The Hollow State: Power Without Purpose in Australian Politics is a scathing analysis of how Australia’s political system has been drained of conviction, competence and purpose. Drawing on decades of political commentary, analysis and insider knowledge, Peter van Onselen offers a compelling account of how managerialism, personality cults, media decline and institutional erosion have hollowed out Australian democracy.
From the rise of spin over substance to the collapse of internal party democracy, this book exposes the decay of meaningful governance and the triumph of tactics over strategy.
With forensic insight and unapologetic critique, The Hollow State captures the frustrations of voters, the failure of elites and the shrinking space for serious policy reform.
In a razor-sharp witty memoir Jonathan Miller pulls back the curtain on Murdoch, media, tech and the news in a way that is bound to provoke debate. The young Jonathan Miller had an innate talent to annoy authority as a pupil at Bedales school. When he discovered that the news can be like a hand grenade, he had found his calling.
In pursuit of creating a stir, he ended up in many different places, from Rupert Murdoch’s tech adviser and disruptor-in-chief, to war reporting in Kosovo, the UK’s first news site, Piers Morgan’s Uncensored and bare-knuckle reporting on the follies of rural Britain.
These spiky confessions trace through the Murdoch empire’s secrets, the tech revolution that preceded the web, Bart Simpson, Margaret Thatcher, the doomed fate of wokeness, and trouble in an era flattened by AI. Tech and the media world will never look the same…
Shorty: Mistaken Identity or Stitch Up? is the story of Stephen ‘Shorty’ Jamieson, a man who has spent 37 years in prison for brutal crimes he has always said he didn’t commit. Born with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder and made a ward of the state as an infant, he was arrested with four juveniles for the abduction and murder of Janine Balding despite the juveniles telling police, “You’ve got the wrong Shorty.”
Stephen was convicted after signing a contested confession in Australia’s first criminal trial using DNA evidence, yet critical DNA linking another suspect to the crimes was never tested, leaving questions about the wrong Shorty.
Now with modern DNA technology, the fresh and compelling evidence could finally prove that police arrested the wrong Shorty.
Shorty is a gripping true story of injustice, disputed evidence and a man’s neverending fight to clear his name.
From the dusty goldfields of Kalgoorlie to the corridors of international libertarianism, Ron Manners built more than just mining companies, he built movements. A fifth-generation prospector, Manners wasn’t content with striking gold underground; he struck ideological gold by challenging the intellectual status quo, founding the Mannkal Economic Education Foundation and mentoring thousands of young minds across Australia.
Damon Kitney’s new biography of Manners’ life, Heroic Humility charts his evolution from industrious teenager to outspoken capitalist, exposing the personal convictions and public battles that reshaped the legacy of his century-old family business, built a gold mining colossus named Croesus and shaped a lifetime of challenging bureaucracy and mediocrity.
Candid, compelling and brimming with the entrepreneurial energy of its subject, this is the definitive story of a true legend in Australian business and civic life.