Book extract: Understanding China: governance, socio-economics, global influence
China’s rise has reshaped global economics, lifted millions out of poverty, and challenged Western assumptions about governance. This extract from 'Understanding China, Governance, Socio-Economics Global Influence' argues that engagement, not confrontation, offers the only viable path forward.
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13 December 2025
Frankie Goes to Bethlehem: myth, music and the power of love
In 1984, Frankie Goes to Hollywood released a reverent nativity ballad that revealed how myth, music and Christmas still speak beyond belief.
12 October 2025
Bruce Beresford’s The Travellers blends opera and the outback in a heartfelt story about homecoming
Famed Australian director Bruce Beresford loves opera. If you weren’t aware of this before watching his new film, The Travellers, you most likely will be by the time the credits roll.
1 October 2025
Prime Minister’s Literary Awards winners 2025: investigating power, privilege and inequality
Michelle de Kretser has won the fiction prize in the 2025 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. It’s her second major prize this year for her ambitious, experimental novel Theory and Practice, which won the 2025 Stella Prize (and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin).
15 September 2025
Regional arts vital, but neglected, community resources
Australia has a unique network of regional art galleries which attract tourism, help local businesses thrive and contribute to overall regional development.
10 September 2025
The central role of government support for the Arts in defining our national culture
Australians emerged from our cultural cringe in the late sixties when our film and television industries thrived. Has that belief and pride in Australia gone for good?
6 September 2025
'Let her voice echo': Hind Rajab film receives record-breaking standing ovation at Venice Festival
Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania's harrowing drama The Voice of Hind Rajab left not a dry eye in the house on Wednesday night, earning over 20 minutes of standing ovation after its premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
23 August 2025
Still talkin’ ’bout My Generation
The first time I heard The Who’s My Generation, I was a teenager and it sounded like a punch in the face.
19 August 2025
Bendigo writers' festival fiasco
If it weren’t so serious, it would be laughable. A code of conduct for a writers’ festival?
19 August 2025
First they came for the Palestinians
A Michael Leunig cartoon from 2012, that holds its relevance.
10 August 2025
Spy novelist Stella Rimington, the first female head of MI5, was a ‘true trailblazer’
Dame Stella Rimington, former director-general of the UK’s domestic counter-intelligence and security agency, MI5, and author of several spy thrillers, has died this week, aged 90.
30 July 2025
Top Australian writers urge Albanese to abolish Job-Ready Graduates, calling their humanities degrees life-changing
“Earning a humanities degree was not only life-changing, in terms of opening up a world of knowledge otherwise beyond my reach, it also turns out to have been enormously productive – for me and many, many people around me,” said Tim Winton this week. “My little arts degree has created jobs and cultural value for over 40 years.”
27 July 2025
Kazuo Ishiguro said he won the Nobel Prize for making people cry – 20 years later, Never Let Me Go should make us angry
Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go was published 20 years ago. Since then, the Japanese-born English writer has been awarded the Nobel Prize in 2017 and knighted for services to literature in 2018.
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