Australia Politics

This book is about freedom and the right to have an opinion. A concept that has been fought over for centuries. Whilst we think of Australia as being a free society, You Can't Say That! challenges this notion, arguing that the freedoms all Australians once enjoyed have been systematically eroded over last few decades, and how, as a nation, we must fight to get them back.

Have you ever bunged it on? Behaved like a drongo? Added mayo to a story? Lost your Reg Grundies? Join bestselling storyteller William McInnes as he offers his own take on our colourful and colloquial way with words. From the simpler times of childhood to today's testing (and unprecedented!) times, or when we're wasting time, enjoying sporting times or hitting the big time, Australians have a turn of phrase for every situation. Our love of plain speaking communicates the essence of the thing to our mates, to those in the know - and to those who should know better.

In Loving Country, coauthors Bruce Pascoe and Vicky Shukurolgou show travellers how to see the country as herself, to know her whole and old story and to find the way to fall in love with her, our home. Listeners are encouraged to discover sacred Australia by reconsidering the accepted history and hearing diverse stories of her Indigenous people. The intention of this audiobook is to foster communication and understanding between all peoples and country, to encourage environmental and social change.

How far would you go for someone you love...on a unicycle? Brothers and sisters often dare each other to do things – it's what siblings do. However, when Connie Johnson dared her brother, Samuel, to embark on a one-wheeled odyssey around Australia, she knew it was a big ask. But Connie knew exactly what she was doing and was sure he wouldn't say no. Not this time. Born a year apart, Connie and Samuel Johnson have always been close.

The world is under cyber-attack. The secretive terror outfit of linked lone-wolf operatives known as Zodiac has activated another terrorist cell. Chaos will be unleashed at six-hour intervals, with each event more catastrophic than the last, culminating in a devastating global catastrophe within 48 hours. Consequences are unthinkable. The US president has the power to enact the Internet Freedom Act - the 'kill switch'. Turning off the net will stop the attacks and give the CIA and the Pentagon time, but it's not that simple.

You care what's happening in the world - but you can't help feeling you missed the part where the key stuff got explained. What's a budget deficit? How does voting actually work? What's the deal with the UN? And what does net zero mean again? Thankfully, No Silly Questions is here to lay out the facts and principles behind the day's headlines. Zara Seidler and Sam Koslowski, creators of The Daily Aus - Australia's leading social-first news service - are like your super well-informed mates who you can rely on to quickly bring you up to speed.

Then There Was You is the eagerly awaited follow-up to Sophie Cachia’s bestselling memoir Then There Was Her. In Then There Was Her, Sophie Cachia revealed how falling in love with a woman turned her whole world upside down. Her story inspired thousands of people to reach out, wanting to share their own journeys of sexual and romantic discovery. Then There Was You is a captivating true life collection of stories told to Sophie about heartbreak, passion, bravery and the healing power of shared experiences.

Australia is on the brink of momentous change, but only if its citizens and politicians can come to new terms with the past. In this inspiring essay, Mark McKenna considers the role of history in making and unmaking the nation. From Captain Cook to the frontier wars, from Australia Day to the Uluru Statement, we are seeing fresh debates and recognitions. McKenna argues that it is time to move beyond the history wars and that truth-telling about the past will be liberating and healing. This is an urgent essay about a nation’s moment of truth.

Too often we focus on the angry, reactionary minority. But, Huntley shows, there is also a large progressive centre. For some time, a clear majority have been saying they want action - on climate and energy, on housing and inequality, on corporate donations and the corruption of democracy.

In the years that John Howard served in the national parliament he came to understand the special character of Australia; to appreciate its strengths and weaknesses; and most importantly to respect the sense of balance in the formulation of public policy that has long defined us as a nation and made Australia an attractive destination for people from across the world.

Provoked by a half-hidden account, Ashenden sets out to understand how the story of ‘relations between two racial groups within a single field of life’ has been told and not told, in this town and across the nation. In a riveting combination of memoir, reportage and political and intellectual history, Ashenden traces the strange career of the great Australian silence.

Australia is a wealthy nation with the economic profile of a developing country - heavy on raw materials and low on innovation and skilled manufacturing. Once we rode on the sheep’s back for our overseas trade; today we rely on cartloads of coal and tankers of LNG. So must we double down on fossil fuels, now that COVID-19 has halted the flow of international students and tourists? Or is there a better way forward, which supports renewable energy and local manufacturing?

David Marr has written for the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Monthly, been editor of the National Times, a reporter for Four Corners, presenter of ABC TV's Media Watch and now writes for the Guardian. His books include Patrick White: A Life, The High Price of Heaven, Dark Victory (with Marian Wilkinson) and five Quarterly Essays: 'His Master's Voice', 'Power Trip', 'Political Animal', 'The Prince' and 'Faction Man'.

For the last nine centuries, Hawaiian tradition has used the wickedness of the Maui king Hua to depict the consequences of sacrificing righteousness for superficial political gains. His reign was known for its pointless warfare, waste of resources, and corruption. Condemning his dutiful high priest to death under false pretenses, Hua and his subjects finally earn the wrath of the gods. Drought and famine decimate Maui. The lush countryside of Hana becomes a wasteland. As they flee, the curse follows. Atonement resides with the sons of the murdered priest. If they can be found.

Buraadja provides a powerful account of the Liberal Party’s approach to indigenous affairs. The party’s record of successes and failures is frankly evaluated as an important basis for developing effective approaches to persistent problems.

In Sex, Lies and Question Time, former MP Kate Ellis looks at what it is really like to be a woman in Australian politics today. In 2017, a survey showed zero per cent of young Australian women would consider entering politics. Zero. In a time when we critically need women in our parliament, and in a country that was an early leader in women's political participation, there is a perception that women and politics don’t mix. Shocking incidents have exposed the sexism that women in politics face from opposition, the media, the public, even their own colleagues.

Broadcaster Tracey Spicer had an epiphany when her young son uttered these six words. Suddenly, her life’s work fighting inequality seemed futile. What’s the point in agitating to change the present, if bigotry is being embedded into our futures? And so began a quest to uncover who was responsible and hold them to account. Who is the ultimate villain? Big Tech, whose titans refuse to spend money to fix the problem? The world’s politicians, who lack the will to legislate? Or should we all be walking into a hall of mirrors and taking a good, hard look at ourselves?

In 2000, Rebekah Robertson gave birth to twin boys, George and Harry. But as they grew older, their preferences began to show, and by the age of three it was clear Georgie was drawn to anything that was pretty or had a skirt that could swirl. Before long Georgie began to insist that she was a girl and became distressed that she had to hide who she really was when she started school. Soon the bullying started, and she would come home in floods of tears, begging her mother to help her.

Blazing her trail at the dawn of the 20th century, Vida Goldstein remains Australia's most celebrated suffragette and social reformer. Her life - as a campaigner for women's rights and suffrage in Australia, Britain and America, an advocate for peace, a fighter for social equality for all and a shrewd political commentator - marks her as one of Australia's foremost women of courage and principle. In 1903 she became the first woman in Australia to stand for the Senate and the the first woman in the Western world to stand for a national Parliament.

In Generation F, the young award-winning journalist Virginia Trioli offered a vigorous, incisive and compelling argument for the ongoing need for feminism, while exploring her own bewilderment and anger. She described the real state of sexual harassment, violence, the workplace and the law in Australia: how most women just copped it, but those who felt able to confront it needed all the support they could get. Now - as women around the world speak up about how sexual harassment has destroyed their work, families and lives - Trioli revisits that cultural moment.