Quarterly Essay 25 Bipolar Nation

Quarterly Essay 25 Bipolar Nation PDF Author: Peter Hartcher
Publisher: Black Inc.
ISBN: 1921825243
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 86

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Book Description
In Bipolar Nation, Peter Hartcher discusses the fantasies and realities at the heart of our politics. When our political leaders look at us, what do they see? What are the hopes, fears and dreams of the Australian electorate, and how might they be turned to election winning advantage? What, most fundamentally, do we want in a prime minister? In this scintillating and original essay, Peter Hartcher investigates today's “bipolar nation”, where Australians are more economically secure, yet existentially as anxious as ever. He explains how the Lucky Country and the Frightened Country will be the two grand themes of the election year, and discusses how John Howard will set out to craft an election winning strategy on that basis. He revisits Donald Horne's Lucky Country, looks at the legacy of Paul Keating, and analyses Kevin Rudd's many layered effort to out-manoeuvre the Prime Minister. ‘The Lucky Country finally started to make its own luck, and Howard has taken out a political monopoly on it. The Frightened Country still harbours dark anxieties, some old and some new. Howard, the necromancer of our national psyche, conjures our fears to frighten us, and then offers to banish them again to soothe us. He understands the Bipolar Nation.’ —Peter Hartcher, ipolar Nation ‘Hartcher tells us in his essay Bipolar Nation that Howard is playing the 2007 election like a shrewd game of bridge. Labor can put down as many policy aces as it likes between now and polling day, but if Howard wins in the end it will be because he holds all the trump cards.’ —Andrew Charlton ‘Peter Hartcher's essay is as elegant and erudite as its author.’ —Bill Bowtell Peter Hartcher is the political editor and international editor for the Sydney Morning Herald. He has won both the Gold Walkley award for journalism and the Citibank award for business reporting. His books include Bubble Man: Alan Greenspan and the Missing 7 Trillion Dollars and To the Bitter End: the Dramatic Story Behind the Fall of John Howard and the Rise of Kevin Rudd.

Quarterly Essay 25 Bipolar Nation

Quarterly Essay 25 Bipolar Nation PDF Author: Peter Hartcher
Publisher: Black Inc.
ISBN: 1921825243
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 86

Get Book Here

Book Description
In Bipolar Nation, Peter Hartcher discusses the fantasies and realities at the heart of our politics. When our political leaders look at us, what do they see? What are the hopes, fears and dreams of the Australian electorate, and how might they be turned to election winning advantage? What, most fundamentally, do we want in a prime minister? In this scintillating and original essay, Peter Hartcher investigates today's “bipolar nation”, where Australians are more economically secure, yet existentially as anxious as ever. He explains how the Lucky Country and the Frightened Country will be the two grand themes of the election year, and discusses how John Howard will set out to craft an election winning strategy on that basis. He revisits Donald Horne's Lucky Country, looks at the legacy of Paul Keating, and analyses Kevin Rudd's many layered effort to out-manoeuvre the Prime Minister. ‘The Lucky Country finally started to make its own luck, and Howard has taken out a political monopoly on it. The Frightened Country still harbours dark anxieties, some old and some new. Howard, the necromancer of our national psyche, conjures our fears to frighten us, and then offers to banish them again to soothe us. He understands the Bipolar Nation.’ —Peter Hartcher, ipolar Nation ‘Hartcher tells us in his essay Bipolar Nation that Howard is playing the 2007 election like a shrewd game of bridge. Labor can put down as many policy aces as it likes between now and polling day, but if Howard wins in the end it will be because he holds all the trump cards.’ —Andrew Charlton ‘Peter Hartcher's essay is as elegant and erudite as its author.’ —Bill Bowtell Peter Hartcher is the political editor and international editor for the Sydney Morning Herald. He has won both the Gold Walkley award for journalism and the Citibank award for business reporting. His books include Bubble Man: Alan Greenspan and the Missing 7 Trillion Dollars and To the Bitter End: the Dramatic Story Behind the Fall of John Howard and the Rise of Kevin Rudd.

