Defamation case

In 2015, the Wagner family, of Toowoomba, Queensland, sued him for defamation over comments he made in broadcasts and in print about the cause of the floods in that town in 2011, in which 12 people died.^[14][15][16] Justice Peter Flanagan dismissed the complaints against Cater relating to comments he made on radio,^[17] however The Spectator (Australia) settled out of court over comments Cater made in an article.^[16] In September 2019, a jury found that Cater had defamed the Wagners with comments he made in a television broadcast.^[18]

The Lucky Culture

The Lucky Culture and the Rise of an Australian Ruling Class (2013) was described as a manifesto for a counter revolution against the age of political correctness by Peter Coleman, who wrote "every 50 years or so Australians need a new book marking the end of an era and the start of a new one".^[19]

Two Australian prime ministers launched the book at separate events. John Howard endorsed the book in Sydney^[20] and it was given a qualified endorsement by Kevin Rudd in Brisbane^[21] two months later. The former Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, described The Lucky Culture as a "beautifully written and perceptive… historical essay".^[22] Among others who greeted the book favourably are Boris Johnson,^[23] Geoffrey Blainey,^[24] Miranda Devine,^[25] Keith Windschuttle,^[26] Janet Albrechtsen,^[27] Julie Bishop and Jack Snelling. Chris Bowen^[28] and Peter Craven^[29] gave qualified endorsements. The former Labor leader Mark Latham was among the book's leading critics, writing, "It takes a fair bit to offend me these days but Nick Cater's new book The Lucky Culture and the Rise of an Australian Ruling Class has done the trick."^[30] The former Labor speechwriter Bob Ellis called for the book to be pulped, calling it "a loathsome shallow Murdochist piece of Pommy filth".^[19]

Other critics include the journalist Guy Rundle of Crikey^[31] and the historian Frank Bongiorno.^{[citation needed]}

Other works

Cater was editor of the 2006 book, The Howard Factor,^[32] a review of the first decade of the John Howard government.

He co-edited with Helen Baxendale a selection of the writings of Christopher Pearson under the title A Better Class of Sunset (2014), with introductions by Tony Abbott and Jack Snelling.^[33][34]

Cater contributed the chapter "Barons versus bureaucrats: the history of the grain trade in North America and Australia" to Only in Australia. The History, Politics and Economics of Australian Exceptionalism (2016).^[35]

Cater co-authored The Road to Freedom: The Origins of Australia's Greatest Political Party (2019) with John Nethercote,^[36] and wrote the lead chapter in Australia Tomorrow (2022).^[37]