The First Labor Government in the World proved a week was a long time in politics
by ROSS FITZGERALD
Queensland has had many political firsts. These include the fact that Australia’s only Communist Party MP, Frederick Woolnough (“Fred”) Paterson, was a two-term member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly.
Widely known throughout Queensland as “The People’s Champion”, Paterson represented the state seat of Bowen for the Communist Party of Australia from 1944 to 1950. This was until his electorate was gerrymandered out of existence by the state Labor government.
On St Patrick’s Day 1948, during …
Louis Nowra, Sydney: A Biography
NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, ISBN: 9781742235927
pp 498, $39.99.
Reviewed by ROSS FITZGERALD
As is the case with one of my favourite Australian writers and playwrights, Louis Nowra, Sydney is also my adopted city.
Although from 1977 to the 1990s I worked in Brisbane, like Nowra, I was born and educated in Melbourne. I too have fallen in love with the beguiling city of Sydney.
Born in December 1950, Nowra has for many years resided on the border between Kings Cross and Woolloomooloo, and is married to his third wife, the …
My Last Drink, 32 Stories of Recovering Alcoholics
Edited by Ross Fitzgerald and Neal Price
Connor Court, 2022, 189 pages, $29.95
Reviewed by Matthew White
One does tire of celebrity reprobates. A fast way to attract attention and build a ‘profile’ in our lazy society is to write about one’s appalling behaviour towards others. Its acceptability enables a form of confession and avoidance, and, if properly promoted and garnished with a veneer of bohemianism, it is more like confession and appointment to the firmament of New Ideaidolatry. Attention, advertisement, writers’ festivals, prizes, perhaps even honours, …
Unrepresentative Victorian swill
Preference trading corrupts Victorian politics
by ROSS FITZGERALD
The Victorian election promises to deliver one of the most bizarre legislatures that Australia has ever seen. This is due to an electoral system in the Upper House that is so easily manipulated.
Victoria is the only state that persists with a Group Voting Ticket (GVT) – a list of written preferences that parties instruct the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) to adhere to when distributing votes. This system enables micro parties to be elected with less than a few hundred votes. At the …
AUSTRALIAN BOOKS
MY LAST DRINK
Reviewed by Rocco Loiacono
Ross Fitzgerald and Neal Price (eds)
My Last Drink: 32 stories of recovering alcoholics
Connor Court, 2022, 190 pages, $29.95
In a recent interview with Piers Morgan, Dr Jordan Peterson remarked: “It’s really something to see, constantly, how many people are dying for lack of an encouraging word. And how easy it is to provide that if you’re careful.” My Last Drink –an anthology of highly personal and inspiring stories, edited by Ross Fitzgerald and Neal Price – demonstrates how important an encouraging word can be in …
MY LAST DRINK: 32 stories of recovering alcoholics
Speech by Ross Fitzgerald
The Sydney Institute, October 31, 2022.
Thank you, Gerard. It’s very good to be here. Indeed, as my Uncle George used to say, at my age it’s very good to be anywhere.
On his deathbed I said to Uncle George, “You know you were my favourite relative.” To which he responded, “There wasn’t much competition!”
And thanks Gerard for your sage advice concerning this book, My Last Drink: 32 stories of recovering alcoholics.
It was you Gerard who convinced my Tasmanian-based co-editor, Neal Price, …
Judicial complexities
Regarding “ ‘No body, no parole laws’ a win for family” (14/10), on the face of it the law passed in NSW parliament on Thursday for convicted murderers who don’t co-operate with authorities in finding their victims’ bodies to never be granted parole might seem to be a very good idea.
But without any reference to a specific case, what if a convicted murderer is innocent? As someone who was a long-time community member of the Queensland Parole Board and then of the NSW State Parole Authority, I wonder: what …
Who doesn’t love a bird book?
Who doesn’t love a bird book?
A new book uncovers some of the secrets to the sometimes strange behaviour of our feathered friends writes ROSS FITZGERALD
WHY DO BIRDS DO THAT?
By Grainne Cleary
Allen & Unwin, Nonfiction
270pp, $34.99
Why do some birds have colourful feathers while others do not? Why do they attack their own reflections? Why do they have three eyelids?Why do they build nests? Why do baby kookaburras kill their siblings?
Grainne Cleary, inWhy Do Birds Do That?seeks to answer these, and many other commonly asked questions about …
A tragic yet sometimes darkly comic story of a lifelong alcoholic and addict, and the people who loved him enough to help save his life.
By ROSS FITZGERALD
My last drink of alcohol was at the same place as where, when I was barely fourteen, I had my first one. This was at Her Majesty’s Hotel in South Yarra. Commonly called Maisies, it was very close to Melbourne Boys High School at which, in 1958, I’d just began Third Form.
My first alcoholic drink was about eleven in the morning, after I’d had …
Ross Fitzgerald & Neal Price, MY LAST DRINK : 32 stories of Recovering Alcoholics, (Connor Court,$29.95)
One of our regular contributors, Ross Fitzgerald, is recovering nicely from open-heart surgery. Having spent several weeks in hospital, he’s now at home, and he appreciates all your good wishes. He isn’t slowing down on the book front, having recently completed the editing, with Neal Price, of ‘My Last Drink : 32 stories of Recovering Alcoholics’ (Connor Court, $29.95, available now). As the blurb notes, the notion of “last drinks” long ago entered the Australian …
The Scrap Iron Flotilla : Five Valiant Destroyers and the Australian War in the Mediterranea
by Mike Carlton
William Heinemann Australia, 448pp, $34.99
ROSS FITZGERALD
They may have been the pride of Australia but the Nazi’s infamous propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels referred to them as a load of scrap iron.
Yet by the middle of 1940, all five Australian ships sent to bolster the British fleet were effectively escorting Allied supply convoys and troops, bombarding enemy coasts, and successfully hunting U-boats.
The story of HMAS Vendetta, Vampire, Voyager, Stuart and Waterhen is told in Mike Carlton’s …
