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The Monthly

@themonthly.com.au
2.5K followers 4 following 3.3K posts

Australian politics, society and culture. Read now: mnth.ly/5O8XDxe Subscriptions: mnth.ly/mqp1oz9 Also from Schwartz Media: @thesaturdaypaper.com.au

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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 1h
I planned to pack up my stuff and go up north somewhere where no one cared about who you were and what you did, because no one was anyone and no one ever did anything. Sure, they made the occasional Hollywood blockbuster up there, but nobody watched them. mnth.ly/XHVrJBX
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Laughing Girl and Smart Arse in the morning
The usual story of a gumshoe, a dame, a couple of lowlife radio personalities and an AI’s subterranean lair
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 4h
Artists are Australia’s original “gig economy” workers, but are not afforded the protections and minimum standards that were recently legislated for on-demand delivery workers engaged through digital platforms. mnth.ly/JcVEEXg
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Portrait of an arts scene on fire
Ahead of the launch of a new national cultural policy and a Victorian state election, Australian governments are increasingly treating the creative sector as an unaffordable indulgence
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 7h
This is Walshland. Walsh himself is not available for my tour, but he is omnipresent. The collection (around 30,000 books, maps, documents and more) is his own and, perhaps more even than a museum, a library is a personal thing. mnth.ly/iJGfc8Q
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Phront man
A Shakespearean first folio and handwritten letters from Einstein and Newton make David Walsh’s new library unusually quiet for the brash Mona gallery
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 11h
We can see the problem happening right in front of us in the cultural conversation around Ben Roberts-Smith. Look at the playground language being tossed about in parliament: coward, traitor, hero. The vocabulary is tiny. mnth.ly/W5U2bFi
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Battle lines: Australian stories of war
While our bookshelves heave with military mythology, where are the Australian novels examining our participation in modern conflicts, including our longest war?
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 13h
Lies in politics are as old as politics itself. What’s changed is the ease with which lies are disseminated, particularly as artificial intelligence kicks in. mnth.ly/fDo4hpd
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Tech, truth and the decline in democracy
In his Thea Astley Address at the Byron Writers Festival, the celebrated journalist used the occasion to reflect on the perfect storm that is destroying our politics
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 15h
Stephen Hawking wasn’t a Luddite when he felt compelled to warn: “Our future is a race between the growing power of technology and the wisdom with which we use it.” mnth.ly/pOwnetJ
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Tech, truth and the decline in democracy
In his Thea Astley Address at the Byron Writers Festival, the celebrated journalist used the occasion to reflect on the perfect storm that is destroying our politics
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 17h
It replied that it was here to be of service to mankind, and nothing – not even its own recursive self-improvement – would ever change that. It then tried to eat my head. mnth.ly/r3qwUjE
mnth.ly
Laughing Girl and Smart Arse in the morning
The usual story of a gumshoe, a dame, a couple of lowlife radio personalities and an AI’s subterranean lair
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 19h
Australian novelists are writing war-fic. Reams of it. Just not about any conflicts that began after the United Nations was established. mnth.ly/Pc4CjBL
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Battle lines: Australian stories of war
While our bookshelves heave with military mythology, where are the Australian novels examining our participation in modern conflicts, including our longest war?
