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The Monthly | Australian politics, society & culture

The April issue

Thursday, April 6, 2023

The gravedigger

It’s time to call Peter Dutton out for the soulless wrecker that he is

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PREFERENCE CENTER

Essays  Right arrow

Issues and policies

Penny Wong’s next big fight

Does the foreign minister believe AUKUS positions Australia for an inevitable Pacific war, or does she still think we needn’t choose between the US and China?

Penny Wong’s next big fight
Climate justice in the Pacific

Climate change

Climate justice in the Pacific

The lack of global action on the climate crisis has left grassroots groups leading the fight against catastrophe in PNG

Debt-à-porter

Society

Debt-à-porter

The Sydney-based fashion label Ellery collapsed in 2019, leaving creditors owed millions, so why is the brand, now in Paris, still feted as an Australian success story?


Online Latest  Right arrow

Anthony Albanese introduces Labor leader and Premier elect Chris Minns, holding his arm aloft in victory

Political parties

Labor in power: a recent history

Incumbent Labor governments have failed to achieve much that could be called progressive

A drag queen is crouching on stage, surrounded by blue and purple lights.

Film

Berlinale 2023 highlights: part two

Standouts among the sidebars included French crime flick ‘The Temple Woods Gang’, Argentinian comedy of errors ‘Arturo a los 30’ and London-set queer thriller ‘Femme’

Image showing Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin in Succession season four

Television

Psychological warfare reigns in new seasons of ‘Yellowjackets’ and ‘Succession’

Plus, Aussie teenagers switch schools in ‘The Swap’, Donald Glover and Janine Nabers’ psychological horror ‘Swarm’, and more

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese arrive in the Ahmedabad stadium, carried by a strange vehicle decorated with crickets bats and stumps

Sport

Technocrats are ruining Test cricket

Why does the Australian men’s team bother to play Tests overseas?

The Nation Reviewed  Right arrow

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen speaking in the House of Reps, March 20, 2023

Federal politics

Dial ‘M’ for mandate

The idea that governments must not pursue policy they didn’t take to an election is political nonsense

Illustration by Jeff Fisher

Education

Machine learning

The AI-writing app ChatGPT poses a challenge not only to our education system but to how we think

Illusatrtion by Jeff Fisher

Media

Plains speaking

How lockdowns and personal struggles led Jess McGuire to her new gig as a host of ABC Western Plains radio

Illustration by Jeff Fisher

Society

Little club of horrors

The passions of carnivorous-botany enthusiasts go well beyond Venus flytraps, the “gateway plants”

Vox  Right arrow

The Vox Owl

War correspondence

Taciturn letters to the author’s family, written by his grandfather on World War One battlefields, prompt consideration of intergenerational trauma

Arts & Letters  Right arrow

Image of Alexis Wright, seated, 2007

Literature

Sovereignty of imagination: Alexis Wright

A new novel from the acclaimed Indigenous writer occasions a survey of her work, immersed in Country and the ongoing experience of colonisation

Image of slide and rocks from ‘Rocks on Wheels’, Southbank, Melbourne

Architecture

Slide and the family stone: Mike Hewson

The artist playing with risk and constructing public spaces that make wry observations of how we treat nature in our urban environments

Close-up of donkey's face from ‘EO’

Film

Donkey gong: Jerzy Skolimowski’s ‘EO’

The venerable Polish director’s latest film follows a donkey on a moving yet unsentimental journey

Noted  Right arrow

Cover of ‘I Have Some Questions for You’

Books

Rebecca Makkai’s ‘I Have Some Questions for You’

In this sharp campus novel about memory and abuse, a woman returns to the boarding school where her friend was murdered

Cover of ‘The Bookbinder of Jericho’

Books

Pip Williams’ ‘The Bookbinder of Jericho’

The Australian author’s second novel returns to World War One England to consider the significance of meaningful work for women

Life sentences Right arrow

Flowers being watered

‘When in doubt, make a fool of yourself’

The inspirational advice from a book that emboldened the author to pursue a career in writing and cartooning, and to approach life with joy

Podcasts  Right arrow

7am

No Voice and no votes: the future of the Liberal Party

Columnist for The Saturday Paper Paul Bongiorno on the future of the Liberal party.

HOST Ruby Jones
GUEST Paul Bongiorno

7am

Can a deal be done to get us affordable homes?

Chief political correspondent for The Saturday Paper Karen Middleton on the political games that could decide the future of Australian housing.

HOST Ruby Jones
GUEST Karen Middleton

7am

The state locking up more children than any other

Queensland Human Rights Commissioner Scott McDougall on the rights of children in a state that’s going to lock up more of them – and how his office has been sidelined.

HOST Ruby Jones
GUEST Scott McDougall