The Alfred Deakin Prize for an Essay Advancing Public Debate: Shortlist 2005

Judges
Jonathan Mills (Convenor), Jon Faine and Diana Gribble

Shortlist

Living in a Material World
Randa Abdel-Fattah
Griffith Review
A deeply personal account of the stresses and pressures dealt with by young Muslim women in Australia today. The essay covers the author’s experiences ranging from having to explain the hijab, being treated with suspicion in public and private and being doubted at work and in job interviews. The assumption is constantly made that she ought to be treated like an oppressed victim of religious repression. The personal is matched with the political - the essay provides us with an analysis of the place of young Muslim women in contemporary Australia.

‘Kangaroo Court’: Family Law in Australia
John Hirst
‘Quarterly Essay’
Black Inc
The entire jurisdiction of family law and its administration has been controversial since the Family Law Act was promulgated over 30 years ago. In his passionate essay "Kangaroo Court", historian John Hirst is in unfamiliar territory. His is a brave account of the complex dealings of the Family Court through the unusual prism of a concerned chaperone. This essay is a devastating critique of systemic ineptitude and personal tragedy. Hirst is by no means the first to criticise the Family Court. Somehow his forensic analysis resonates all the more strongly because it comes from a fine writer with no professional connection to the law.

Mission Impossible: The Sheikhs, the U.S. and the Future of Iraq
Paul McGeough
‘Quarterly Essay’
Black Inc
Mission Impossible is a remarkable contribution to our understanding of the unfolding catastrophe in Iraq – and of the wider, worldwide confrontation between western democracies and Islam. McGeough’s essay is illuminated by closely observed detail, of faces, buildings, streets and landscape, as background to the enigmatic voices of Iraqis. He explores the arcane connections and disconnections between ancient tribal and religious loyalties in the Middle East – and the failure of US policy makers, so far, to enlist them in the cause of stability.