Books published by Connor Court Publishing Pty Ltd

When Tony Abbott declared on election night, 7 September, 2013, that Australia was "under new management and once more open for business", he was emphasising more than his incoming government's determination to revive the national economy. By using the lingo of small business, he was affirming his affinity with what his predecessor Robert Menzies called "the backbone of the nation": Australia's hard-working middle class.This collection of speeches from Abbott's prime ministership covers every aspect of policy, from free trade to indigenous affairs, taxation, terrorism, history, the environment, bureaucratic red tape, religion and more. Yet all are deeply imbued with Abbott's - and the Liberal Party's - middle-class values of freedom, enterprise, patriotism and love of family. These speeches eloquently encapsulate that uniquely Australian style of optimism which throughout our history has, even against the odds, underpinned our prosperity.

"It has never been harder for parents to protect their childrens' innocence than it is in the digital age. Faced with adult concepts and confronting images in public places, online or at times where parents cannot always be present, we need to arm our children with the skills they need to cope. Wendy Francis has prepared a much-needed and age-appropriate resource to help parents educate their children to withstand the challenges of the digital age." r

Sensible reform demands reflection on its purpose, and acceptance of responsibility for its outcomes. It will decentralise education so it can serve local communities and focus on the fundamentals. It does not involve extravagant spending on the trivial, the transient and the trendsetting, but expects participation and makes sure every voice is heard.Marching Schools Forward focuses on 20 important principles. It stimulates thought and opens debate on many vital questions.Education must be about families, educators and policymakers contributing to a shared agreement about what kind of education is ‘suitable’ for each and every one of our children – now and into the future.

A  Journey Through the Elements is an entertaining account of one man’s journey through life as a geologist. Part ‘Boys’ Own Adventure’, part ‘Ode to Nature’, the narrative travels from Australia to California, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and beyond as it brings to life with humour, history, science and personal anecdotes a dynamic and inspiring world that most people cherish but few have encountered quite so vividly.

The story of Zionism, the Jewish movement of national liberation that led to the founding of modern Israel, is animated by leaders possessed with rare vision and political genius. It is also a story of tragedy, false dawns and suffering on an incomprehensible scale. Above all, it is a story without precedent, that saw an ancient, scattered, persecuted people who had limped from one disaster to the next, achieving a return to freedom in the lands of their ancestors nearly two millennia after their exile. In this extraordinary feat of narrative history, Alex Ryvchin tells the gripping story of Zionism, a movement that has become one of the most controversial and least understood political concepts of our time, one that remains central to modern Jewish identity and to war and peace in the Middle East.

This collection aims to restore conservatism as it existed before the Cold War – that is, before traditionalists entered into a disastrous alliance with classical liberals and libertarians; before those with a humble appreciation for society got mixed up with ideology. Timely perspectives on the present crisis draw from the timeless wisdom of the Western canon. The authors decry radical individualism in favour of strong communities.

Patrick McMahon Glynn was not the typical nineteenth-century Irish immigrant. Erudite and principled, this committed Catholic’s contribution to Australian society as a lawyer and parliamentarian has long deserved to be better known. Anne Henderson’s compelling and scholarly Federation’s Man of Letters ably fills this gap.-- MARGARET BEAZLEY AO QC

A collection of short biographies of ten remarkable Australians who deserved to be better known. In fact most were well known, even famous at one stage in twentieth-century history, but have since been largely forgotten. Ian Macfarlane seeks to learn more about these people and their achievements, giving the modern reader an opportunity to discover them too.

The papers in this book flowed from a Religious Liberty Conference convened jointly by the Sydney School of Law of The University of Notre Dame Australia, the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University and the Research Unit for the Study of Society, Ethics and the Law at the University of Adelaide in 2018. The papers reflect insights and concerns about religious freedom when the Ruddock Review was considering whether religious liberty in Australia needed greater protection. Since that time, the Morrison government has commissioned the Australian Law Reform Commission to report on five of the Ruddock recommendations, the Australian Human Rights Commission has released a discussion paper of its own and the Commonwealth Attorney-General has released a draft Religious Discrimination Bill for discussion. The matters raised in these papers remain valid.

