I first learned of Captain Moonlite from the historian Graham Willett. In Secret Histories of Queer Melbourne, a book Willett co-edited, Moonlite features “as the bushranger most likely to qualify as ...

The Scott Morrison who claims that deterring boat people from ever embarking on the hazardous journey across the Indian Ocean ...

Just a short drive from the Portuguese university town of Coimbra, in Vale de Canas, a sea of eucalypts extends to the horizon in all directions. The tallest tree in Europe sprouted here 120 years ago ...

In his magnificent address to parliament in February 2008, it seemed as though Kevin Rudd had not merely parted company with Howard on the question of the Stolen Generations, but had sided with ...

Glyn Davis, vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne, has on his shelves a copy of Microcosmographia Academica, the classic university satire, written by the University of Cambridge scholar ...

Paul Kelly and the Dots. Turns out they’ve got the residency, every Friday night at the Kingston Hotel. And Friday night rolls around fast, so before you know it you’re back there checking them out ...

That’s when I first heard the Gaza Strips. It says something of these four young men and one woman that their eponymous debut album announces itself with the left-right-left knockout punches of those ...

Parties that win elections appeal to both the interests and the values of electors. Many people vote from the hip pocket, but not all. Historically, the Liberal Party could count ...

But this year, despite the fact that six Australian citizens were awaiting execution in Indonesia, the federal government chose not to voice its objection to capital punishment at the meeting of the ...

Sir Eugene Goossens was a man who liked a little magic in his life. Sex magic, to be specific. Goossens was a world-famous conductor and composer, a friend of Picasso and Stravinsky. “My heart just ...

Many years ago in Sydney, moments before I was due on stage, the stage manager breezily mentioned that the composer might be in the audience. I fled to the bathroom and locked the door, scanning the ...