David Marr
David Marr is a Guardian Australia journalist. He is widely regarded as one of Australia's most influential commentators, writing on subjects such as politics, censorship, the media and the arts. He has been a journalist since 1973 and is the recipient of four Walkley awards for journalism
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'Take him away, please': George Pell hadn't dressed for prison, but that's where he wentThe only question on the agenda was how long the man who once bestrode the Catholic world will be living behind bars
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Jane Harper, Tom Keneally, Anne Summers and more on what they're reading this monthPlus essays from Alice Pung, a new Garry Disher thriller, a biography of Germaine Greer and short stories from a Miles Franklin winner -
Politicians may be panicking about immigration. Australians are notA heightened sense of crisis has shaken but not shattered our confidence in multiculturalism, reveals the Scanlon Foundation’s 2018 Mapping Social Cohesion Report
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'Most humiliating moment of my career': another Anglican principal apologises for discrimination letterHeads of several prestigious schools apologise for signing a letter drafted by the church
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The Ruddock proposals to entrench discrimination against gays and the unchaste reveals how the church tries to cling to outdated powersIt's not just about sacking gay teachers, the church has a long list of sinners it wants to punish -
Why do religious leaders insist on this ugly law, when so many of their schools want nothing to do with it?
The right to expel gay children from school isn't about freedom; it's about cruelty
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You can’t stop writers offering rubbish but the attempt to narrow the rules to lessen ‘chauvinistic or condescending’ essays was a mistakeWhy I refused to judge the Horne prize over a restrictive rule change
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The party hard man was seen as a sure vote winner by his supporters. But when even his own seat was not safe after 17 years, how could he have won over the nation?The myth of the Liberal base: electing Dutton would have threatened glorious defeat
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Back in the day, it had rivers of cash that funded extravagant demonstrations of hubris, but now the great newspaper company is to disappearFrom butlers and booze-ups to a humiliating end – the sad demise of Fairfax
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Philip Roth’s novel was just one of many banned by a prudish government. It was a decision that led to a landmark court caseHow Portnoy's Complaint made Australia a better place
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Anzac dawn service at Villers-Bretonneux: pomp, patriotism and plastic ponchosDespite the sombre occasion and the cold of France, it’s clear a hobnobbing Malcolm Turnbull is having the time of his life -
Blood and poetry on western front as Turnbull beaten in battle of the wordsWho would have thought the Anzac Day opening of a new Monash museum at Villers-Bretonneux in France would turn into a diplomatic incident?
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The Reckoning, part 3: David Marr on what next now the work of the child sexual abuse commission is over – podcastDavid Marr and Melissa Davey examine the response to the royal commission’s final report which was made public on 15 December, including the reaction from senior figures within the Catholic church. The story includes powerful testimony about the long-term impact of abuse from a man who suffered severe sexual and physical assault in a Christian Brothers school, John Hennessey. Warning: some of the material in this podcast is explicit and upsettingPodcast -
The commissioners’ immense work now needs all the help it can get to overcome the religious establishmentThe child abuse commission didn't flinch. Can Australia show the same courage?


George Pell's jailing defies the might of Rome but his fall is too appalling for celebration