Dominic Kelly

Dominic Kelly reviews ‘Lessons from Our Failure to Build a Constitutional Bridge in the 2023 Referendum’ and ‘The End of Settlement: Why the 2023 referendum failed’

September 2024, no. 468 • 26 August 2024

It was no surprise, in the end, when the October 2023 referendum on the constitutional enshrinement of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice was comprehensively defeated, given the concerted opposition of the Liberal-National Coalition. The history of Australian referendums is clear: bipartisan support is a necessary precondition for constitutional change. While a great many of those on ... (read more)

Dominic Kelly reviews 'Partisans: The conservative revolutionaries who remade American politics in the 1990s' by Nicole Hemmer

January-February 2023, no. 450 • 26 December 2022

Beginning just as the Cold War finally came to an end, the 1990s were supposed to bring peace, prosperity, and optimism to the United States. Thinking about all that has happened since – the 9/11 attacks, interminable wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the global financial crisis, violent unrest and democratic institutions under threat – it is tempting to look back on the decade as a short-lived go ... (read more)

Dominic Kelly reviews 'Full Circle: A search for the world that comes next' by Scott Ludlam

August 2021, no. 434 • 22 July 2021

Amid the daily dramas and momentous impact of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, it’s easy to forget that, just four years ago, Australia was enduring a very different – and much less serious – kind of political crisis. In July 2017, the Australian Greens’ Scott Ludlam resigned from the Senate, having been advised that his failure to renounce his long-dormant New Zealand citizenship meant t ... (read more)

Dominic Kelly reviews 'Liberalism at Large: The world according to The Economist' by Alexander Zevin

March 2020, no. 419 • 31 January 2020

Few media institutions are revered across the mainstream political spectrum quite like The Economist. Since its founding in London in 1843, The Economist – which insists on calling itself a newspaper despite switching to a magazine format in the mid-twentieth century – has developed a reputation for intelligent, factual reporting and forthright advocacy for free trade and economic expansion. A ... (read more)

'On MUP and the resilience of non-fiction publishing' by Dominic Kelly

March 2019, no. 409 • 10 February 2019

The University of Melbourne’s announcement on 30 January 2019 that Melbourne University Publishing would henceforth ‘refocus on being a high-quality scholarly press in support of the University’s mission of excellence in teaching and research’, which led to the resignations of its chief executive, Louise Adler, and five other board members, was just three days old when one of the more absu ... (read more)