Apocryphal and Literary Influences on Galway Diasporic History

Apocryphal and Literary Influences on Galway Diasporic History PDF Author: Gay Lynch
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443826103
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Apocryphal and Literary Influences on Galway Diasporic History establishes that apocryphal stories, in all their transformations, contribute to collective memory. Common characteristics frame their analysis: irreducible and enduring elements, often embedded in archetypal drama; lack of historical verification; establishment in collective memory; revivals after periods of dormancy; subjection to political and economic manipulation; implicit speculation; and literary transformations. This book contextualises Unsettled, an Australian novel about a convict play, derived from the Irish apocryphal story of The Magistrate of Galway, and documents previously unpublished primary material, including apocryphal stories passed through generations of descendents of settlers, Martin and Maria Lynch, and The Hibernian Father, a play by Irish convict, Edward Geoghegan. It puts forward new hypotheses: that the Irish hero Cuchulain may have provided a template for the archetypal and apocryphal story of the Magistrate of Galway; that disgraced Trinity College medical student and aspiring writer, Edward Geoghegan, enacted and recounted the same father-son archetypal conflict when he was transported to Botany Bay in 1839, and wrote the The Hibernian Father based on the Magistrate of Galway; that working-class Irish families were marginalised in South-east South Australian historical records; that oral apocryphal Lynch stories may be true; that Kate Grenville’s The Secret River (2006) offers an alternative history of the Hawkesbury River settlement, by some definitions apocryphal. The mystery of Geoghegan’s disappearance is solved, and knowledge about his life increased. French theorist Gerard Genette’s notion, advanced in Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree (1997), of all novels being transtextual, provides a model for the analysis of relationships between these key apocryphal texts.

Australia's Asia

Australia's Asia PDF Author: David Robert Walker
Publisher: Apollo Books
ISBN: 9781742583495
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
To think that Australia is confronting Asia for the first time in the 21st century is to deny Australia's history and the self-awareness that comes from understanding that the country has been here before. Asia appears throughout modern Australian history as a source of anxiety or hope. It has been a presence both within and outside Australia, shaping who Australians are, as well as the country's engagement with the wider world. This book assembles an impressive group of scholars across a range of disciplines to present a broadly conceived cultural history that places Asia at or near the center of Australia's national story. *** "Australia's Asia: From Yellow Peril to Asian Century captures the essence of the pendulum swings that have characterized Australian approaches to Asia over the past century and a half. ... The editors have done a first-class job in assembling high-quality chapters that make an important contribution to the existing literature on Australia and Asia. ... Moreover, this book tells an important story about the role and impact of individuals -- not just elites, but in many cases ordinary citizens -- in building Australia's relations with Asia. It is a valuable remedy to the ahistorical approach of so many of the debates within Australia over regional engagement and is a useful text for those outside Australia interested in acquiring insights into what motivates the country's approach to its region." - Pacific Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 4, December 2014Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?

The Times Will Suit Them

The Times Will Suit Them PDF Author: Geoff Boucher
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000248186
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
John Howard said, The times will suit me,' and they did. For over a decade John Howard took advantage of international crises and local anxieties to not only stay in government, but to radically reshape Australian public life. The Times Will Suit Them digs behind the headlines to explain the success of Howard's radical new conservatism. It shows how the Howard government and its small legion of culture warriors responded to deep changes engendered by two decades of economic reform by importing moral agendas from the US. The result was a brand of deeply postmodern' conservatism which undermined much that traditional conservatives hold dear. From Hansonism to children overboard to the Intervention in the Northern Territory and beyond, The Times Will Suit Them offers a fresh and provocative analysis from two Young Turks. It is compelling reading for anyone seeking to understand the drivers in contemporary Australian politics.

