We have used a sample of 263 Parkes half-Jansky flat-spectrum radio sources to measure the spatial correlation function of radio galaxies and radio-loud quasars on scales up to 1000 h−1 Mpc. We do not detect any clustering in the sample. If any undetected clustering is described by a power-law spatial correlation function [ξ(r) = (r/r0)−1·8], we can rule out clustering with scales r0 ≥ 50 h−1 Mpc at the 99·9% confidence level. We have also used the sample to test for the ‘possible’ large concentration of quasars in the direction of the microwave background dipole found by Shaver (1987). There is no evidence for such a concentration in our data and we show that the earlier result was probably biased by the use of non-uniform image classifications.