A Modest Proposal
Craig Kelly should be fired out of a cannon into space. Now wait a minute, hear me out… When Scott Morrison personally intervened to ensure Craig’s pre-selection before the last election, I’m sure he felt he’d earned Craig’s undying loyalty. Man, did he back the wrong Ivermectin-infused horse there. That Craig is a complete and utter splonk there is no doubt. I’m sure Craig himself would be the first to admit it. And I’ve got nothing against splonks. We’re all like that from time to time about certain things. It’s what it is to be a Human at this moment […]
What I’m Reading
This time last year, in lockdown, my partner and I decided to work our way through the novels long-listed for the Booker prize. Surprisingly, we both agreed before the announcement of the winner that Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart was the best and, even more surprisingly, it won. A few weeks ago I considered the recently announced 2021 long-list: so many presumably good writers I’d never heard of! I started off with the one writer I’d read before, Kazuo Ishiguro. His book, Klara and the Sun, ventures into science fiction. Klara is an android, an Artificial Friend. Well-to-do young people […]
White Lenses, Blak Stories
I’m not interested in dictating what people should or shouldn’t write. I’m interested in how we include truth in works of fiction. How we write narratives that honestly portray First Peoples, settlers and refugees living on stolen land.
Faith, Trust and Hesitation
It’s easy to think in stereotypes about people who refuse vaccinations. Anti-vaxxer… conspiracy nut… whackjob! That might be true of some people who fear vaccination, but it’s certainly not all of them. Elizabeth is a cheerful, athletic-looking hospitality worker in her thirties. She says she is careful, but not obsessive about living a healthy life. ‘I like the taste of fresh food much more than processed food, so that’s what I tend to eat. I prefer organic food because I don’t like putting weird chemicals into my body, but it’s a preference not a rule.’ She follows several wellness influencers […]
Essays
Tasmania’s Lost Golden Age
Tasmania has sometimes been derided as Australia’s smallest and poorest state, insular not only geographically but also culturally. However, in the twenty-first century, Tasmania gained respect for unexpected growth in upmarket international exports and especially in its long-established tourism industry. At the time of writing, tourism world-wide must find a way out of the devastation caused by COVID-19.
Fiction
Hiatus
Jason was good at his job but he knew that wouldn’t mean anything today. There are times when a man is called to complete an impossible task, not necessarily because of any malice on the part of the one doing the calling—usually a higher power such as a god or a manager—but because the higher power needs this impossible task to be done for moral or legal reasons perhaps, and besides, they’ve earned the right to delegate this sort of thing.
Memoir
On the Island, on the Water, Underwater
I open my cabin door and see the island. We’ve come to map the islands. Four low wooded islands in the central northern Great Barrier Reef. Four of some 1000 islands that, together with 2900 individual reefs, make this vast land-sea-scape. These islands were mapped 45 years ago by Sarah’s grand-supervisor—her PhD supervisor’s supervisor—and 45 years before that by his grand-supervisor. We’re here to document change.
Poetry
Poem for Two Voices, Providing One of Them is Annie Lennox
It’s spacious (for the money), with a kind of kooky panopticon vibe: it’s all about unlimited broadband access to other people’s rooms, all about slatted blinds, mine and theirs. And who’s that girl, running around in the drenched party frock? She was there last night too, on the steps to the building where I used to live. Can’t tell if she’s laughing or sobbing. And I hear the sound of the underground train, sounds like sounds like sounds like any other, really. And another car pulls into the shadows and I wonder if he’s still in his old place, […]
