Quadrant is an Australian literary and cultural journal. Quadrant reviews literature, as well as featuring essays on ideas and topics such as politics, history, universities, and the arts. It also publishes poetry and short stories.


The magazine was founded in Sydney in 1956 by Richard Krygier, a Polish–Jewish refugee who had been active in social-democrat politics in Europe and James McAuley, a Catholic poet, known for the anti-modernist Ern Malley hoax. It was originally an initiative of the Australian Committee for Cultural Freedom, the Australian arm of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, an anti-communist advocacy group funded by the CIA.It has had many notable contributors including Les Murray, who was its literary editor from 1990 to 2019, Peter Ryan, who wrote a column from 1994 to 2015, Heinz Arndt, Sir Garfield Barwick, Frank Brennan, Ian Callinan, Hal Colebatch, Peter Coleman, Sir Zelman Cowen, Anthony Daniels, Joe Dolce, David Flint, Lord Harris of High Cross, Paul Hasluck, Dyson Heydon, Sidney Hook, A. D. Hope, Barry Humphries, Clive James, John Kerr, Michael Kirby, Frank Knopfelmacher, Peter Kocan, Christopher Koch, Andrew Lansdown, John Latham, Douglas Murray, Patrick O'Brien, Sharon Olds, George Pell, Pierre Ryckmans, Roger Sandall, Roger Scruton, Greg Sheridan, James Spigelman, Sir Ninian Stephen and Tom Switzer, as well as several Labor and Liberal political figures, including Bob Hawke, John Howard, Tony Abbott, Mark Latham and John Wheeldon.
After the publication of the 1997 Bringing Them Home report about the Stolen Generations, Quadrant published a number of articles critical of the report's methodology and conclusions. Professor Robert Manne, who edited the magazine from 1990 to 1997, claimed that the Howard Government's response to Bringing Them Home was influenced by and "collusive with" Quadrant's position.In the immediate aftermath of the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing Quadrant's online editor Roger Franklin wrote an article titled "The Manchester Bomber's ABC Pals" Referring to the Manchester bombing and Monday night's Q&A television program, the article said, "Had there been a shred of justice, that blast would have detonated in an Ultimo TV studio" (it was later amended to, "What if that blast had detonated in an Ultimo TV studio?") and then continued, "Unlike those young girls in Manchester, their lives snuffed out before they could begin, none of the panel’s likely casualties would have represented the slightest reduction in humanity’s intelligence, decency, empathy or honesty." ABC Managing Director Michelle Guthrie called the article a "vicious and offensive attack" and called for the article to "be removed and apologised for". Quadrant editor-in-chief Keith Windschuttle eventually acknowledged that the article was "intemperate" and "a serious error of judgment", and he apologised for the offence it had caused. The article was removed from the Quadrant website on 25 May 2017.


The magazine generally holds a conservative stance on political and social issues.In October 1992, Dame Leonie Kramer, then the Chairman of the magazine's Board of Directors, discussed the "deep values" of Quadrant:

"the intrinsic value of cultural and intellectual freedom and of inquiry..."
"cultural and intellectual freedoms, indeed negative liberties generally, depend upon an abundance of autonomous institutions and an open society..."
"political democracy... support of particular democratic institutions, and a culture that  accepts peaceful and democratic modes of government and change of government..."
"liberal democracy, that is democracy that respects individual liberty... insists that government be limited: by other holders of political and economic resources, by legally protected private property, by free media, and most of all by the rule of law, that is the restraint and channelling of power by law..."
"the virtues, and commonly the wisdom, borne by traditions in social and moral life... It has not pretended that traditions have all the answers or should be treated with uncritical reverence... It has, however, recommended that...  long established moral and social practices be treated with respect and caution."
"an economic order in which markets are allowed to work - within the rule of law (and the framework of property rights) - as sources of information, as ingredients and supporters of  liberty and as facilitators of competitive private enterprise and individual choice..."In 2007, Quadrant's mission was described by its editor as:

To defend the great tradition of free and open debate, to make possible dissent, while at the same time insisting on both civilised discourse and rational argument. This mission is not the same as at Quadrant's founding, but it is not dissimilar. For while the communist dictatorship is no more, the love of anti-democratic dictators still survives among many intellectuals, as does their determination to impose their own strange beliefs on the population as a whole. 
In March 2008, the magazine was describing itself as sceptical of "unthinking Leftism, or political correctness, and its 'smelly little orthodoxies'".






Editor Quadrant magazine: Keith Windschuttle
Editor, International, Quadrant magazine: John O'Sullivan
Editor, Quadrant Online: Roger Franklin
Literary Editor: Barry Spurr
Deputy Editor: George Thomas