(2025) Hawke and His Legend
This is a competent telling of the Hawke PM story.
Eliza Anderson (1863-1942), Radical and Feminist
Very little has appeared concerning the cultured Scots suffragist and socialist activist Elizabeth or Eliza, as she liked to be called, Anderson (1863-1942).
(2025) Whitlam’s Fall was the High Art of Political Bastardry
No one looks great, fifty years after the dismissal of the Whitlam Government.
(2025) The Drift of Australian Foreign Policy
The purpose of this chapter is to sketch what happened in foreign policy in the first term of the Albanese-led Labor government, and to provide context and analysis of the bigger picture. The word ‘drift’ conveys direction of policy and action, rather than uncertain navigation.
(2025) The Rise, Fall, and Flailing of Jacinta Price
It was not long ago that Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price was the hope of the Trump-admiring, MAGA-lite faction of the Liberal Party. Her campaign against the Voice referendum, her earthy wisdom and admirable life story, enthused the “after dark” crowd.
(2025) Broken Windows and Antisemitism
How did we get to here? This weird, startling, savage, ‘new normal’ of anti-Jew hatred?
(2025): Israelis Right to Fear a Hostile Palestinian State
A lot is being asked of Israelis, the Jewish diaspora, and friends right now.
(2025) Worlds Within Worlds of Chinese Communism
Review article published in the Sydney Institute Review, September 2025, of Linda Jaivin’s Bombard the Headquarters! The Cultural Revolution in China, Old Street Publishing [and also Black Inc.], 2025; & Joseph Torigian’s The Party’s Interests Come First. The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping, Stanford University Press, 2025. These two books, written about…
Why Palestinian Recognition is Both Inevitable and Fraught
Australian public opinion in favour of recognition of a state of Palestine is clear. Continuing opposition could merely hasten a form of recognition that would be tantamount to an empty gesture. What is now required is for those genuinely seeking a two-state solution, that enables Palestinians and Israelis to live side-by-side in peace, is to provide a robust, realist edge to what Foreign Minister Wong calls the “matter of when, not if” decision.
(2025) Envoy’s Definition Won’t Conflate Antisemitism with Criticising Israel
The IHRA definition does no more than recognise that anti-Zionism may or may not be antisemitic in its motivation or effects. It nearly always depends on how points are made, content and context.