Australia
Podcast #166: Josh Szeps on the Myth of Australia’s COVID ‘Concentration Camps’
Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay interviews ABC presenter and podcaster Josh Szeps about Australia’s unique experience in managing the COVID pandemic—and the urban legends the country’s quarantine system has spawned among right-wing pundits on the other side of the world.
Australia's COVID Catch-22
Last year Australia was a COVID-19 success story. Just 30,274 cases and 910 deaths in 26 million people was something to celebrate. But now America and Europe are getting on with vaccinations and learning how to live with the virus. Australia is faltering with embarrassingly few vaccinations and new
Standing Up to the Gender Ideologues: a Quillette Editorial
On June 23rd, Britain’s Royal Academy of Arts put out a carefully worded five-paragraph media statement regarding German-born textile artist Jess de Wahls. “We have apologised to Jess de Wahls for the way we have treated her and do so again publicly now,” read the RA communiqué. “We had
Australian Indigenous Activists Call Out White Feminism's Deadly Blind Spot
In March, three Indigenous women flew to Canberra in an attempt to draw attention to a horror story playing out in their communities. These were Alice Springs Deputy Mayor Jacinta Price, who heads up the Indigenous Research Program at the Centre for Independent Studies; and Cheron and Meesha Long, cousins
Australia’s Population Ponzi Scheme
The current economic system in Australia is a Ponzi scheme based on maintaining positive GDP through migration. Populations of native species are plummeting and people are faced with increased job insecurity and housing costs, all of which are side effects of the Australian government’s ongoing drive for an ever
Something is Rotten in the State of Victoria
In Hamlet, after the unquiet ghost of Hamlet’s father is seen walking the battlements of the castle, the guard Marcellus observes to Horatio, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” In my home state of Victoria, in Australia, COVID-19 is the unquiet ghost which has exposed
Analyst of Totalitarianism—Reading Simon Leys Today
Simon Leys was perhaps the pre-eminent Western chronicler of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, and it is worth returning to his work for its vivid first-hand accounts of life in Beijing during this period. But Leys was also interested in the process by which, under the right conditions and with the
Captain Cook and the Colonial Paradox
On April 29th, 1770, a longboat from the Royal Navy bark Endeavour grounded on Silver Beach at Botany Bay in what is now Sydney’s southern suburbs. Isaac Smith, a young midshipman, leapt out and became the first European to set foot on Australia’s east coast. Four men followed—