Quarterly Essay 65 The White Queen

Quarterly Essay 65 The White Queen PDF Author: David Marr
Publisher: Black Inc.
ISBN: 1925435490
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
Most Australians despise what Pauline Hanson stands for, yet politics in this country is now orbiting around One Nation. In this timely Quarterly Essay, David Marr looks at Australia’s politics of fear, resentment and race. Who votes One Nation, and why? How much of this is due to inequality? How much to racism? How should the major parties respond to anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim voices? What damage do Australia’s new entrepreneurs of hate inflict on the nation? Written with drama and wit, this is a ground-breaking look at politics and prejudice by one of Australia’s best writers. “This woman went to prison, danced the cha-cha on national television for a couple of years, and failed so often at the ballot box she became a running joke. But the truth is she never left us. She was always knocking on the door. Most of those defeats at the polls were close-run things. For twenty years political leaders appeased Hanson’s followers while working to keep her out of office. The first strategy tainted Australian politics. The second eventually failed. So she’s with us again – the Kabuki make-up, that mop of red hair and the voice telling us what we already know: ‘I’m fed up.’” —David Marr, The White Queen

Quarterly Essay 62 Firing Line

Quarterly Essay 62 Firing Line PDF Author: James Brown
Publisher: Black Inc.
ISBN: 1925435016
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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Book Description
Going to war may be the gravest decision a nation and its leaders make. At the moment, Australia is at war with the Islamic State. We also live in a region that has become much more volatile, as China asserts itself and America seeks to hold the line. What is it like to go to war? How do we decide to go to war? Where might we go to war in the future? Will we get that decision right? In this vivid, urgent essay, James Brown looks to history, strategy and his own experience to explore these questions. He examines the legacy of the Iraq War and argues that it has prevented a clear view of Australia’s future conflicts. He looks at how we plug into the US war machine, now that American troops are based in Darwin. And he sheds fascinating light on the extraordinary concentration of war powers in the hands of the Prime Minister – and how this might go wrong. This powerful essay argues that we have not yet begun to think through the choices that may confront us in years ahead. ‘When you live in a country like ours, the dirty business of war is a stranger. That is the blessed legacy of a place where soldiers are rarely seen, and then only on parade. Where war means Anzac Day, and Anzac Days are all the same. There are few moments in modern Australia when you might pause to ask the most consequential of questions . . . What is it that we are willing to fight for?’ —James Brown, Firing Line ‘[James Brown] is a fine writer, clear and persuasive and capable of adroit tactical moves.’ —Weekend Australian ‘Brown’s survey of this complicated landscape yields some striking phrases and arresting moments. He is a natural and precise writer with a vivid sense of place.’ —Australian Book Review

Advance Australia ... Where?

Advance Australia ... Where? PDF Author: Hugh Mackay
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1459624483
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 478

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Book Description
In Advance Australia Where? Hugh Mackay, our most highly respected social researcher, takes a long hard look at our society in the 21st century. While we enjoy unprecedented levels of prosperity and the promise of more to come, we are still battling an epidemic of anxiety and depression, taking on record levels of debt, and yearning for a deeper sense of meaning in our lives. While many Australians complain about feeling powerless and isolated, Mackay sees some encouraging signs that we are learning how to absorb the impact of the revolutionary changes in our way of life. This fully updated edition examines Australia in the wake of the federal election of 2007, and explores the issues that are now confronting us.

Quarterly Essay 42 Fair Share

Quarterly Essay 42 Fair Share PDF Author: Judith Brett
Publisher: Black Inc.
ISBN: 192187032X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 98

