Up till now, the only political party I ever considered joining was the Communist Party of Australia.
When I was a 15-year-old student at Melbourne High School, along with fellow student and future millionaire, Alan Piper, with whom I played for the Victorian schoolboys cricket team, I met a Communist Party of Australia organiser outside the Bryant and May match factory in Richmond. The organiser paid no attention to Alan but after listening to me for less than a minute he put up his hands and said “I think you can …

Six months ago, when Malcolm Turnbull replaced Tony Abbott as Prime Minister, many people breathed a sigh of relief. Abbott had never been personally popular and had compounded this by knighting Prince Philip on Australia Day, persisting with an over-generous parental leave scheme at a time when other spending was being cut, and introducing the 2014 horror budget that Australia needed but that appeared to break pre-election commitments. Abbott, it seemed, was almost as bad as Julia Gillard who had promised no carbon tax but then brought one in.
On the …

It’s been hailed an Easter Saturday homecoming for the Sydney Swans. Tonight they take on my beloved Collingwood Magpies at the Sydney Cricket Ground in a venue change that has infuriated Pies president Eddie McGuire. But there could be far more to McGuire’s latest outrage than meets the eye.
When, just over three weeks ago, the Swans announced the relocation of three home games, including tonight’s clash, from ANZ Stadium at Homebush to the SCG, McGuire was furious that he found out through a news release. The Magpies president lambasted the …

Having for decades operated with no Indigenous members of federal Parliament, the Australian Labor Party may soon have three.
Esteemed Aboriginal leader Patrick Dodson will join Nova Peris in the Senate. On the other hand, Linda Burney , who resigned recently as deputy leader of the NSW Labor Party to contest the federal seat of Barton , could be the first Indigenous woman in the House of Representatives.
The talented Burney is likely to win Barton, which, following a recent electoral redistribution, is now notionally a Labor seat. As well, Burney will …

This powerful personal narrative is a difficult book to negotiate, not least because it comprises 309 pages of text entirely devoid of chapter numbers or headings, followed by a blank page and the acknowledgments.
But this caveat in no way means that the book — the author’s first — is not an enormously rewarding and revealing exploration of the effects of war on family life and on the human soul and psyche.
Enemy begins with a striking opening sentence: “I was born into the war still raging inside my father. Indeed Ruth …

Our national game, Australian Rules Football, cuts across all divides of class, income, ethnicity, gender, religion, race and sexual preference.
Hence contributors to my recent collection of 37 original essays, ‘Heartfelt Moments in Australian Rules Football’, range from devout atheists like myself, Dick Whitaker and Barry Dickins to believing Christians such as Geraldine Doogue, John Birt and Cardinal George Pell , who writes about his decision whether to become a priest, or to train and play with Richmond.
The reality is that not only unbelievers, but also clerics of all persuasions often …

THE IMPACT OF GRAFTON EVEREST , MOVING FORWARDS (SIC)
As avid MWD readers will be aware, last December this august (sic) publication issued its very own 2015 Summer Reading List for Nancy’s (Male) Co-owner. It was inspired by the awesomely pretentious 2015 Summer Reading List for the Prime Minister prepared by the awesomely pretentious Dr John Daley (for a doctor he is) of the taxpayer subsidised Grattan Institute in Melbourne.
In what turned out to be a remarkably successful reading list, Hendo went for the (previously) little known How To Be …

Sydney Swans legend Michael O’Loughlin says it took “some serious balls” for former teammate Adam Goodes to bring attention to the fact that he was racially vilified by a young Collingwood supporter in a match against the Magpies at the MCG in 2013.
In the final quarter of what was the first match of that year’s Indigenous Round, a teenage girl yelled the word “ape” towards Goodes from the front row.
The dual Brownlow medallist subsequently pointed her out and she was escorted from the ground.
He didn’t blame her, he just wanted …

As the thirty-seven contributions about the most heartfelt moments in VFL/AFL demonstrate, Aussie Rules football cuts across all divides. Hence this book of original essays includes contributions by and about football players, supporters and administrators who are vastly different in religion, class, income, ethnicity, gender, race and sexual preference.
The contributors within range from committed Christians such as Cardinal George Pell, Geraldine Doogue, and John Birt to devout atheists and like myself, Dick Whitaker and Barry Dickins.
Contributors to this collection of fine writing about heartfelt moments in Aussie Rules football also …

The long awaited football tragic’s Heartfelt Moments in Australian Rules Football edited by Ross Fitzgerald and featuring 37 authors has been launched in Melbourne.
It was launched in the heart of Blues territory at Carlton’s Il Gambero on the Park.
One of the authors is Cardinal George Pell. His Eminence, it should be remembered, signed to play for Richmond in his final year of school in 1959. As Pell writes in the book: “I was promised a place on their training list and financial help to attend Melbourne University.
Alas, seminary life made …

IT is hard to imagine life without the Adelaide Crows. They have become part of our social fabric, part of our identity. We have to remind ourselves they haven’t always been here.
In a new book, I have written what amounts to a potted history of the club — and the exercise became a reminder of so much that is good about the Crows and sport. In an interview for my chapter, Crows champion Mark Ricciuto said something quite remarkable.
I’ll get back to that but, first, remember the upheaval at the …