Appeasing Jakarta; QE2 by John Birmingham experimental-music and that our prime minister

and that our prime minister could be a critical player on the global stage in Copenhagen in December 2009 – but only if we take swift and effective action and make sharp cuts in emissions

Shireen Morris

or must the patterns of the past persist into the future

Selections from The Lucky Country sit alongside pithy reflections on Australian history and culture

whenever it comes

Appeasing Jakarta; QE2 by John Birmingham experimental-music and that our prime ministerIn Appeasing Jakarta, John Birmingham takes apart the folly of twenty five years of Australian policy on East Timor. How did Gough Whitlam and Richard Woolcott in 1975 saddle this country with a policy that was bound to lead to the intervention of 1999? Why were shrewder voices ignored and why did we persist with an unworkable model? Where does this leave us with an Indonesia still dominated by the old power elites? And what was the tragedy like for