Guy Rundle

If the past is a foreign country, 2008 is another planet. Who imagined the United States electing its first black president? Who imagined the scale of the global economic crisis? Who imagined Sarah Palin? Guy Rundle was on the ground throughout the momentous election, trailing its unlikely cast of candidates from Washington to Wasilla - the steely former First Lady and the backwater hockey mom, the maverick Republican war veteran and the Southern Baptist bass player, and the youthful greenhorn who was catapulted into the global spotlight. With caustic wit and political nous, Rundle's celebrated Crikey reports told the day-by-day story of the gruelling primaries, orgiastic conventions and debates. HIllary's photogenic tears, Troopergate, the bailout, 'Walnuts' McCain's countless houses, Tina Fey. . . Rundle counters the spin with the homespun, talking to cab drivers, party volunteers and fellow bar flies. The result is a compelling and irreverent record of the history-making year, when America went down to the crossroads and chose an inspirational new direction for the world. 'Far and away the best coverage of the election' - Phillip Adams

Down to the Crossroads

Dexter Rightwad

Our Great Southern Land started out just that - Great. But what has happened after several centuries of white settlement and "development" and "progress". Has greatness been chipped away at and just who is responsible? Enter Guy and Dexter who point the finger at 50 people and (sometimes entire family dynasties) who have basically stuffed it for the rest of us. Instead of a roll call of dreary achievements, read on for 50 notable stuff ups - from Arthur Phillip and Ned Kelly to Janette Howard and Dame Edna. Eddie McGuire and Andrew Bolt to Winston Churchill - they have all played their part in making this land, well, not so great after all.

50 People Who Stuffed Up Australia

The world is changing fast. The dust has barely settled on the digital revolution and now we have to strap ourselves in for another certain thrust into the unknown: the material revolution. Look at 3D printing, for example. They're talking about being able to print human organs in the not-too-distant future. They're going to be printing KIDNEYS! What's it all about? When is it coming? Will I be able to sit this one out? Guy Rundle talks to the who's who in this mind-bogglingly new world, and paints a vivid picture of how life will change throughout the 21st century when emerging technologies like this become mainstream. There will be enormous implications not just for Australia but for the global economy, international relations and the fundamental structures of our lives.

3D Printing, Robots and the Future

A Revolution in the Making

Tim Flannery

David Malouf

Mungo MacCallum

Still fresh and relevant, each Quarterly Essayin this collection is by a celebrated Australian writer. Together they make a thought-provoking and exceptionally readable book. Each essay here offers an intriguing angle on the Australian story. There is David Malouf's elegant and truthful account of the British inheritance and Mungo MacCallum's devastating chronicling of the refugee crisis and Australian history. There is Tim Flannery's provocative overview of our history as seen through an environmental lens, and Guy Rundle's characterisation of John Howard and his vision of Australia. This is a book that collects some of the finest Australian non-fiction writing of recent years in one place.

Four Classic Quarterly Essays on the Australian Story

"'A common ground where we can plant our dreams', Anthony Albanese's invocation - his own or, more likely, a speechwriter's - in his midnight victory speech, was l little hokey, but after nine years of drek and decay, it was a balm to the soul, and a tear came to eye. The previous six weeks had been nervewracking, with the Labor leader stumbling out of the gate on the first day, a campaign deliberately pitched perhaps too low, and a suspicion, from the road, that the general public did not agree with the progressive mantra that we had to get this mob out." -- Introduction.

Scenes from the 2022 Australian Election

Common Ground to Plant Our Dreams?

In the third Quarterly Essay, Guy Rundle comes to grips with John Howard, the prime minister who, on the eve of an election, seems to have turned round his political fortunes by spurning refugees and writing blank cheques for America's War on Terror. This is a brilliant account of John Howard's dominant ideas, his concerted 'dreaming' with its emphasis on unity and national identity that reveals him to be the most reactionary PM we have ever had, the only political leader who would allow ideas like those of One Nation to dominate the mainstream of Australian politics in order to improve his political chances. Rundle puts Howard in the context of the economic liberalism he shares with his colleagues and opponents and the conservative social ideology that sets him apart. It is a complex portrait in a radical mirror which relates John Howard to everything from Menzies's 'forgotten people' to the inadvertent glamour of the government's antidrug advertising. It is also a plea for right-thinking people of every political persuasion to resist the call to prejudice and reaction. 'A portrait of a political opportunist who is also ... a sincere reactionary: putting back the clock because he believes in it, but also fanning the whirlwind of unreason in order to save his political skin.' —Peter Craven, Introduction 'The coincident occurrence of the asylum seeker confrontation and the attack on the U.S. has made visible the most dangerous and damaging thing he has done to the Australian polity...and that is to deepen contempt for such protection as we did have from unbridled executive power, mass hysteria, the rush to surrender our freedoms and offer them up on the alter of crisis.' —Guy Rundle, The Opportunist Guy Rundle was a co-founding editor of Arena, a magazine of political and social comment. Formerly a theatre critic for the Age, he has written and produced a number of TV programs and stage shows, and contributes regularly to the Age , the Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald and Spiked, and is currently Crikey’s global correspondent-at-large. He is the author of two Quarterly Essays, The Opportunist: John Howard and the Triumph of Reaction and Bipolar Nation: How to Win the 2007 Election. His most recent book is the award-winning Down to the Crossroads: On the Trail of the 2008 US Election.

John Howard and the Triumph of Reaction

Quarterly Essay 3 The Opportunist

Who is Clive Palmer, and what does his ascent say about Australia's creaking political system? In "Clivosaurus," Guy Rundle observes Palmer close up, examining his rise to prominence, his beliefs, his deals and his politics - not to mention his poetry. Rundle shows that neither the government nor the media have been able to take Palmer's measure. Convinced they face a self-interested clown, they have failed to recognise both his tactical flexibility and the consistency of his centre-right politics. This is a story about the Gold Coast, money in politics, Canberra's detached political caste and the meaning of Palmer's motley crew. Above all, it is a brilliantly entertaining portrait of "the man at the centre of a perfect storm for Australian democracy, a captain steering his vessel artfully in the whirlpool." "In the first half of the year we saw Tony Abbott treated with deference to his values and beliefs, as his chaotic and lying government slid from one side of the ring to the other, while Clive Palmer, ploughing a steady course on a range of key issues, was treated as the inconstant one. No wonder no one could tell what he was going to do next - they weren't even bothering to look at where he had come from." - Guy Rundle, "Clivosaurus"

The Politics of Clive Palmer

Clivosaurus

November 2010. The world is in uproar as Wikileaks begins releasing top-secret diplomatic cables, in a radical challenge to notions of the state and traditional media, particularly as they are perceived in the United States.

Guy Rundle

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