Paradise Divided

Should Australia become a Republic? How can reconciliation with the Aboriginal people be achieved? How does Australia see itself? This volume collects writings from Paul Kelly which address these dilemmas and examine the underlying issues.

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This collection brings together all of Paul Kelly's major pieces from "The Australian" and other sources over that time, grouped thematically and updated in places. Kelly has probed the politics of a country caught up in change and struggling to come to terms with it. Australia's leading political commentator writes about the paradox of a wealthy nation taking up the call to globalisation, but leaving behind large sections of the community, and of the new divide between the knowledge classes and the working poor. He warns that Australia has to find a trade-off between the Australian tradition and the new international environment. No nation is immune from globalisation; that is why the experience of Bill Clinton in the United States and Tony Blair in the United Kingdom has keen relevance to Australia. Kelly challenges all Australians to deal with the contradictions and divisive consequences of globalisation without losing sight of the important debates which must be had about identity - on the republic, Aboriginal reconciliation, multiculturalism, engagement with Asia and what is expected from national leadership.
With insight and an understanding of Australian politics and society and the country's place in the world, Paul Kelly maps Australia's immediate past to ask the important questions about its future.