Category Archives: Occasional Essays and Articles

(2024) Rob Ferguson: “Became wiser and gentler while still doggedly seeking the truth”

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.

(2024) What Would Tom Think?

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.

(2023) Fighter for Respect and Love, Jeremy Jones

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.

(2022) The Hirschman Difference

Rare is the book that with verve, clarity, enthusiasm, and authority establishes the claim that a thinker demands reappraisal and even celebration.

(2021) Cardinal Edward Cassidy AC (1924-2021), Australia’s Nuncio to the World

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.

(2021) Society and Thatcher’s Curse

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.

(2021) Obituary to John Caldon (1947-2021): The Yorkshireman Who Called Australia Home

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.

(2020) Faith’s Place

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.)

(2019) Why I joined the Ramsay Centre: Timeless Issues are to the Fore

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.

(2017) The Man Who Discovered China

Philippe Paquet’s Simon Leys Navigator Between Worlds is the first book length biography of the author, sinologist, and critic Pierre Ryckmans (1935-2014) who published under the pseudonym Simon Leys. A splendid achievement, on literary, philosophical, historical, and interpretative perspectives, this is arguably the finest ever account of any Australian.