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Book Description
Once the country believed itself to be the true face of Australia: sunburnt men and capable women raising crops and children, enduring isolation and a fickle environment, carrying the nation on their sturdy backs. For almost 200 years after white settlement began, city Australia needed the country: to feed it, to earn its export income, to fill the empty land, to provide it with distinctive images of the nation being built in the great south land. But Australia no longer rides on the sheep’s back, and since the 1980s, when “economic rationalism” became the new creed, the country has felt abandoned, its contribution to the nation dismissed, its historic purpose forgotten. In Fair Share, Judith Brett argues that our federation was built on the idea of a big country and a fair share, no matter where one lived. We also looked to the bush for our legends and we still look to it for our food. These are not things we can just abandon. In late 2010, with the country independents deciding who would form federal government, it seemed that rural and regional Australia’s time had come again. But, as Murray-Darling water reform shows, the politics of dependence are complicated. The question remains: what will be the fate of the country in an era of user-pays, water cutbacks, climate change, droughts and flooding rains? What are the prospects for a new compact between country and city in Australia in the twenty-first century? ‘Once the problems of the country were problems for the country as a whole. But then government stepped back ... The problems of the country were seen as unfortunate for those affected but not likely to have much impact on the rest of Australia. The agents of neoliberalism cut the country loose from the city and left it to fend for itself.’ Judith Brett, Fair Share ‘Brett is one of our most experienced and sober commentators on currents in the conservative/rural stream, and always deserves a hearing. Fair Share gives a clear and solid account on how we have come to focus on the Big Country as a problem.’ —The Canberra Times ‘A clear and compelling account of how the country went from being a key source of the nation’s economy, pride and sense of self, to a problem that needs to be addressed.’ —The Week ‘An unalloyed expose of the plight of those who live in the countryside.’ —Ross Fitzgerald, The Australian

Quarterly Essay 39 Power Shift

Quarterly Essay 39 Power Shift PDF Author: Hugh White
Publisher: Black Inc.
ISBN: 1921825669
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 110

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Book Description
In Power Shift, Hugh White considers Australia’s future between Beijing and Washington. As the power balance shifts, and China’s infl uence grows, what might this mean for our nation? Throughout our history, we have counted fi rst on British then on American primacy in Asia. Now the rise of China as an economic powerhouse challenges US dominance and raises questions for Australia that go well beyond diplomacy and trade – questions about our place in the world, our loyalties and our long-term security. Will China replace the US as regional leader? If so, we will be dealing with an undemocratic and vastly more powerful nation. Will China wield its power differently from the US? If so, should we continue to support America and so divide Asia between our biggest ally and our biggest trading partner? How to defi ne the national interest in the Asian century? This visionary essay considers the shape of the world to come and the implications for Australia as it seeks to carve out a place in the new world order. “This year China overtook Japan to become the world’s second-biggest economy. It is already bigger, relative to the US, than the Soviet Union ever was during the Cold War. A Chinese challenge to American power in Asia is no longer a future possibility but a current reality. Few issues are more important to Australia’s future than how this plays out. You would not know it to listen to our leaders.” —Hugh White, Power Shift

Quarterly Essay 71 Follow the Leader

Quarterly Essay 71 Follow the Leader PDF Author: Laura Tingle
Publisher: Black Inc.
ISBN: 1743820593
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 171

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Book Description
What is true political leadership, and how do we get it? What qualities should we wish for in our leaders? And why is it killing season for prime ministers? In this wise and timely essay, Laura Tingle argues that democratic leaders build a consensus for change, rather than bludgeon the system or turn politics into a popularity contest. They mobilise and guide, more than impose a vision. Tingle offers acute portraits – profiles in courage and cunning – of leaders ranging from Merkel and Howard to Macron and Obama. She discusses the rise of the strongman, including Donald Trump, for whom there is no map, only sentiment and power. And she analyses what has gone wrong with politics in Australia, arguing that successful leaders know what they want to do, and create the space and time to do it. After the Liberal Party’s recent episode of political madness, where does this leave the nation’s new prime minister, Scott Morrison? “The Liberal Party has been ripped apart and our polity is the worse off for having one of its major political parties rendered largely ungovernable ... Malcolm Turnbull’s fate came down to a series of judgements made not just by him, but by his colleagues, who spent much of his prime ministership failing to follow the leader and also failing in their own collective responsibility for leadership.” —Laura Tingle, Follow the Leader