This Accidental Present is the little-known Brisbane story of the connection between two prominent Australian families, the Cilentos and the Noonuccals, and the birth of a child in 1953 that could not be acknowledged, writes history editor Dr Glenn Davies.

THIS ACCIDENTAL PRESENT is the fascinating story, both intimate and international, of the intersecting lives of extraordinary people. Sir Raphael and Lady Phyllis Cilento were among the most important families in Queensland in the 1950s and Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker), was an Aboriginal woman who went to work for them in 1951 as a domestic.

Ross Wilsons exploration of this story of two families began with listening to members of both families. This Accidental Present is the first telling of this extraordinary story. Wilson has nurtured this vivid story from many long conversations with members of both families, as well as close friends of the people in the story. He tells the story with permission and support from those who generously shared their memories with him.

When Oodgeroo Noonuccal (the unknown, but named Kath Walker) went to work as a housekeeper for one of Brisbanes most influential families the Cilentos she couldnt have guessed how much her life would change. Kath Walkers daily life through the 1950s was in the shadow of The Act, which governed a...

The Reserve Bank of Australia has repeatedly raised interest rates to counter inflation while ignoring massive profits from big business. And so, those who can least afford it keep getting hit. Dr Evan Jones reports.

THE (NATIONAL) economy at the macroeconomic level is treated by central bankers and most academics as a thing in itself. Its essence is characterised by aggregate indicators  gross domestic product, aggregate unemployment rate, inflation rate, etcetera.

Macroeconomic fetishism

Inside the macroeconomy is a black box. Analysis of the "microeconomy" is monopolised by the paradigm of Neoclassical Economics, enthroned in the (English language) economics "discipline" since the late Nineteenth Century.

Neoclassical Economics is not rooted in the empirics of economic structures but in a priorism. It is a fairy story. The black box of macroeconomic theory is facilitated by the absence of an adequate microeconomic (structural) analysis.

The much-revered J M Keynes played a part in this unfortunate scenario. In confronting Britains 1930s Depression (with large-scale ongoing unemployment), Keynes stylised analysis was purely at the macroeconomic level with inattention to empirical detail.

This was even at the time that Britains relation to the global economy was changing and its internal economic structure undergoing significant transformation. Within that analytical constraint, Keynes highlighted that mass unemployment could be sustained, that a dearth of aggregate demand was the source and that decisive public action was necessary to counter that dearth. And fair enough as a short-term fix.

But after Keynes premature death at 62 in 1946 came the "Keynesians".

After 1945, countries committed themselves to economic reconstruction. Some (Britain and Australia) even committed themselves formally to t...

Megan Jane de Paulo rolls out her tribute to the humble scone a tea-time accompaniment firmly 'en-scon-ced' in our culinary history. Cuppa, anyone?

IT HAS NO yeast, so it is not bread. Not a cake. Nor a biscuit. Not pastry but most closely related to it.

It is the humble scone.

A nostalgic baked nibble, snack sized, usually slathered with jam and cream... in my case, shoved into one hand, with a tepid Milo in the other, upon being sent away to play while adults chat over cups of tea.

An assemblage of crumbs coaxed together with care, flour, milk and cream/butter, and some baking powder for lightness and rise. This time-tested recipe can be created with a series of modifications and perversions for fun along the way, skirting the boundaries of sweet and savoury at the whim of the baker.

The definitive origin of the scone remains in some dispute, but it seems to have derived from the Scottish bannock or the Dutch schoonbrood. The Oxford English Dictionary records its first mention in English literature from 1513.

The addition of scones to "High Tea" was initiated in 1840 by Anna Russell, the Duchess of Bedford, where it was served with jam and clotted cream although the working class break-time from where the concept of High Tea is derived probably almost certainly served scones.

Do you say scone (as in gone) or scone (as in tone)? It seems to be more regional than class-based; the majority of people rhyme scone with gone. Astonishingly Australians have never managed to create a diminutive or nickname for scones  there are no sconnos to have at smoko, or jammy rocks. We actually stick to its correct name.

Shoved aside by upstart break-time snacks such as the muffin, cruffin and excessively accessorised doughnut, scones have rolled back into focus recently with a resurgence of a long-term unresolvable...

The Federal seat of Fadden is currently up for grabs after the exit of former MP Stuart Robert, whose numerous scandals may affect the Liberal Party's chances of re-election, writes Belinda Jones.

THE STARTER'S gun has fired in the 2023 Fadden Federal By-election. Early voting has begun in the Gold Coast seat and so too have the games in relentless pursuit of so-called democracy.

Australians like to pride ourselves on our democracy  a free society where anyone can throw their hat into the ring at election time. Thirteen candidates have thrown their hats into the Fadden ring. An eclectic composition of political hopefuls all vying to be the Federal Member for Fadden, myself included.

The Federal seat of Fadden is currently up for grabs after the retirement of former member Stuart Robert.

Stuart Robert served 16 scandal-ridden years as a Liberal National Party of Queensland (LNP) member, achieving very little for the people he claimed to serve. One of the architects of the illegal Robodebt scheme and the fact he was tied to a litany of other transgressions eventually prompted Robert's retirement from Parliament.

