The Kazakh president thought he’d been palmed off with second-rate visitors, but the vice-regal Australians eventually got under his guard ...

“You who are seated here today will be China’s elites tomorrow,” declared the middle-aged party secretary at my senior high school. Alongside hundreds of other first-year students at one of the top ...

Books & arts Dispirited voters Glyn Davis 30 October 2025 Political dejection creates disengaged citizens, says a new synthesis of psychology, sociology and political science ...

Books & arts Boulez at 100, the Proms at 130 Andrew Ford 24 July 2025 This year’s BBC Proms celebrate composer, conductor and audience favourite Pierre Boulez Books & arts “That’s all I can do” Andrew ...

“I cannot live with You —” goes Emily Dickinson’s poem. “It would be Life —/ And Life is over there —/ Behind the Shelf.” Once upon a time many Australian homes had the books of Patrick White out ...

Nations are built with pens and brushes not just hammers and nails. They exhibit their character in what they say about themselves as much as what is said about them. — Bruce Pascoe, Convincing Ground ...

When another Newspoll dropped this week (51–49 in the Coalition’s favour, again) the Australian mentioned a change in how its pollsters will be estimating two-party-preferred figures between now and ...

One Sunday morning nearly four years ago Kevin McCann was surprised to learn that an organisation he chaired was being hounded in the News Corp tabloids for being in “China’s grip” and “lobbying ...

Tasmania presents something of a political conundrum. Back in May 2023 its Liberal government fell into minority after the defection of two members, John Tucker and Lara Alexander. Premier Jeremy ...

Australian schooling lives within the comprehensive failure of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard’s “education revolution.” David Gonski’s proposals, by some margin the best of a bad lot, had only limited ...

The politicians and soldiers do the work but the thinkers give the world the language and concepts to understand power: Machiavelli wrestles Marx while Clausewitz argues theory with Sun Tzu and ...