Australia’s politicians may be too mired in power skirmishes to notice that 31 October 2017 marked the five-hundredth anniversary of Martin Luther’s trumpet blast of the Reformation: the posting of the Ninety-Five Theses, his ‘Disputation on the Power of Indulgences’, on the bulletin board of a castle church in the provincial university town of Wittenberg. Pity. Even self-serving men might learn, from one of history’s most brusquely eloquent and determined figures, how to bring about change while remaining steadfast – and shrewd – in the face of hydra-headed opposition and mortal risk.