Pauline Hanson is not alone out there. A million votes are in play. Strategists in both Labor and the Coalition are asking, what can we give them? At stake are the progressive hopes of most Australians, hopes held hostage more than ever to the fears - especially the race fears - of old Australia. This is a riveting essay by one of Australia's best writers, examining the peculiar power of the fearful in this confident and prosperous nation.

Panic (noun). A sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behaviour. Australians see themselves as a relaxed and tolerant bunch. But scratch the surface and you'll uncover an extraordinary level of fear. Cronulla. Henson. Hanson. Wik. Haneef. The Boats. ... Panic shows all of David Marr's characteristic insight, quick wit and brilliant prose as he cuts through the froth and fury that have kept Australia simmering over the last fifteen years. Turning fear into panic is a great political art: knowing how to stack the bonfire, where to find the kindling, when to slosh on a bucket of kero to set the whole thing off with a satisfying roar ... These are dispatches from the republic of panic, stories of fear and fear-mongering under three prime ministers. Some chart panic on the rise and others pick through the wreckage left behind, but all grew out of my wish to honour the victims of these ugly episodes: the people damaged and a damaged country. -David Marr Praise for Panic: 'for those who deplore such panics ... this is a good tonic' - Jack Waterford, Canberra Times 'The effectiveness of Marr's writing lies in his ability to stand back and offer sweet reasonableness in the fact of events that other reporters would happily play for populist hysteria.' - Sydney Morning Herald 'David Marr is not on the list of Australian living treasures, but perhaps he should be. Among our best journalists, he stands out as someone who has consistently challenged the powerful, at his best with forensic skill and deep research.' - Dennis Altman, Australian Book Review 'Panic is clever, intelligently exposing the language of Marr's right-wing adversaries while separating political rhetoric from political reality.' - West Australian About the author: David Marr has written for the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and the Monthly, been editor of the National Times, a reporter for Four Corners, presenter of ABC TV's Media Watch and now writes for the Guardian. His books include Patrick White: A Life, The High Price of Heaven, Dark Victory (with Marian Wilkinson) and three Quarterly Essays: His Master's Voice, Power Trip and Political Animal.

The top job is within Bill Shorten's grasp. But who is he? How did he rise to become Labor leader? And does he have what it takes to beat Malcolm Turnbull and lead the country? In this dramatic essay, David Marr traces the hidden career of a Labor warrior. He shows how a brilliant recruiter and formidable campaigner mastered first the unions and then the party. Marr presents a man willing to deal with his enemies and shift his allegiances, whose ambition to lead has been fixed since childhood. But does he stand for anything? Is Shorten a defender of Labor values in today's Australia or a shape-shifter, driven entirely by politics? How does the union world he comes from shape the prime minister he might be? Marr reveals a man we hardly know- a virtuoso with numbers and a strategist of skill who Labor hopes will return the party to power. 'Australians distrust Shorten almost as much as they distrust Abbott. That's why this election will be fought on trust. It's going to be dirty. At the heart of the contest will be Shorten's character. All the way to polling day, Australians will be invited to rake over every detail of his short life and hidden career.' David Marr, Faction Man

The leading Catholic in the nation and spiritual adviser to Tony Abbott, Cardinal George Pell has played a key role in the greatest challenge to face his church for centuries: the scandal of child sex abuse by priests.
In "The Prince," David Marr investigates the man and his career: how did he rise through the ranks? What does he stand for? How does he wield his authority? How much has he shaped his church and Australia? How has he handled the scandal?
Marr reveals a cleric at ease with power and aggressive in asserting the prerogatives of the Vatican. His account of Pell's career focuses on his response as a man, a priest, an archbishop and prince of the church to the scandal that has engulfed the Catholic world in the last thirty years. This is the story of a cleric slow to see what was happening around him; torn by the contest between his church and its victims; and slow to realise that the Catholic Church cannot, in the end, escape secular scrutiny.
"The Prince" is an arresting portrait of faith, loyalty and ambition, set against a backdrop of terrible suffering and an ancient institution in turmoil.
"He knows children have been wrecked. He apologises again and again. He even sees that the hostility of the press he so deplores has helped the church face the scandal. What he doesn't get is the hostility to the church. Whatever else he believes in, Pell has profound faith in the Catholic Church. He guards it with his life. Nations come and go but the church remains." - David Marr, "The Prince"
David Marr has written for the "Sydney Morning Herald," the "Age" and the "Monthly," been editor of the "National Times," a reporter for "Four Corners," presenter of ABC TV's "Media Watch" and now writes for the "Guardian." His books include "Patrick White: A Life," "The High Price of Heaven," "Dark Victory" (with Marian Wilkinson) and three previous Quarterly Essays.

