Australia Politics

Menzies and Evatt are painted in their strengths and flaws, with their shared endeavours and their irreconcilable differences and with their competing views of Australia and the world. Anne Henderson’s account is fresh and compelling, a study in the triumphs, tribulations and tragedies that are the nature of politics.– Dr Paul Kelly, Editor-at-Large, The Australian Liberal Party founder and long-serving prime minister Robert (Bob) Menzies along with Labor foreign minister and attorney-general Bert (the Doc) Evatt were two of the biggest names in 20th century Australian politics. The ...

Between 2013 and 2022, Tony Abbott begat Malcolm Turnbull, who begat Scott Morrison. For nine long years, Australia was governed by a succession of Coalition governments rocked by instability and bloodletting, and consumed with prosecuting climate and culture wars while neglecting policy. By the end, among his detractors—and there were plenty—Morrison was seen as the worst prime minister since Billy McMahon. Morrison failed to accept the mantle of national leadership, or to deal adequately with the challenges of natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic.

While doing fieldwork on the remote Indonesian island of Flores, anthropologist Gregory Forth came across people talking about half-apelike, half-humanlike creatures that once lived in a cave on the slopes of a nearby volcano. Over the years he continued to record what locals had to say about these mystery hominoids while searching for ways to explain them as imaginary symbols of the wild or other cultural representations. We follow Forth on the trail of this mystery hominoid, and the space they occupy in islanders' culture as both natural creatures and as supernatural beings.

Crime is rampant as the Gold Rush sweeps through the vast Australian colony. Highways are threatened by roving gangs of bandits known as BUSHRANGERS. For two years from 1878, the northeast of Victoria crawled with policemen looking for the Kelly Gang led by Edward “Ned” Kelly. During this period Kelly told his story via several long letters penned during his chase.

Australian politics is shifting. The two-party system was broken at the last federal election, and another minority government is a real possibility in the future. Politics-as-usual is not enough for many voters. In this richly insightful essay, George Megalogenis traces the how and why of a political realignment. This is an essay about the teals, the Greens and the Coalition.

King David Kalākaua introduces us to the people upon whom the legend of the Pele family is based. They departed Samoa as war refugees in the 12th century, settling in the foothills of Mauna Loa. As earthquakes and eruptions occurred during their interactions with the Hawaiians, this family of kahuna were accorded what the king described as “unique sanctity and power”. Pele was as mighty as she was beautiful. The tales of the volcano goddess earned the attention of Kamapuaa, the outcast son of the chief of Oahu who terrorized the island with his band of renegades.

The monumental statues of Easter Island, both so magisterial and so forlorn, gazing out in their imposing rows over the island’s barren landscape, have been the source of great mystery ever since the island was first discovered by Europeans on Easter Sunday 1722. How could the ancient people who inhabited this tiny speck of land, the most remote in the vast expanse of the Pacific islands, have built such monumental works?

Journalist Josh Dean tells the story of a lovable Australian Shepherd, Jack, on his novice tour through the exciting world of professional dog showing, following Jack from his first competitions in local school gymnasiums all the way to the great granddaddy of them all, the Westminster Dog Show. A veteran journalist, Dean shines a warm, steady light on the trials that Jack and his plucky, dedicated owners come to face, and uses their story to explore the larger histories of dog shows themselves and our complex, heartfelt relationships to the pets we grow to love.

Mental illness is the great isolator - and the great unifier. Almost half of us will suffer from it at some point in our lives; it affects everybody in one way or another. Yet today, Australia’s mental health system is under stress and not fit for purpose, and the pandemic is only making things worse. What is to be done? In this brilliant mix of portraiture and analysis, Sarah Krasnostein tells the stories of three women and their treatment by the state while at their most unwell.

Culture Smart! New Zealand provides essential information on attitudes, beliefs, and behavior in different countries, ensuring that you arrive at your destination aware of basic manners, common courtesies, and sensitive issues. These concise guides tell you what to expect, how to behave, and how to establish a rapport with your hosts. This inside knowledge will enable you to steer clear of embarrassing gaffes and mistakes, feel confident in unfamiliar situations, and much more!