This book traces the idea of monotheism from Egypt in the 13th century B.C., through Israel's Divine Council down into Greek and Roman times when the rabbis were trying to protect their sacred religion from confusion with the god pantheons of those empires. The book identifies Jewish criticism of heretical Christian polytheism as the watershed which the Trinity doctrine was developed to answer.The Trinity doctrine is then traced through the Nicene Council in 325 A.D., the schism between East and West and into Anglican Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's innovation of a God "without body, parts or passions" in 1553.The book ends with a brief discussion of the Christology of the Unitarian, LDS and Jehovah's Witness faiths and concludes that as intended, 'Constantine's Creed' accommodates differences in Christian belief because he wanted to use that faith as the glue that would hold his Empire together.

Coal: the Australian Story - from convict mining to the birth of a world leader is a story which deserves to be better understood by all Australians. It is a story, not only of turmoil, but also of perseverance, major reforms and restructuring, and a story which involves an industry which has been of fundamental importance to the Australian economy for most of the industry's life.

Late in September 1980, John Burgess arrived in Poland to head up the Australian Embassy in Warsaw. Little did he realise that he would witness major developments leading eventually to the end of communism in Poland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, and dissolution of the Soviet Union. This book tells the story which Ambassador Burgess was able to witness personally at close quarters, from the emergence of the independent trade union, Solidarity, at the Lenin shipyards in Gdansk, until the imposition of martial law in December 1981 and beyond.

In the decades following the Second World War Australia fostered close relations with many nations, most newly independent, throughout the world, especially in Asia, the Pacific, the Middle East and Africa. Richard Gate, a member of Australia's fledgling diplomatic service from the late 1950s, had postings in Korea, Nauru, Israel, Kenya (with accreditation also to Ethiopia and Uganda), Burma, Jordan and Bangladesh, as well as Italy and New Zealand.In the elegant essays which compose this volume, he recalls his sojourns in each of these countries, illuminating both the professional life of a diplomat and the benefits as well as the burdens of foreign service.

Great Rivalries is the story of Gino Bartali, Fausto Coppi and the champion Italian cyclists who preceded them. It is about the place of cycling in a nation emerging from division, its agrarian past, widespread impoverishment, and competing visions about creating a modern state. It is interwoven with the story of Italy itself, which began a century earlier - and continues to play out today.

In this book, Michael Thompson argues that the influence of identity politics on modern Labor's political agenda – assisted by a political class whose sole concern is power – poses an "existential" threat to Labor. The warning signs are clear. Popular disaffection with the political class is increasing, and the Party's embrace of left-wing, progressive issues is sidelining core working-class aspirations and grievances that used to be the focus of Labor politics.

Tracing postmodernism from its roots in Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant to their development in thinkers such as Michel Foucault and Richard Rorty, philosopher Stephen Hicks provides a provocative account of why postmodernism has been the most vigorous intellectual movement of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Why do skeptical and relativistic arguments have such power in the contemporary intellectual world? Why do they have that power in the humanities but not in the sciences? Why has a significant portion of the political Left-the same Left that traditionally promoted reason, science, equality for all, and optimism-now switched to themes of anti-reason, anti-science, double standards, and cynicism?Explaining Postmodernism is intellectual history with a polemical twist, providing fresh insights into the debates underlying the furor over political correctness, multiculturalism, and the future of liberal democracy.

