, 4095 metres high and...
More ...The 0.01 Per Cent: The Rising Influence of Vested Interests in Australia
Wayne Swan
A decade ago, as I waited for my order outside a Maroochydore fish and chip shop, a tall, barefoot young man strolled past wearing a T-...
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WORLD
Autumn of the Patriarch: Four Days with José Ramos-Horta
Peter Robb
I got to Dili at seven in the morning and the president of the República Democrática de Timor-Leste arrived from New York via Singapore a...
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POLITICS
The Whirling Dervish: Tony Abbott
Louis Nowra
The two days I spent in emergency, I whiled away my time trying to block my ears to the cries of angry injured drunks and moaning victims,...
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MEDIA
The Bolt Factor: Andrew Bolt and the Making of an Opportunist
Anne Summers
At one minute past midnight on 30 August, Andrew Bolt posted the following tantalising words on his blog: “No politics until further notice...
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POLITICS
Green Christine: A Profile of Senator Milne
Amanda Lohrey
Milne is delayed, which gives me a moment to enjoy the view from her office. It's a big glassed-in semicircle that looks down the Derwent...
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POLITICS
Australia: The Official History
John Hirst
Howard adopted narrative history as part of his political program in a speech on Australia Day 2006, when he attacked the current practice...
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POLITICS
A Coup By Any Other Name: Kevin Rudd
Rhys Muldoon
They’re putting you through the fire,” I remarked to the prime minister on the first day of winter, 2010. “Is my arse alight?” he replied....
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SOCIETY
A Ferry into the Past: The Story of Billy Blue
Cassandra Pybus
When I was 17 my friend Chloe lived in Lavender Bay, just down the road from the Old Commodore Hotel. I lived nearby in Kirribilli,...
More ...SOCIETY
Patrick White: The final chapter
David Marr
We climbed down and after some hesitation found a spot where waves were washing through a rock pool. A couple of fishermen had lines in the...
More ...MEDIA
Fear & Loathing at the ABC
Margaret Simons
The working day is infused with the irony of the clever, their undercutting humour, and the slight sense of disappointment that always...
More ...Duty of Care
Margaret Simons
Pluck an episode from the midstream of human life and it can be hard to glean meaning. Sometimes there is just senselessness and mess. If...
More ...Divided We Fall: The Australian Greens Party
Sally Neighbour
*Nine days after the Christmas drinks in Canberra, a far more toxic atmosphere prevails as the NSW Greens assemble for their bi-monthly...
More ...SOCIETY
Lies that Tell the Truth: The paradox of art and creative writing
Simon Leys
This essay was originally an address to the annual conference of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, where its title, at the request of...
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