October 2 – 8, 2021
News
Comment
Comment
Cam Griffin
Impact statement. 2021. DPP. Draft 3.
“The first impacts of the abuse showed up soon after the first assaults. Almost overnight my optimism vanished. I began to withdraw and isolate from both family and friends. My grades began to tank. I stopped sleeping and I suddenly couldn’t engage with things I loved.”
Comment
Paul Bongiorno
Is this Scott Morrison’s next miscalculation?
“Thirty-five thousand feet above the Rocky Mountains on his way home from Washington, DC, Scott Morrison indicated he had learnt little from the greatest miscalculations of his prime ministership, the ones about holidays and family.”
Letters, Cartoon & Editorial
Culture
The Influence
Liam Fleming
Glass artist Liam Fleming finds an inspiring sense of freedom in a painting by Australian Modernist Frank Hinder.
Fiction
279
“She climbs off the couch to right the handle of a bucket and to haul it – nuggety little thing – across the room. The rain hangs from the ceiling crack like a string of beads and scatters over the floor. Connie would more know a string of beads than a bird. We have beads. I used to see bird carcasses around but their hollow flying bones are no good for swamping. The floods. What was left of the chickens – those mass graves – is washed away. ”
Books
Life
Puzzles
Quotes
Submarines
“Someone lied.”
The French foreign minister offers his assessment of what went wrong with the country’s Australian submarine contract. Presumably he said “someone” because he too had forgotten Scott Morrison’s name.
Diplomacy
“When should we stop clapping?”
The former prime minister condemns Scott Morrison’s submarines deal as a retreat to “the sweaty armpit of the United States”. It sounds almost erotic until you remember that the armpit could soon belong to Donald Trump again.
Protest
“You had the Victorian police lined up like stormtroopers, eventually charging them with rubber bullets and tear gas.”
The former prime minister defends anti-vax protesters who occupied the Shrine of Remembrance in Victoria, littering it with beer cans and pissing on its walls. Without meaning to be rude, other former prime ministers spent the week discussing the implications of international nuclear deals.
Acting
“To play Jimmy Savile was not a decision I took lightly.”
The actor announces he will take on the role of Jimmy Savile in a BBC One drama series. You can’t fault the man’s range: Alan Partridge, and Alan Partridge if he molested hundreds of children.
Voting
“That will be a matter between me and the ballot box.”
The former prime minister refuses to say whether he will vote for the Coalition at the next election. A senior Liberal hasn’t been this coy about his intentions since Scott Morrison did the numbers against Turnbull and stole his job.
Climate
“Too many MPs are worried about being cool rather than the consequences of their decisions.”
The leader of the Nationals in the senate complains that some Coalition colleagues are too supportive of action on climate change. The emissions are not half as worrying if you put them in a colour-coded spreadsheet.
