Sober Days with Barry HumphriesROSS FITZGERALDBarry Humphries and I were friends for sixty-one years. We drank together, got sober together, and worked together.In late 1969 we were both admitted to a suburban Melbourne alcoholic and drug addiction hospital, Delmont. The wonderful lead psychiatrist there, Dr John Moon, who happened to be a Christadelphian, was a strong supporter of Alcoholics Anonymous. Delmont was the last mental hospital either Barry or I were admitted to as a patient.The night before we were due to be discharged, we got taken to a large …

It’s flooding in North Queensland. More than two metres of water has fallen in a week. Crocodiles are swimming through the streets. People are warned not to wear thongs in the clean-up. The Australian Defence Force has been brought in, and the days-old premier, Steven Miles, is on the ground making the regular flood speeches about mateship, bravery, the Queensland spirit and why the weather bureau didn’t predict the rain event.ueensland politicians can be made or unmade by disasters: as if the cyclones, storms, heatwaves, pandemics and bushfires might be …

The case for vaping as a least-worst optionby ROSS FITZGERALDMany Australians with a severe alcohol problem will die from smoking-related causes rather than from the effects of alcohol. “ACT citizens can have in their possession personal quantities of heroin, cocaine, amphetamine or home-grown cannabis without legal repercussions, but carrying mango-flavoured nicotine juice for vaping risks up to a two-year prison sentence and a $32,000 fine,” writes academic and author ROSS FITZGERALD. HUMAN beings have always used psychoactive drugs. Some animals and birds, such as elephants and parrots, occasionally indulge in …

AUSTRALIAN WOMEN HEROES OF THE PACIFIC WAR

SISTERS IN CAPTIVITY:
SISTER BETTY JEFFREY OAM AND THE COURAGEOUS STORY OF AUSTRALIAN ARMY NURSES IN SUMATRA, 1942-1945
 

by Colin Burgess

Simon & Schuster Australia, 2023

ISBN 9781761109089

RRP $34.99
 

Reviewed by ROSS FITZGERALD

This fine book, Sisters in Captivity, is dedicated to “the heroic nurses who lived this story but never made it home”.
 

Most educated Australians know of Sister Vivian Bullwinkel. But until the release of this lengthy and scrupulously researched study, my guess is that, as with me, not all that many readers of The Sydney Institute Review of …

Cut durry damage by vaping
 
by ROSS FITZGERALD
 
Although Sydney was once the epicentre of Australia’s HIV epidemic, it may soon become the first city in the world to effectively eliminate HIV transmission.
This remarkable achievement will be because of a focus on reducing the adverse consequences of risk rather than trying to reduce or eliminate it.
In other words, harm reduction. The result was the saving of many thousands of lives and billions of dollars.
Sadly, the outstanding success of Australia’s early efforts to control HIV is in stark contrast to Australian policy in …