The Monthly Essays

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Ash Barty with winners trophy, Wimbledon, 2021

Sport

Ash’s to Ash’s

From stepping away from tennis as a youth before returning to dominate Wimbledon and the Australian Open, to retiring as world No. 1 at the age of 25, Ash Barty has always owned her career path

Members of the Kanakanvu tribe perform at a Saraya harvest festival, Donghua Village, Taiwan.

Race and ethnicity

Who is Taiwanese?

Taiwan’s minority indigenous peoples are being used to refute mainland China’s claims on the island – but what does that mean for their recognition, land rights and identity?

Ningaloo, Western Australia

Books

Writing in nature

The laureate of the Western Australian surf break sees a task ahead for our essayists, our novelists and our poets alike in the fight against climate catastrophe

Kakadu National Park

Environment

Park of the covenant

With the Ranger Uranium Mine now closed, Kakadu’s traditional owners want the government to make good on the original promise of a national park in their care

Photo of Animal Justice Party MP Georgie Purcell outside Parlament House with rescued greyhound Graham

Society

Dog day afternoon

Animal welfare concerns have long plagued the greyhound racing industry, but in Victoria a campaign from covert investigators now has a parliamentarian leading the fight

Close-up photograph of Anne Summers, 2017

Social Justice

How to change a bad law

The campaign to repair the single parenting payment was a model of how research and advocacy can push government to face the cruel effects of a policy and change course

John Howard on the rise, 1984. Image courtesy of the National Archives of Australia.

What’s right?

The future of the Liberal Party

Chris Lilley in characters. Courtesy of the ABC. © John Tsiavis

Television

Can we be heroes?

Chris Lilley and the politics of comedy

A TPN rebel at base camp in the jungle of West Papua. © KC Ortiz
Prime Minister Naoto Kan of Japan addresses the nation about the worsening situation at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, 25 March 2011. © Tomohiro/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Katsushika Hokusai, 'Under the Wave off Kanagawa', c. 1830. © Corbis