Robert claimed his retirement was to focus on family less than a year after winning the seat in the 2022 Federal Election, forcing the costly By-election: over 100,000 Queenslanders have to make the trek back to their local polling places because he decided to pull up stumps one year into his three-year t...

Time is running out for a dying man wishing to spend his remaining time with his family, but scheduled for deportation by the Albanese Government. Gerry Georgatos reports.

ROBERT TAYLOR is dying. He has months to live. His family of six children and 11 grandchildren want him to come home and spend what time is left with them.

Robert is slated for deportation to the United Kingdom, his birth country. He has been in immigration custody for 16 months. He was born in England in 1973 but as a 10-month-old baby, arrived in Australia with his parents in February 1974.

In the nearly 50 years since, he has never left Western Australia. He has grown up Australian, bred here. He has no family in the UK. Unlike his parents, he never thought too much about pursuing Australian citizenship. He was fine on a permanent residency status.

But a carceral conviction late in life for a burglary brought him to the attention of the Department of Immigration. The Prisoners Review Board validated him with parole granted but the Department of Immigration waited for him as he was to be released and they transferred Robert from Bunbury Regional Prison to Northams Yongah Hill Immigration Detention Centre.

His Australian-born and bred family was devastated.

Robert made mistakes and did gaol time. After 50 years in this country, his whole life, he does not deserve deportation. In the last ten years, more than 5,000 residents have been deported.

I have come to know Robert. He is a good person. He has served his court-ordered penance. The slate should be considered clean. We must allow for the re...

Prologue

Victor Tribute wanted to be a hermit.

Not that he wanted to live in a mountain cave and take a vow of silence. He didnt want to be an eremite. He wasnt sure what an eremite was, but he pictured a religious nut, living in skins, having taken a vow of silence and perhaps a strict regimen of dawn chanting. He shuddered at the thought. Victor wasnt the least bit religious, was not fond of chanting and certainly did not want to rough it in the wild or in any other way, indeed.

Victor Tribute sighed. For while living as a total recluse had its attractions, he did appreciate his creature comforts. Moreover, he was a graphic designer who worked on short-term contracts from a rather luxurious highrise beachfront apartment and enjoyed his work. Didnt want to give it up. So for Victor, unless his cave had access to good quality streaming broadband and a reliable power supply, he would need to change careers.

But Victor had no intention of changing careers. He just wanted people most people, not quite all people to just keep well the fuck away from him.

Because Victor Tribute was decidedly misanthropic. He hadnt always been this way. He wasnt really a bad person. He paid his taxes. He said Please and Thank you. He stood up on buses when the elderly, pregnant and other similarly inconvenienced required a seat. But it had come to pass, over the course of his almost 39 years on Earth, that anthropoids had eroded him, like endless drips on granite. And now he was nothing more than a sliver. Nearly worn through.

He was heartily sick of people and their banal small talk; their tedious little dinner parties, where they discussed other peoples tawdry iniquities, revealing more in the process of their own. He was tired of petty gameplaying; of spending a lot of time with someone only to find out they just wanted to be friends. And so on. Ad infinitum. He wanted no more to do with all that. With all of them.

And so Victor Tribute wanted to be a hermit. Or was it a recluse? Whatever, as Victor Tribute sat in the apartment, looking down at the stick figures bustling around 19 storeys below, he began to devise a plan in his very unusual mind.

Victor Tribute planned to try out stage one of his plan at his family Christmas lunch. It seemed a sensible place to start, since family get-togethers were high up on Vic...

Interest rate rises it's just not cricket!

If only we could stop the RBA's play due to 'bad light'.

Mark David is IA's resident cartoonist. You can see more cartoons from Mark on his website Mark David Cartoons, or follow him on Twitter @mdavidcartoons.

The Reserve Bank is blaming our soaring inflation on wage pressure, whereas economists argue the real reason is excess corporate profits. Dr Evan Jones reports.

IN LATE FEBRUARY 2023, Jim Stanford, director of the Centre for Future Work (within the Australia Institute), published a study on the evolution of factor incomes in Australia since December 2019. Stanford published a summary here.

During this latter period, corporate profits arising from discretionary price markups have surged, far greater than can be associated with real economic growth and not a product of productivity rises. Thus, Stanford claims, inflation in Australia since the pandemic reflects a profit-price dynamic, rather than a wage-price dynamic. Stanford notes that the Reserve Bank of Australias (RBA) February 2023 Statement on Monetary Policy mentions wages 75 times and profits once.

The RBA responded by claiming that significant price increases were confined to the resources sector, whose prices are determined by impersonal forces (supply and demand) in global markets. Nothing to see here, as this huge presence in the Australian economy is apparently outside the authorities concern or control.

Except it has been a conscious policy decision to not implement a national domestic gas reservation policy that would have restrained prices. Western Australia has had a formal gas reservation policy since 2006, recently ardently defended by ex-Premier...