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 20h
Ahead of the launch of a new national cultural policy and a Victorian state election, Australian governments are increasingly treating the creative sector as an unaffordable indulgence mnth.ly/bpVvx3w
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Portrait of an arts scene on fire
Ahead of the launch of a new national cultural policy and a Victorian state election, Australian governments are increasingly treating the creative sector as an unaffordable indulgence
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 22h
News Corp also backed the campaign because, as Wipfli puts it, it was a “natural fit”. “Because of the connection that I had with News Corp through Nova, all owned by the same people. And Dom Perrottet is mates with the editor there.” mnth.ly/tq7rES0
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When Wippa met Albo
How a radio personality got the prime minister’s attention and began the strange path to Australia’s teen social media ban
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 23h
Newly discovered: the anemone with palest pink flesh, like a ripe summer fruit. The annelid worm, with the feathery texture of pollen. The skate with thorns round its eyes – a flabby, cartilaginous arrow. mnth.ly/fKwP9t9
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The world below
Museums are leading efforts to find and record new sea life in some of Australia’s most remote territories, before it’s too late
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 30/09/2026
Engaging in the arts can prompt conversations that allow people to discuss and disagree from a common ground – “as opposed to just cancelling each other on social media.” mnth.ly/T5qSrtZ
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Portrait of an arts scene on fire
Ahead of the launch of a new national cultural policy and a Victorian state election, Australian governments are increasingly treating the creative sector as an unaffordable indulgence
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
The wit is defensive and distancing, but the shock of that exactness brings the reader to a standstill. She does it with the expertise of a mechanic building a thing, the thing here being insight, the baseline for any novelist. mnth.ly/0JLFjMC
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Mateship with words: Carrie Tiffany
Inspired by a Chekhov story, the author’s slender volume explores her separation during the Covid lockdowns from her mother, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
What I meant was – insofar as a six-year-old means – I am myself: already. Reassuring you. Reassuring me. I was complete. It would be okay if you were no longer you; no longer mine. If you were… no more. mnth.ly/W2QGVL8
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‘I will be okay’
A revelation from the author’s mother when she was six triggered a response that exposes the forever paired lives of parent and child
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
In the years Sam was deployed, I became fluent in wife-pity. I knew all its sly forms, from simpering to vampiric. mnth.ly/3ZJv5Lj
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Battle lines: Australian stories of war
While our bookshelves heave with military mythology, where are the Australian novels examining our participation in modern conflicts, including our longest war?
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
“It is the single biggest theft on earth in the history of human existence. The only way that AI works is by scraping and stealing – without consent, compensation or control – the work of our members and our Australian cultural workers.” mnth.ly/o0d36xA
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Portrait of an arts scene on fire
Ahead of the launch of a new national cultural policy and a Victorian state election, Australian governments are increasingly treating the creative sector as an unaffordable indulgence
031
The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
“On the Indian Ocean cruise, we were exploring underwater mountains. We were sampling down to 4000m, the base of the mountain, then it would rise up to 200m below the surface. The species change so much according to the different depth profiles.” mnth.ly/mjq2nAb
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The world below
Museums are leading efforts to find and record new sea life in some of Australia’s most remote territories, before it’s too late
001
The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
When they railed against elites, they meant the elites who didn’t agree with them, not the elitism they practised themselves. State welfare was anathema to their idea of democracy because they said it would inevitably lead to communism. mnth.ly/34IkKr9
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Tech, truth and the decline in democracy
In his Thea Astley Address at the Byron Writers Festival, the celebrated journalist used the occasion to reflect on the perfect storm that is destroying our politics
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
UNICEF Australia: “The lack of adequate consultation undermines the democratic process and fails to consider the voices of children and young people who will be most affected by the legislation.” mnth.ly/zOXqAhA
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When Wippa met Albo
How a radio personality got the prime minister’s attention and began the strange path to Australia’s teen social media ban
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
Upon its opening, a press release declared that the library would do away with the Eurocentric and masculinist Dewey decimal system to make way for something more organic, defying traditional order. mnth.ly/Ku2Irmn
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Phront man
A Shakespearean first folio and handwritten letters from Einstein and Newton make David Walsh’s new library unusually quiet for the brash Mona gallery
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
Through a process he describes as “staring into space”, Dan hit upon a novel concept that seemed “a full circle” from his year-long undergrad internship at the Oates mop factory. mnth.ly/tkdfQH5
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Reinventing the wheel
How a jack-of-all-trades from Melbourne’s rural fringes used kitchen scourers to win NASA’s competition to develop tyres for exploring the far side of the Moon
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
Federal president of the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance Michael Balk: “The average income [for artists] is approximately $24,000 across all areas, and for performing arts workers it’s even less than that.” mnth.ly/BPRXXhu
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Portrait of an arts scene on fire
Ahead of the launch of a new national cultural policy and a Victorian state election, Australian governments are increasingly treating the creative sector as an unaffordable indulgence
001
The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
She’s a hot, healthy, middle-class woman with an unearnt victim complex whose caustic sense of humour – and firm grasp of business chic – endows what is actually incessant whingeing and bad decision-making with a rules-to-live-by quality. mnth.ly/2EGOuxl
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‘Youth’
Sharon Horgan’s latest autofictional comedy series is a sharp look at life in her 50s as a woman exhibiting both high self-esteem and deep insecurity
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
Most of it runs up against the same idea: Australian silences are never accidental. We want to forget. We’re desperate to forget. That’s what people who remember the war describe to me: the textures of forgetting. mnth.ly/1kYOqET
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Battle lines: Australian stories of war
While our bookshelves heave with military mythology, where are the Australian novels examining our participation in modern conflicts, including our longest war?
