There’s something about the criminally dishonest – scammers, grifters and con-artists – that makes for irresistible storytelling: the how, what, why of it all is endlessly fascinating. And the March issue of The Monthly is underpinned by three major essays that tease out some truly wild hustles and lies of recent Australian political and cultural life.
Rick Morton, the poet laureate of the robodebt saga, tries to make sense of the mentality of a government whose ministers systematically turned on their own people, attacking, backgrounding and waging war on those – no matter how vulnerable – who dared to stand up to them.
Nick Feik tries to make sense of the Albanese government’s ongoing commitment to a carbon-credits system that has the integrity and efficacy of a carnival trick. The ongoing influence of big money and vested interests means that while we now have a government that talks a good game about zero-emissions targets, behind the curtain is a whole lot of compromise and a dubious path to climate action.
And Anna Verney and Richard Cooke tackle what might be the biggest story of literary plagiarism ever, a piece that is the product of more than six months of exhaustive investigation into the career of Australian author John Hughes. What they have uncovered is truly shocking, and a fascinating story about the creative process and who owns stories, and about a man who built a name and a reputation on other peoples’ words.
Plus Don Watson, Chloe Hooper, Elliot Perlman, Christos Tsiolkas, Judith Lucy, Brodie Lancaster and more.