“Spring has sprung in the land Down Under, with temperatures soaring towards the mid-90s through a holiday weekend many will spend at the beach unwinding. But beneath the surface, tensions are bubbling,” Crerar writes. Here are his picks:
Australia is currently wrestling with the rise of far-right anti-Islamic groups. In The Weekend Australian Magazine, Cameron Stewart tells the tale of The Battle For Bendigo, an ugly fight over plans for a new mosque on the city's fringe that has seen the country Victorian town's 300 Muslims locking themselves inside their homes during a violent protest march in August.
Sydneysiders have spent the last weekend swarming around the newly opened harbourside park at “monster development” Barangaroo. On Guardian Australia, Bridie Jabour unpicks a rapacious tale of billionaires, prime ministers casinos, $40,000 a night hotel rooms, and the southern hemisphere's first $100 million apartment. “It is the ultimate Sydney story,” writes Jabour.
In the Coal Crash in October's The Monthly, Paul Cleary examines coal producers' continuing enthusiasm for what rock icon turned enviro-warrior Jimmy Barnes calls “a dying industry,” at a time when the global trade in coal looks increasingly uncertain, and the world's major economies face a “do or die” cut to greenhouse gas emissions at the Paris climate change summit in December
“Racism, real estate, and resources: the three R's that dominate Australia's political and cultural conversation,” Crerar writes.