Hugh White

Apr 26, 2024 | thesaturdaypaper.com.au | Hugh White

It is now 15 years since the Rudd government’s 2009 Defence White Paper unambiguously identified China’s growing military power and ambition as the central challenge to Australian defence policy. It failed, however, to present a credible response. There have been four major defence policy statements since then, in 2013, 2016, 2020 and 2023. Each has purported to do better, by defining a fundamentally new strategy to deal with the Chinese threat, and they have all failed.

Feb 23, 2024 | thesaturdaypaper.com.au | Hugh White

When Labor won office it inherited a defence program catastrophically inadequate to the strategic challenges of the next few decades. The worst of it was the Coalition’s AUKUS nuclear submarines plan. Almost as bad was its plan to build new warships for the Royal Australian Navy’s surface fleet. Now Labor has proudly taken ownership of both these blunders and made them its own. Last year it committed to a totally unworkable plan to deliver nuclear-powered subs that we do not need and will never get.

Apr 14, 2023 | thesaturdaypaper.com.au | Hugh White

United States president Joe Biden’s big idea on China has been to “seek competition, not conflict” by setting what he calls “guardrails” to stop US–China rivalry spiralling out of control. He has hoped to see both sides show restraint and a degree of mutual respect as a way of stopping the slide towards overt confrontation and to avert the risk of war. But it is not working.

Mar 31, 2023 | themonthly.com.au | Kaz Cooke |Hugh White |Jo Chandler |Bri Lee

I bought Cynthia Heimel’s book Sex Tips for Girls in about 1984 at a 7-Eleven. The cover photo was of long legs, in fishnets. The leg-owner’s hotsy-totsy high heels matched her red Bakelite phone with its twirly cord. I wasn’t that sort of girl (all right, I had the phone), but the back cover made me laugh so I paid $5 for it. The book wasn’t all “sex tips”.

Mar 30, 2023 | themonthly.com.au | Tony Birch |Hugh White |Jo Chandler |Bri Lee

A new novel from the acclaimed Indigenous writer occasions a survey of her work, immersed in Country and the ongoing experience of colonisation On June 21, 2007, two events occurred in Australia that would impact upon Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across the country.