Published in Overland Issue 212 Spring 2013 Uncategorized Editorial Jeff Sparrow Overland goes to press with the federal election some weeks away. Yet, while the parliamentary winner remains uncertain, it’s already perfectly apparent who will lose. The poll marks a renewed demonisation of asylum seekers, with the major parties competing to heap cruelties upon the heads of those with the temerity to seek refuge in Australia. The entirety of the political establishment remains committed to a neoliberalism that produces a noxious mixture of consumerism and repression – as George Steiner put it: ‘The knout on the one hand; the cheeseburger on the other.’ That’s why Overland matters. In the nearly six decades since its foundation, Overland has been regularly accused of intemperance, of insufficient respect for the etiquette of literary culture. But as the Wobbly T-Bone Slim once argued, ‘Wherever you find injustice, the proper form of politeness is attack.’ A little journal cannot, in and of itself, change the culture. But it can help progressive writers and readers to find each other. It can provide a space in which ideas can be exchanged and tested, where arguments can be had and strategies debated. And it can boost the morale of those who do not think the world was made for a small minority to dance on the faces of everyone else. This is not a time for writers to turn inward, however tempting that might seem. On the contrary, there’s never been more need for engagement with issues and controversies. That’s the spirit motivating this edition – and the Overland project as a whole. Jeff Sparrow Jeff Sparrow is a Walkley Award-winning writer, broadcaster and former editor of Overland. More by Jeff Sparrow Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays First published in Overland Issue 228 6 February 20236 February 2023 Aboriginal Australia Winaga-li Gunimaa Gali: listen, hear, think, understand from our sacred Mother Earth and our Water Winaga-li Gunimaa Gali Collective To winaga-li, Gomeroi/Kamilaroi people must be able to access Gunimaa. They must be able to connect and re-connect. Over 160 years of colonisation has privileged intensive agriculture, grazing and heavily extractive water management regimes, enabled by imposed property regimes and governance systems. Gunimaa and Gali still experience the violent repercussions of these processes, including current climate changes which are exacerbating impacts, as droughts become longer, floods and heat extremes become more intense, and climatic zones shift, impacting on species’ viability and biodiversity. 2 First published in Overland Issue 228 3 February 20233 February 2023 Fiction Fiction | Romeo and Juliet II: Haunted rentals Georgia Symons The hauntings are actually quite flamboyant here, though. Yeah, come in, come in. Not like my friend Moya’s house—it just has a tool shed that sometimes isn’t there and that’s it. So boring. Yes, you can keep your shoes on.