May 2 – 8, 2020
News
Comment
Comment
Jane Caro
How schools have become political pawns
“As a long-term campaigner for disadvantaged students and the schools that overwhelmingly enrol them – public schools – I was gobsmacked this week by the sudden concern our federal government expressed for these students, and the risk they are getting left behind during the Covid-19 lockdown.”
Comment
Paul Bongiorno
Covid-19 inquiry call infuriates Beijing
“Australia’s relationship with its biggest trading partner, China, has plunged to depths not seen since formal recognition of the Communist-governed state 48 years ago. The stakes for Canberra could not be higher, with business leaders and exporters privately furious at the government’s bumbling diplomatic performance over China and coronavirus.”
Letters, Cartoon & Editorial
Culture
Profile
Author Jess Hill’s inner power
Jess Hill’s incisive examination of domestic violence saw the journalist win the coveted Stella Prize last month. But the four-year project also took an immense personal toll. “All that advice about self-care … I didn’t do any of it. I almost pointedly didn’t do it. I thought: ‘You need to feel, even just one iota of the pain and suffering the people you are talking to are feeling.’ If I was feeling really relaxed and detached from it, I wouldn’t be able to write about it in the way I wanted to … I sort of had to inhabit it.”
Fiction
The self-portraitist
“The sun had barely rotated out of bed by the time the bakers had begun rolling croissants, the baristas singing out orders, and the second-hand bookstore owners prudently applying dust to their first editions. It was just another morning in a suburb of restored heritage properties, and the air, having been buttered and brewed into a naturally occurring atmosphere, made the moustached men strolling around Redfern feel as though they could be anywhere at all, excluding where they actually were.”
Books
Life
Puzzles
Quotes
BUGLES
“I would feel much better if I was a bugle blower last December and January. I would feel better sitting here today saying, ‘I blew the bugle about Wuhan province in January.’ I can’t say that.”
The New York governor appears to express regret that he didn’t act faster on Covid-19, or something about bugles.
AFFIRMATION
“Wooo! Mark McGowan, I fuckin’ love ya’ buddy! Y’boy Jacko! Wooo!”
The Auslan interpreter for Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan faithfully translates comments from a car full of wellwishers as it passes his press conference.
ETIQUETTE
“I thought it’d be a good opportunity for me to be here, to be able to speak to these researchers, these incredible healthcare personnel and look them in the eye and say thank you.”
The United States vice-president explains why he was not wearing a face mask during a visit to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, going against the express requests of his hosts.
MODERATION
“Establishments like Crown need to be held to high standards regarding the responsible service of alcohol.”
The lawyer speaks on behalf of her client, a man who suffered a fractured hip and debilitating injuries after slipping in someone else’s vomit while on a night out at Crown Casino.
RATIONALE
“The idea that you wouldn’t have an investigation like that is irrational, illogical, unreasonable, and the response suggesting that that style of investigation is not warranted and necessary, to me is an emotional response.”
The attorney-general provides a strong argument for a federal Independent Commission Against Corruption, while responding to China’s criticism of the Australian government push for an investigation into the origins of Covid-19.
