I take Robert Manne’s word for the proposition that the predominant mood among Australian people in our times is against “boat people” (‘Comment: Asylum Seekers’, September 2010); but I question the ...

Lisa Pryor is a journalist and writer. She has worked for the Sydney Morning Herald as a columnist, opinion editor and investigative reporter.

If Nicolas Rothwell is to be believed (‘The Blast Zone’, September 2010), the Aboriginal people of the Western Desert may as well pack their bags and move to the suburbs of Perth (or at least ...

Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis’ ‘Machete’ and Sean Byrne’s ‘The Loved Ones’ “Every time an illegal dances across our border,” says Senator John McLaughlin (Robert de Niro) at a rally, “it is an ...

How a novel’s opening line reflected the author’s dissonance as a teenage reader, and remains an apt tribute to the enduring power of fiction Recently I was chatting with a niece, and we got into a ...

Dr Karen Hitchcock’s article on obesity was a huge breath of fresh air (‘Fat City’, March). This subject has been examined intensively in the lay and scientific press in the past decade but the ...

What to me seems the most challenging question in Australian history receives commonly a very confident answer. What effect did the convicts have on our national character? Answer: they made us an ...

In 1967, when La Trobe University was brand new and underpopulated, John O’Brien, an Irish historian with a wild and feverish laugh, told us about the enemy within. It was not for anything the ...

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 ...

For Paddy Bedford, the day usually began soon after dawn. Tony Oliver, a former Melbourne gallerist who had worked alongside Bedford for close to a decade since arriving in the East Kimberley in 1998, ...

Melbourne-based Elizabeth Finkel is a former biochemist who switched to telling the stories of other scientists. She is the former editor of Cosmos magazine.

After the death of her mother, the author reflects on the hold of sugar upon her family’s health and history ...