(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
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
From tiny home in Padstow, schooling at East Hills Boys High in the 1960s, to Australia’s leading investment banker, is not a common route, then as now. Former CEO of Bankers Trust Australia (BTA), 1985 to 1999, then its chairman to 2001, Robert Alexander “Rob” Ferguson (2 December 1945- 31 August 2024) died last month after a long battle with the lung disease fibrosis. Jen, his wife of 56 years, sister Fiona, and son-in-law Pete kept vigil.
It is an excellent question: ‘What would Tom think?’ Professor Tom Parry AM (1945-2024), economics professor, raconteur, businessman, and regulator, who was laid to rest at the end of May, was a rarity. A sharp mind who made economic rationalism understandable, popular, and effective.
Jeremy Jones (1958-2023), prominent community leader, interfaith activist, scholar, writer, Rabbitohs barracker, Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council director, past president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, father, husband, mentor, and mensch, singularly contributed to modern Australia.
Rare is the book that with verve, clarity, enthusiasm, and authority establishes the claim that a thinker demands reappraisal and even celebration.
The presence of members of Jewish, Orthodox Christian, and various Protestant denominations at the funeral indicated that this was no ordinary man. “Even if you cry your eyes out, don’t worry; he was worth every tear,” the Bishop of Wollongong, The Most Rev. Brian Mascord, said in his homily.
What it means to be human is being reinvented. There is something new today about relationships, within families, with friends, in workplaces, in communities, within society.
John Richard Caldon, investment banker and entrepreneur, who died of complications of lung cancer on Tuesday 16 February, arguably had the greatest impact on Australia of any Yorkshireman since Captain Cook.
Australia’s political culture, as with western ruling elites generally, with the partial exception of the United States, is becoming more secular. Yet the world is becoming more religious. Faith still registers strongly in western societies. (Even in Australia, though the trend is clear, a clear majority still identify as Christian, though this is dropping.)
The Ramsay Centre is in the headlines again with news about the discussions with the University of Queensland on a major in western civilisation studies as an option in the university’s Bachelor of Arts degree. UQ intends to run a course which would teach text about the impact of the West on Aboriginal people.