By this author
“Name Ten”: The journalism of Andrew Bolt
Stolen Generations
On 28 September 2011, Andrew Bolt was found to have committed an offence under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. He had written two articles in the Herald Sun which had the capacity to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate …
Asylum Seeker Policy: From stalemate to hope?
Asylum seekers
Since 1976 some 25,000 asylum seekers have arrived on Australia’s shores. Despite these modest numbers, the issue has played a major role in our politics for at least the past twelve years. Yet never in that period has the situation of asylum seeker …
Out of Control: More Bad News
News Limited
Before my Quarterly Essay on the Australian was published there was some discussion about what it should be called. Before “Bad News” my preference was for “Out of Control”. A brief account of how the Australian …
Deconstructing Paul Kelly
Australian Politics
Update: Since writing this, Paul Kelly has pulled out of the debate at the Wheeler Centre. The event is still going ahead.*On September 14 Paul Kelly wrote the first considered response from a journalist at the Australian …
Left, Right, Left
Australian Politics
Why have I decided to begin a blog? In part I relish the opportunity to write more freely and with greater immediacy than is possible with print. In part, as I have just entered an area fraught with danger—a critique of the Australian, …
The Cypherpunk Revolutionary
Politics
Julian Assange: the unknown story
Man of Wood
Politics
Robert Manne on John Howard’s ‘Lazarus Rising’
The rise of the Greens
Politics
Politics is indeed a strange business. We have recently experienced the most dismal election campaign in memory, where the argument between the major parties turned on a series of confected panics about cynically selected non-problems – the reincarnation …
Asylum seekers
Politics
The first boat in Australian history with asylum seekers on board reached our northern coastline in April 1976. Over the next 34 years a further 24,000 boatpeople, as they came to be called, arrived. One of the most intriguing and puzzling questions of …
Rudd’s collapse
Politics
In the history of Australian politics there has never been a collapse as dramatic, unexpected and unnecessary as the one experienced by Kevin Rudd during the past two months. Those who have been supporters of the prime minister and his government must …
State of tomorrow
Culture
Tony Judt’s 'Ill Fares the Land'
On your bike, Tony Abbott
Politics
In 2010, Manne hoped Abbott would exit early
After Copenhagen
Politics
Over 200 years ago human beings began burning large quantities of the coal, oil and natural gas that had been buried under the Earth’s surface for hundreds of millions of years. This may eventually come to be seen as the most fatal misstep in the history …