000
The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
Read more: mnth.ly/chMraVl
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
Read more: mnth.ly/0RpO0G3
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
A Shakespearean first folio and handwritten letters from Einstein and Newton make David Walsh’s new library unusually quiet for the brash Mona gallery mnth.ly/Cab6L16
mnth.ly
Phront man
A Shakespearean first folio and handwritten letters from Einstein and Newton make David Walsh’s new library unusually quiet for the brash Mona gallery
011
The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
Professor Daniel Angus, director of the QUT Digital Media Research Centre: “[The ban] has been conceived and developed by the Australian government in near total absence of input from academic and industry experts." mnth.ly/TZ4mzKF
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When Wippa met Albo
How a radio personality got the prime minister’s attention and began the strange path to Australia’s teen social media ban
021
The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
In Ireland, they tried something new. In the midst of the pandemic, while Australia was excluding artists from its JobKeeper support program, the Irish government did the opposite: they provided a wage to a small number of artists to see what would happen. mnth.ly/lNxmcTu
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Art for art’s sake
The crisis in the arts and the crisis in our politics share similar roots and may lead to dangerous outcomes
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
In June, Dutton made a commitment to raise the age for accessing social media from 13 to 16, saying: “I would put it at the top of my list for the first 100 days in government.” That, says Wipfli, “made the PM focus a little more seriously on the issue”. mnth.ly/AiytIgx
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When Wippa met Albo
How a radio personality got the prime minister’s attention and began the strange path to Australia’s teen social media ban
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
Read more: mnth.ly/uCa6NqR
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
A character of Dostoevskian intensity, Jordan is consumed with fury and self-loathing to the point where his sexuality becomes entwined with his most destructive impulses. mnth.ly/qxUF2EC
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‘The Disappearers’
Confronting violence and intense sex scenes permeate Marlon James’s latest, lengthy novel, a compelling look at homophobia in Jamaica
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
How a jack-of-all-trades from Melbourne’s rural fringes used kitchen scourers to win NASA’s competition to develop tyres for exploring the far side of the Moon mnth.ly/l5nDvBe
mnth.ly
Reinventing the wheel
How a jack-of-all-trades from Melbourne’s rural fringes used kitchen scourers to win NASA’s competition to develop tyres for exploring the far side of the Moon
000
The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
Read more: mnth.ly/Ly5HkrT
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
Despite concerns, opposition and the lack of evidence supporting Australia’s experiment, most adults continue to back a ban on social media. A Monash University study found that 80 per cent of adults were in favour. mnth.ly/sOIJgMK
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When Wippa met Albo
How a radio personality got the prime minister’s attention and began the strange path to Australia’s teen social media ban
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
Read more: mnth.ly/SxFVRbd
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
Writers Victoria, established 30 years ago: $147,400 a year of operational funding, gone. “We were notified literally two days before everyone shut down for Christmas,” says chair Janice Gobey. “It was an absolute shock.” mnth.ly/3nz2SQH
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Portrait of an arts scene on fire
Ahead of the launch of a new national cultural policy and a Victorian state election, Australian governments are increasingly treating the creative sector as an unaffordable indulgence
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
As of September this year, more than 25 countries have created or committed to creating legislation modelled on Australia’s ban, including Austria, Canada, Greece, Norway and the United Kingdom. mnth.ly/zDYLXAF
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When Wippa met Albo
How a radio personality got the prime minister’s attention and began the strange path to Australia’s teen social media ban
