Dark Emu appeared in bookshops in March 2014 much as most books do: with a brief publicity campaign arranged by its publisher. Bruce Pascoe was already something of a public figure – as well as ...

Making sense of a new reality and the return of power politics – a Quarterly Essay extract For almost a decade now, the world’s two most powerful countries have been competing over which of them will ...

2025: An assessment of our readiness to tackle the life-changing effects of artificial intelligence The sci-fi author William Gibson said the future is here, it’s just not very evenly distributed.

2025: Australia has the machinery of democracy, but does it have the spirit? The English-American author Os Guinness speaks of “civilisational moments”; the points every civilisation reaches where ...

Despite the ideological thrust of Dan Tehan’s funding proposals, universities might now have an incentive to boost humanities enrolments When Education Minister Dan Tehan got up at the National Press ...

Concern about the welfare of AI has got ahead of convincingly arguing it can become conscious Sometimes a question is a doorway. You are just standing there idly wondering Where did language come from ...

2025: Donald Trump’s presidency has given Australia the chance to recover its distinctive voice in world affairs We are experiencing another bout of panic about whether or not we are loved by America, ...

The acquisition of nuclear submarines is out of step with Australian tradition as a military middle power and wildly at odds with our international status Why are we getting nuclear-powered submarines ...

2025: With Australia’s political institutions being key to its prosperity, do we require a form of conservative radicalism to preserve them? When I proposed the title for this talk to the ABC, I was ...

Does a belief in the End Times inform Scott Morrison’s response to the climate crisis? After more than a year of debate, there are two broad views on Scott Morrison. The first is that he is ...

A key architect of the corruption commission calls for its head to resign after the latest controversy The commissioner of the two-year-old National Anti-Corruption Commission, Paul Brereton, has ...

The acclaimed Australian crime writer had a deep appreciation for the folly of things Email was invented entirely for the benefit of Peter Temple. He knew this and he made full use of the fact. From ...