February 2 – 8, 2019
News
Comment
Comment
Neela Janakiramanan
Opting out of My Health Record
“It seems particularly galling that so much taxpayer money has been spent on a system that cannot improve health unless it is a data source, only to have it fundamentally fail at accurately collecting data in a comprehensive and usable way. For clinicians, it is of little use, as the technologically literate may heavily edit their record while those among us who struggle with technology will likely find it difficult to generate the personal health summaries that are central to the system.”
Comment
Paul Bongiorno
A trip down memory pain
“The speech in Brisbane on Tuesday was billed as a “major” announcement, the first for the year from the prime minister. Absent from this manifesto, though, was any mention of climate change, energy policy or stagnating wages – all issues critical to the performance of the economy that are, not surprisingly, weighing strongly on the minds of voters as well. If nothing else, their absence points to the extreme sensitivity these policy areas hold for Morrison. ”
Letters, Poem & Editorial
Culture
Profile
Where’s home for theatre and opera director Barrie Kosky?
Barrie Kosky’s peripatetic career has led him to work throughout Australia and Europe, before finally establishing a true connection with Berlin. Still, for the Melbourne-born theatre and opera director, nothing says “home” like a rehearsal room. “It just happened that theatre discovered me, and performance and music discovered me, because the very same time that I started to think, ‘Who am I? How does this relate to me?’ and felt that disconnectedness, was the very same time I was experiencing music: Mahler symphonies or puppet shows or musicals or opera. And it was very linked.”
Visual Art
Christian Marclay’s The Clock
Christian Marclay’s hypnotic 24-hour film installation The Clock, comprising a film or video clip for each minute of the day, compels us to consider our mortality.
Portrait
Professor David Lindenmayer
“He explains that we are surrounded by quite young forest, that we can tell by the pyramid shape of the mountain ash growing over the tops of the hills that the trees are young. He says we’ll struggle for the rest of the day to find many old trees in the whole system. This was a rare patch of old growth forest that’s now gone. ‘This is hard,’ he says, ‘to come back and see this.’ His face is shaded by a holey Akubra, soft with wear. It’s stamped down over a thick cap of silver hair. He looks out over of the coupe, but he doesn’t pause for long.”
Books
Life
The Quiz
Quotes
RETIREMENT
“If I was a wild pig, a duck or a mud crab, I’d be starting to get nervous.”
The Indigenous affairs minister announces his plan to leave politics and focus on hunting. Let’s be honest: he’ll be doing less harm.
TENNIS
“I’m not sure how you carried it all this way.”
The Nine commentator asks Australian Open winner Naomi Osaka how she managed to carry her trophy. She dragged it there in a womanly trolley, lined with cliché and condescension.
COMPARISONS
“I think he has the potential to be the most extraordinary leader not just of the federal Liberal Party, not just of the Liberal Party across Australia but of any party since John Howard.”
The health minister backs Scott Morrison after questions about his role in the removal of Malcolm Turnbull. Remember, Hunt’s capacity to interpret information and make projections gave this country its current climate policy.
RELIGION
“Without social networks, she became the first ‘influencer’.”
The pontifex reframes the Virgin Mary for the internet generation. By the same measure, think of Jesus rising from the dead as the first “Have you tried turning it on and off again?”
ELECTIONS
“There’s still work to be done and unfinished business.”
The former Liberal MP announces she will stand against Greg Hunt in Flinders at the next election. No news on whether Banks believes she can run her campaign “on 40 bucks a day knowing the government is supporting me with Newstart to look for employment”.
POLITICS
“I have a track record of under-promising and over-delivering.”
The prime minister defends his promise to create 1.25 million jobs in the next five years. On other projections, he will be able to lose his in the next four months or so.