Tony Abbott is the most successful Opposition leader of the last forty years, but he has never been popular. Now Australians want to know: what kind of man is he, and how would he perform as prime minister?

In this dramatic portrait, David Marr shows that as a young Catholic warrior at university, Abbott was already a brutally effective politician. He later led the way in defeating the republic and, as the self-proclaimed "political love child" of John Howard, rose rapidly in the Liberal Party. His reputation as a head-kicker and hard-liner made him an unlikely leader, but when the time came, his opposition to the emissions trading scheme proved decisive.

Marr shows that Abbott thrives on chaos and conflict. Part fighter and part charmer, he is deeply religious and deeply political. What happens, then, when his values clash with his need to win? This is the great puzzle of his career, but the closer he is to taking power, the more guarded he has become.

"Since witnessing the Hewson catastrophe at first hand, Abbott has worn a mask. He has grown and changed. Life and politics have taught him a great deal. But how this has shaped the fundamental Abbott is carefully obscured. What has been abandoned? What is merely hidden on the road to power? What makes people so uneasy about Abbott is the sense that he is biding his time, that there is a very hard operator somewhere behind that mask, waiting for power." - David Marr, "Political Animal"

Correspondence

This issue also contains correspondence relating to the previous issue QE46 Great Expectations: Government, Entitlement and an Angry Nation by Laura Tingle. Correspondence relating to QE47 Political Animal will appear in the next issue.

About the Author

David Marr is the author of "Patrick White: a Life," "Panic," "The High Price of Heaven" and (with Marian Wilkinson) "Dark Victory." He has written for the "Sydney Morning Herald," the "Age" and the "Monthly," been editor of the "National Times," a reporter for "Four Corners" and presenter of ABC-TV's "Media Watch." In 2010 he wrote the Quarterly Essay "Power Trip: the political journey of Kevin Rudd."

Power Trip shows the making of Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister. In Eumundi, where Rudd was born, David Marr investigates the formative tradegy of his life- the death of his father and what came after. He tracks the transformation of a dreamy kid into an inplacably determined youth, already set on the prime ministership. He examines Rudd's years as Wayne Goss's right-hand man in Queensland, his relentless work in federal Opposition - from Sunrise to AWB - and finally his record as prime minister. In Rudd's Queensland years, Marr finds strange patterns that will reoccur- a tendency to chaos, a mania for contral and a strange mix of heady ambition and retreat. All through this dazzling and relevatory essay, Marr seeks to know what drives an extraordinarily driven man. As Power Trip concludes, he enters into a conversation with the prime minister in which much becomes clear. 'Rudd has sold himself to the Australian people as a new kind of leader- a man of intellect and values out to reshape the future. If he isn't that, people are asking, what is he? And who is he?...Millions of words have been written about him since he emerged from the Labor pack half a dozen years ago, but Rudd remains hidden in full view. ' David Marr, Power Trip

John Howard has the loudest voice in Australia. He has cowed his critics, muffled the press, intimidated the ABC, gagged scientists, silenced NGOs, censored the arts, prosecuted leakers, criminalised protest and shut down parliamentary scrutiny. Though touted as a contest of values, this has been a party political assault on Australia's liberal culture. In the name of "balance" Howard's agenda has muscled its way into the intellectual life of the country. But this has happened because we let it happen. Once again, Howard has shown his superb grasp of Australia as it really is. In His Masters Voice, David Marr investigates both a decade of suppression and the strange willingness of Australians to watch, with such little angst, their liberties disappear.

This anthology concentrates on domestic questions, economic policies, and socialist development and ideology. The essays' subjects include such varied topics as education, economics, the military, leadership, and economic assistance and humanitarian aid.

Available again, an influential book that offers a framework for understanding visual perception and considers fundamental questions about the brain and its functions. David Marr's posthumously published Vision (1982) influenced a generation of brain and cognitive scientists, inspiring many to enter the field. In Vision, Marr describes a general framework for understanding visual perception and touches on broader questions about how the brain and its functions can be studied and understood. Researchers from a range of brain and cognitive sciences have long valued Marr's creativity, intellectual power, and ability to integrate insights and data from neuroscience, psychology, and computation. This MIT Press edition makes Marr's influential work available to a new generation of students and scientists. In Marr's framework, the process of vision constructs a set of representations, starting from a description of the input image and culminating with a description of three-dimensional objects in the surrounding environment. A central theme, and one that has had far-reaching influence in both neuroscience and cognitive science, is the notion of different levels of analysis-in Marr's framework, the computational level, the algorithmic level, and the hardware implementation level. Now, thirty years later, the main problems that occupied Marr remain fundamental open problems in the study of perception. Vision provides inspiration for the continuing efforts to integrate knowledge from cognition and computation to understand vision and the brain.