Why did the sacking of rugby player Israel Folau over his social media posts become one of the nation’s most polarizing controversies? How could one man’s religious views activate so many people in modern Australia? And what does the sides people found themselves on tell us about the kind of country we’ve become?

Starting with this striking incident, triple Walkley Award winning journalist Malcolm Knox paints a vivid portrait of the divisions that underlie our recent history, from marriage equality to the COVID-19 lockdown. He shows how free speech has become the new flashpoint of the ‘culture wars’, and how it remains our deepest national faultline.