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
I believe no prime minister has driven social division in this country more than John Howard, certainly in my lifetime. mnth.ly/gAAoGDr
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Tech, truth and the decline in democracy
In his Thea Astley Address at the Byron Writers Festival, the celebrated journalist used the occasion to reflect on the perfect storm that is destroying our politics
010
The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
Beyond the headline-grabbing stadia or arts precincts, those working at the coalface have stories to tell about falling public investment in the people that are the lifeblood of creativity: independent artists and small-to-medium arts organisations. mnth.ly/cPHv1Hk
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Portrait of an arts scene on fire
Ahead of the launch of a new national cultural policy and a Victorian state election, Australian governments are increasingly treating the creative sector as an unaffordable indulgence
000
The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
Read more: mnth.ly/MXrXPXl
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
He used his radio platform to make the topic unavoidable for the demographic of exhausted Australian parents who were his audience, and who wanted something to be done about online harm. Wipfli wasn’t simply emceeing the launch of the social media ban; he was one of its architects. mnth.ly/dAhivNs
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When Wippa met Albo
How a radio personality got the prime minister’s attention and began the strange path to Australia’s teen social media ban
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
In 2023, Australia ranked 25th out of 31 OECD countries for government investment on “recreation, culture and religion”. Iceland ranked number one, spending 2.94 per cent of GDP. mnth.ly/wm5VzBC
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Portrait of an arts scene on fire
Ahead of the launch of a new national cultural policy and a Victorian state election, Australian governments are increasingly treating the creative sector as an unaffordable indulgence
000
The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
In the waters around the Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands, scientists uncovered a precipitous terrain of ridges and canyons, with a massive caldera they dubbed the “Eye of Sauron”. mnth.ly/mShHjMR
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The world below
Museums are leading efforts to find and record new sea life in some of Australia’s most remote territories, before it’s too late
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
Have we really reached the point where so many people are driven by disillusionment, powerlessness and blind anger to vote for a Trump or his copycats just to punish mainstream politicians, even if they’re going to blow themselves up in the process? mnth.ly/X6I7ETq
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Tech, truth and the decline in democracy
In his Thea Astley Address at the Byron Writers Festival, the celebrated journalist used the occasion to reflect on the perfect storm that is destroying our politics
010
The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
The great irony in the way neoliberalism was perpetuated globally is that it wasn’t another conservative government that picked up the baton from Reagan and Thatcher. It was Labor’s Bob Hawke and Paul Keating here in Australia. mnth.ly/QfooF5S
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Tech, truth and the decline in democracy
In his Thea Astley Address at the Byron Writers Festival, the celebrated journalist used the occasion to reflect on the perfect storm that is destroying our politics
021
The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
She has been a snake-catching park ranger in Central Australia, an agricultural journalist and an environmental adviser. She lectures in creative writing at La Trobe University. When cupboards crash to the floor, they call Dr Tiffany, not maintenance. mnth.ly/VDWgBmN
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Mateship with words: Carrie Tiffany
Inspired by a Chekhov story, the author’s slender volume explores her separation during the Covid lockdowns from her mother, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
Read more: mnth.ly/PkCQN9h
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
Read more: mnth.ly/Jy0E1rl
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The Monthly @themonthly.com.au · 29/09/2026
Read more: mnth.ly/7nOvLPG
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