As a journalist, Leigh Sales often encounters people experiencing the worst moments of their lives in the full glare of the media. But one particular string of bad news stories - and a terrifying brush with her own mortality - sent her looking for answers about how vulnerable each of us is to a life-changing event. What are our chances of actually experiencing one? What do we fear most and why? And when the worst does happen, what comes next?

Imagine you are dying with a secret. Something you've never had the courage to tell your friends and family. Or a last wish - a task you need carried out before you can rest in peace. Now imagine there's a man who can take care of all that, who has no respect for the living, who will do anything for the dead. Bill Edgar is the coffin confessor - a one-of-a-kind professional, a man on a mission to make good on these last requests on behalf of his soon-to-be-deceased clients. And this is the extraordinary story of how he became that man.

“I love food” Nakkiah Lui says, and in the next breath whispers “so give us back our land”. In First Eat, a confrontational, raw and highly personal exploration of food politics, power and body sovereignty, Nakkiah Lui asks how our meals would look different if First Nations people owned the land from which the food came. First Eat is about more than just food, it’s an aural feast for a rich future.

When the hunters become the hunted, ex-CIA agent Jed Walker is the man you need. In 2011, Seal Team Six killed Osama Bin Laden. Now, four years later, someone is eliminating Team Six - one by one they are turning up dead. Jed Walker, ex-CIA, is an outsider back in the game. He's been chasing down a sinister group code-named Zodiac that the big guns - MI5, CIA, the Pentagon - have failed to eradicate. Walker follows the trail of bodies, uncovering secrets and making connections he's not supposed to make.

In this gripping essay, Hugh White explores Australia’s fateful choice to back America to the hilt and oppose China. What led both sides of politics to align with America so absolutely? Is this a case of sleepwalking to war? What tests might a new government face? White assesses America’s credibility and commitment, by examining AUKUS, the Quad, Trump and Biden. He discusses what the Ukraine conflict tells us about the future. And he argues that the US can neither contain China nor win a war over Taiwan. So where does this leave our future security and prosperity in Asia?

In a triumph of marketing, the Tasmanian salmon industry has for decades succeeded in presenting itself as world's best practice and its product as healthy and clean, grown in environmentally pristine conditions. But what are we eating when we eat Tasmanian salmon? Richard Flanagan's expose of the salmon farming industry in Tasmania is chilling. In the way that Rachel Carson took on the pesticide industry in her groundbreaking book Silent Spring, Flanagan tears open an industry that is as secretive as its practices are destructive and its product disturbing.

America is reeling from the national blackout that swept the nation, continuing to dig out of the power outage. And the new president is unlike any Mitch has worked with in the past; he is extremely dictatorial and sees cracks in America's democratic institutions that he believes can be exploited to put his family in power permanently. As Mitch backs away from the new president, he in turn questions Rapp's loyalty. Mitch decides to take a much needed break and moves to his house in Cape Town, where he gets pulled into a job with Nicholas Ward, the world's first trillionaire.

In 2011, on a remote Iranian mountain, a group of high-level officials have just witnessed the successful demonstration of a new weapons system meant to upend the American-led war in Afghanistan by essentially decimating the population. The intelligence officer recognizes what this development signifies even if his contemporaries do not. A fellow participant seems to agree with the intelligence officer’s reticence, remarking that he wished there was someone they could tell about this madness. But there is someone the intelligence officer can tell. One man who might just make a difference.

In 2021, Australia saw rage and revelation as #MeToo powered an insurgency against sexism and sexual violence. From once isolated survivors to political staffers, women everywhere were refusing to keep men’s secrets. In this electrifying essay, Jess Hill traces the conditions that gave birth to #MeToo and tells the stories of women who – often at great personal cost – found themselves at the centre of this movement. Hill exposes the networks of backlash against them – in government, media, schools and in our national psyche.

Australia is different - a vast island continent with distances so great that the capital of Western Australia is closer to Singapore than it is to Sydney. The landscape embraces magnificent tropical rainforests and deserts the size of several European states; temperate areas that sustain a flourishing wine industry, making Australia the world's fourth largest wine exporter; and a 16,000-mile coastline of breathtaking beaches. Plus its unique fauna is testament to the country's down-underness.