My faith is a remnant of empire. In 1521 Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan arrived in Cebu, put up a cross and claimed the Philippine islands for Spain. The cross and crown interlock. I grew up conditioned to think religion was a gift. That was certainly the early account from visiting Europeans, who marvelled at the civilising effects of Christianisation in the north and middle islands, in contrast to an intransigent Muslim south and the animistic highland tribes. Even today Filipinos express gratitude for the comforts of faith. In a country riven by poverty and corruption, what else is there to […]

Ever had the feeling you’ve been asleep or even dead—and woken to a world that’s changed beyond belief? I have died a few times, but only for short spells. The official record is 47 seconds (I have the hospital printout showing the flat-line recorded in intensive care), so not enough to give that Rip Van Winkle Effect. Why is it, then, that I am so shocked nearly every day by a sudden lurch into what seems like Blade Runner Country? Why does being awake now seem like being stuck in a bad dream in 2050? It isn’t only the sight […]

It is the winter of 2017. I am in Wyndham and I take up the harbour master’s offer to accompany him on the pilot boat that will usher in a live cattle export ship waiting in the Cambridge Gulf.

Two years ago I wrote an essay for Meanjin titled ‘A View from a Treehouse’ (no. 3, 2016). It was the story of my brush with homelessness. Divorce, debt and redundancy had crashed me out of my comfortable existence and into a chilling moment where I lost my job and was within days of losing my home and my children as well. At the last minute serendipity gave me a sublet on a tiny flat with a jury-rigged enclosed wooden patio on the second floor, sitting just under a huge old tree. I called it my treehouse and it became […]

  I was marvelling at a tree the other day. What a splendid thing it is in and of itself, I mused. Quite pleasing to the eye and functional. It can make oxygen, provide shade, be lived in by birds and insects, bear fruit, be scampered up by possums, hung off by bats and it holds the soil together so it doesn’t blow away. It doesn’t take much to run them either, a bit of water and some nutrients; otherwise, completely solar powered. Now, I can’t make a tree but I can make sense of one. I understand how a […]

It is dusk. I stoop below a dark-leafed camellia that droops in the spring rain, crimson petals mark the pavement blood-red. I’m reminded of Alexandre Dumas’ consumptive courtesan Marguerite Gautier in La Dame aux Camélias, who announced her availability by carrying a posy of camellias—white for 25 days and red for the other five—these highly prized exotics conveying a secret message to her suitors. Meanings have been assigned to flowers in many cultures and for thousands of years. Floral word meanings stretch their roots back into ancient Egypt, were propagated by Greek and Roman mythology, embellished by medieval chivalry, infused […]

The Anglo-Australian School of Faux Naive Fusionism A hundred years after what historian W.K. Hancock in 1930 termed ‘The Invasion’ of Australia by European settlers in 1788, two-thirds of the nearly three million non-Aboriginal inhabitants were Australian born. Virtually all the third million were born in Britain; at the time of federation in 1901 barely 2 per cent of white Australians were not of British stock. But the painters and artists of the late nineteenth century were far less likely to have been born in Australia or even Britain. Enterprising American publishers spent more than £60,000 commissioning 1000 etchings for the three-volume […]

It’s a Saturday morning and traffic has snarled the roundabout on Cherry Street. I know why even before I see the train pulling into Werribee Station. There’s a Bulldogs game on so the car park is full. I park at the back, near the gym, cursing. I tattoo a recrimination on my thigh. It’s quiet, and my boots sound crisply against the asphalt. I skid down the ramps into the station; everyone else is walking slowly. I’ve missed the 8.48. Fuck. There are 64 steps up the ramp to the platform and I perform walking, heel to toe, muscles in […]

Politics versus the public The unexpected ripple effect The effects of the political shocks of Brexit and Trump’s victory in 2016 have continued to spread through global politics in 2017 and 2018, but not in the way expected. European observers were especially wrong-footed. After Britain voted to leave the European Union in June 2016, there was concern in European capitals it would encourage Euroscepticism elsewhere. Yet polls suggested public attitudes in the rest of Europe instead turned more positive to the EU project. Europe seemed even more insulated from Trump’s victory in November 2016 as the United States’ reputation plummeted […]

For three years I edited the environment pages of the Conversation website. I published article after article about extinction, bee-colony collapse, the last tortoise of its kind, the last rhinoceros of its kind. I thought I knew how badly things were going for animals. I had no idea. I live in Melbourne. I didn’t expect to see wild animals in the streets around Footscray. But I really love animals, so I went on holidays to places where seeing creatures seemed more likely: Mexican mangrove forests, the Tasmanian wilderness, those kinds of places. I went on a flamingo tour—websites with photos […]

It is sometimes said that the last stage of grief is acceptance. According to people familiar with recent focus group research for one of the major political parties, Australians have begun to manage their disappointment with Malcolm Turnbull. Towards the end of 2017 and in early 2018 voters cut their losses with being angry with the Prime Minister for not being the person they thought he was. It had been a journey, but people had reached the acceptance threshold, declining to waste energy with an eternal ‘why’. They had also noticed a positive uptick in the economy. This new voter equanimity […]

Fast Car   The car has been a staple image of rock music from the beginning. In songs by Chuck Berry and the Beach Boys, the car represented freedom from work (or school) and privacy from parental eyes. In the songs of Bruce Springsteen it is a means of escape, even if there is no obvious destination. The car song is a male construct. There are practically no similar songs by women, and those that present a woman’s point of view tend to be by men. In the Pointer Sisters’ ‘Fire’, for example, the woman is ‘riding in your car’ while […]