Amazing and very funny, Magnetic Island is also a rumination on art, history and politics as original as it is shocking. Patrick Mynts, the owner of a London art gallery, has arrived in Australia on a government junket. In Australia's National Gallery, he is stunned by the work of an artist called Tray Beautous. As Tray's paintings are unknown in London and New York, Mynts is convinced that he can make a fortune by selling them there. Patrick also meets Dewy Popkiss in Canberra, the Prime Minister of Australia. Dew warns Mynts that only he will be able to arrange for the Londoner to get in touch with Beautous because Tray is a recluse who has hidden himself away on Magnetic Island in remote, tropical North Queensland. Dew will only agree to make the arrangements that will bring the two together, however, if Pat agrees to persuade Tray to paint a married couple of Dew's acquaintance when they are "making the beast with two backs". If Mynts manages to arrange this ménage à trois, Dew promises that the couple who are determined to perform in it will reward him stupendously. Patrick agrees to the deal and goes off to visit an elderly Canberra relative. Suddenly, however, the spirit of Brooklana Fagan - the dead wife of Australia's former Prime Minister - seems to ventriloquise his kinswoman's dementia-muzzled body. "Brookee" tells Pat that the couple whom Dew wants Tray to paint will use the sitting to murder the artist because they feel that one of the sculptures he has created insults the goddess that they worship, Christina Stead, the famous Australian novelist. (In the fashion of deceased Roman Empresses, Christina is now worshipped by millions worldwide). Pat now faces a Hamlet-like dilemma. Should he reject Dewy's commission? Or should he act on it and embrace, perhaps, eternal damnation for accepting the Premier's 30 pieces of silver?

Paul Keating once remarked, "We at least in the Labor Party know that we are part of a big story, which is also the story of our country". Story of Our Country unpacks that big story and Labor's place in Australia's narrative. It explains why the ALP's purpose and character make it unique among centre-left parties in America, Britain, and Europe. Central to Labor's purpose is its promise to offer people a "share in those things that make life worth living" - the common good. Labor's vision of the good life is anchored in the everyday experience of working people. This gives Labor its distinctive strength - a paradoxical character that is at once progressive and conservative. Adrian Pabst argues that to gain and retain power, Labor needs to build coalitions between its traditional working-class base and middle-class voters. Labor can achieve this by deploying its distinctive strength to tackle the most critical issues facing Australia: inequality, precarious jobs, the care crisis, climate change, and emerging foreign powers.

Ron's experiences and ideas are a roadmap and warning sign for entrepreneurs and citizens alike, we do not encourage and embrace entrepreneurship at our peril. There is so much to play for, so much to be won and lost - Ron's journey helps light the path. -- Steve "Shark Tank" Baxter, early-stage tech investor

Art in Law by Nicholas Hasluck, a well-known writer and former Judge, shows the way in which works of fiction can be used to dramatize the law in action – from the trial scene in The Merchant of Venice to the downfall of Francis Bacon, from native title after Mabo to the push for an Aboriginal voice to parliament. Law may vary from place to place but the basic rule of procedural fairness – a party’s right to be heard – is common to most legal systems. The best advocates know how to tell a story because the rule depends on stories being told well. Nicholas Hasluck draws upon the works of many writers, including some of his own novels, in exploring this theme. In doing so, he provides a graphic account of the relationship between law and literature, and the way in which the art of persuasion will not only be of use to lawyers but to all those with an interest in the nature of law and justice.

The private encounters described in this new book stretched from 1967 to the present and were the products of friendship, research, happenstance, curiosity or calculated risk. From Gerald Ford to Robert Mugabe, they're taken as found: an ascendant Soviet leader, abandoning his tour group for more interesting company, a charismatic Jamaican socialist whose policies split his island into warring halves, an African president-for-life who believed that all power is based in violence, another next door with his own distinctive system of things, a first lady of Fascism, the most right-wing judge on the U.S. Supreme Court, a Somali general in an anarchic world of his own making, an Ulster firebrand tamed by time and fatal prognosis, Afghan jihadists funded by an America whose culture they hate, Iranian revolutionaries and various other stand-outs in this panorama of personalities.The point of view is as judgmental as a tape recorder. If there's an attitude it's open-minded, sceptical and a shade cynical, proceeding from a working assumption that much of what we've read or been taught is at least partly false, often entirely false.

This book is an attempt to tell that story as best one can with the information that still exists. It's a simple story but the problem nowadays is by what yardstick should it be told. Should we see it as the loss of a pioneer attempting to settle the Australian outback, attempting to advance Australia. Or is the real story the relentless march of the white man's livestock trampling the flora and fauna and encroaching on koori country. Who should come first the wool or the environment? John Dowling had a job to do. He never expected to be killed in carrying out the ambitions and aspirations of the white citizens of Queensland. On the other hand, the intrusion of foreign squatters onto the fields and streams of the outback has left a lasting trail of regret in the minds of some.