"Quarterly Essays should be mandatory reading for all those interested in political, economic and social issues in Australia. I anticipate their publication every three months. I have read them since 2001 and Robert Manne’s “Stolen Generation.�
While reading this essay I was also listening to numerous interviews with Nikki Savva speaking about her new book, Bulldoze. Also, Labor’s federal election campaign review was released and reported on.

I admire Murphy both as a print journalist and a media commentator. Her most brilliant observation was of Morrison when she said � �.. he speaks to blokes who might vote Labor.�

Although this essay is focussed on Albanese, Morrison is often mentioned in the early pages. Bob Hawke once said that the electorate usually got it right when a federal election was held. I firmly believe that in 2019 they got it wrong. Bill Shorten was not liked, the ALPs multitude of policies, some of which would raise taxes and Morrison’s brilliant portrayal as the “daggy suburban dad� all contributed to the Liberal’s miracle win.

Albanese would have been Labor leader at the 2019 election if the Labor parliamentarians had followed the membership’s vote, but party faction deals gave the leadership to Shorten.

Albanese played a masterful game of well-placed pragmatism and inciteful criticisms and attacks on Morrison.

The essay starts with an account of Albanese on election night then travels back to his election as Labor leader. It touches on the struggle he faced as a youth with a pensioned mother who had debilitating illnesses. Albanese has told this story on numerous occasions and so he should. One of the highlights of our political system is that someone with Albanese� childhood and background can still become prime minister. In America you virtually have to be a millionaire, in England a graduate of Eton and Oxbridge, in North Korea the son of the previous leader.

Murphy spends many pages discussing Albanese’s personality, his trustworthiness and how he has learnt from his and Labor’s previous mistakes.

It is now nearly six months since his election and opinion polls are showing Labor has increased its support in the electorate and Albanese’s lead over Opposition Leader is the proverbial country mile. However, we live in turbulent times and Albanese and Labor should always remember this.
A dispassionate, informative read."

"A bunch of short stories from an author I had not previously read. I do have the more noted Monkey Grip and also her latest The Season, both of which I intend to read in the next few weeks as The Season is the book of choice for my local book club.

My favourite by far All Those Bloody Young Catholics is what I can only describe as a drunken stream of dribble by a bloke at the pub who catches up with an old female acquaintance from the past. Kind of reminded me of someone's youth, hopefully not mine.

The other of note The Life of Art told in the first person about a female and her artist friend and their observations of life occasionally imitating art and vice versa.
This one is online for anyone interested.


An easy collection to read and for me, it showed Helen Garner can write in various styles. I look forward to further readings of her works."

"
This little book distils years of tough thinking about how the media work and its relationships with politics, government and the world at large.

When Katherine Murphy she wrote it in 2018, she was political editor for Guardian Australia, part of her long stint working in Canberra’s press gallery. She was a highly regarded journalist, so much so, that she was awarded an Honorary doctorate by the University of Canberra in 2019

The title, ‘On Disruption�, refers to the massive technological and structural disruptions that have taken place over the decades since the internet displaced print media, and the more leisurely cycle of the 24 newspaper production was replaced by the immediacy demanded now via the electronic media.

In 2018, Trump was president of the US, Malcolm Turnbull Prime Minister of Australia. The trends she discusses in the book have become more exaggerated; the dialogue more fractured. There is more opinion, invention, speculation and much less of the considered reporting validated by research that Murphy, and reader like me, grew up to expect and, in her case, practice.

My notes

P 55 ‘technological disruption, and our professional response to it, has also produces a febrile, superficial, shouty, shallow, pugnacious cacophony of content, where sensation regularly trumps insight�.

On Trump: p66 ‘We need to consider that politicians like Trump are good at playing us at our own game. We need to be aware that our professional obligation to cover the daily utterances of a political figure can manifest less an institutional check � which is what we think it is � and more straight out amplification. The choppy modern news cycle hands an open microphone to a politician like Trump�.
The organising question of the era might b: in this time of disruption, how do journalists cover a political leader who has risen to power in part by understanding, at an intuitive level, the new media norms � give me something new, now, preferably outrageous, preferably unscripted, preferably emotive, so an audience will read it and react and share � and by playing the media adroitly at its own game to sustain himself.
Watching the US media try to do their job and rise to the challenges of the Trump presidency if, honestly, like watching an extended episode of Catch 22�.

P 72 the ‘new, now� news cycle, where minute developments are reported in real time, means internal processes of consideration and decision-making, as well as the external process of negotiation are disrupted much more frequently.

The disruptions then often materially impact outcomes � governments change course; drop ambitious ides, shape shift to try to avoid an unmanageable stakeholder backlash.

There’s a focus on ‘gotcha� moments, and endless social media campaigns, the praactivce politics by trolling - all of which militate against carefully considered long-term public policy.

Politics is now driven by conflict � it has become an end in itself, something to ‘fire up� the voter base, to rally ‘the tribe� � variable, and always a minority.

‘Tribalism has become a commodity, both for establishment politicians, who want to hold their core support against outsider insurgents, and for media companies, who need to get engaged audiences to survive the disruption that has played out brutally over the last ten years� and continues to play out (bear in mind this was written in 2018, before COVID, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, before the nightmare of Gaza).

The internet smashed the business model of news organisations, and journalism has entered new territory -not institutional, as it was, but that of personal relationship with the readers.

99 ‘as someone concerned about the destructive impacts of hyper-polarisation and tribalism, I worry about how engaged media communities then define themselves, and interact with other engaged media communities.
One of the most noxious elements of the web, which was supposed to usher in a more democratic and liberal culture of free ideas and diffuse connections, is the shrieking hostility.

Murphy is a passionate advocate for good journalism � journalism that is committed to the truth, with a belief that citizens come first. It should be independent, vigilant, verifiable and canvass a range of views, allowing that there will always be grey areas and teasing out uncertainties.

After 28 years as a journalist, Katherine Murphy joined the staff of Australian Prime minister Anthony Albanese in January 2024




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