Category Archives: Australia

Tournier on The Nostradamus Kid

Paul Tournier (1898-1986) took the title of A Place for You from the promise in John 14: I go to prepare a place for you. His argument runs that a person needs a place before he can become a person, … Continue reading

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Karl Stefanovic aka Joe Bogan

Karl Stefanovic (born August 12, 1974) stands among the defining figures of Australian broadcast journalism in the first quarter of the twenty-first century. For most of two decades he anchored the Nine Network’s breakfast program Today, and across that span … Continue reading

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Looking for Lost Jews

The campervan runs north on the Stuart Highway with a six-foot menorah strapped to the roof and two toddlers asleep in the back. Outside the window the plain goes red to the horizon. The man at the wheel wears a … Continue reading

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The Man From Snow River

A colt worth a thousand pounds breaks out of a paddock and runs with the brumbies. That is the whole of the plot. The rest of A.B. “Banjo” Paterson’s (1864–1941) “The Man from Snowy River,” printed in The Bulletin on … Continue reading

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The Free Man at the Billabong

At Dagworth Station, near Winton, in the late summer of 1895, a young woman sits at the piano after dinner and plays a tune she half remembers from a brass band at the Warrnambool races. Her name is Christina Macpherson … Continue reading

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Not Cricket: Bradman, Bodyline, and the Hero Systems of a Sacred Game

The ball lifts off a length, and Bill Woodfull (1897-1965) turns his shoulder into it because there is nowhere else to put his body. It strikes him over the heart. He drops his bat and bends across the crease, one … Continue reading

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Jonathan Swan’s Hero System

In the Australian party room a prime minister can be finished by Thursday. The numbers move in a corridor, a faction shifts, the caucus votes, and the man who led the country at breakfast clears his desk by dark. Jonathan … Continue reading

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Paul Kelly and The End of Certainty

Paul John Kelly (b. 1947) is the dean of Australian political journalists. For more than five decades he has worked at the intersection of journalism, history, and public policy, and he has done something few reporters attempt. He has built … Continue reading

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Phillip Knightley: The Reporter Who Investigated Reporting

Phillip Knightley (1929-2016) occupies a singular position in the history of twentieth-century journalism. He won renown as an investigative reporter on the Sunday Times Insight team, but his lasting contribution lies elsewhere. He turned the tools of investigative reporting on … Continue reading

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Why Does Australia Produce So Many Great Journalists?

Australia holds about 27 million people, fewer than Texas, and yet its journalists keep turning up at the commanding heights of the English-speaking press. John Pilger (1939-2023) shaped documentary journalism for half a century. Phillip Knightley (1929-2016) wrote The First … Continue reading

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