November 3 – 9, 2018
News
Comment
Comment
Andrew Leigh
Unions key to workers’ wage growth
“During the past six years, real wage growth has all but ground to a halt in Australia. Just as in the first 50 years of the Industrial Revolution, productivity is growing at a solid rate. But employees’ share of the national pie has been shrinking. Part of the explanation lies in the fact that just 13 per cent of Australian workers are in unions, down from half the workforce in the early 1980s. Trade union membership is lowest among private-sector workers (9 per cent), 20-somethings (9 per cent), recent migrants (5 per cent) and people who have been working for less than a year (5 per cent).”
Comment
Paul Bongiorno
PM Scott Morrison’s sinking popularity
“The near 20 per cent shift against the Liberals in Wentworth is the harbinger of impending doom for the Coalition government. The third Liberal prime minister in five years admits he has a significant challenge ahead but says he’s “getting on with the job”. Evidence shows he’s not up to it – and frankly nobody is. Because what is required is a complete rebuild of the edifice that is the federal Liberal Party. That sort of remake can only be undertaken in Opposition, with time to sort out differences and test policy directions that are acceptable to what John Howard called “mainstream Australia”.”
Letters, Cartoon & Editorial
Culture
Profile
Nils Frahm’s melody makers
Nils Frahm brings a playfulness to his serious compositions for piano and electronics, which leaves audiences delighted as well as enraptured. He vividly remembers crying when listening to English jazz saxophonist John Surman’s 1987 album, Private City, which mixes synthesisers with improvised saxophone.“It’s overwhelmingly powerful, emotional music that made me feel things that I didn’t know were in me. And that’s a great discovery – when you realise that music is not just invoking emotions, but creating emotions.”
Film
Bohemian Rhapsody
While Rami Malek shines as Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, Bohemian Rhapsody plays it so safe and is so sexually sanitised it fails to truly rock us.
Portrait
António Serzedelo, revolutionary
“As you climb the stairs to António Serzedelo’s apartment, the walls begin to thicken with the bric-a-brac of bohemia. By the time you reach his floor, they, as well as the stairs, the handrails and the landing, are strewn with creeping plants, odd sculptures, decorative masks and prints of famous paintings, among them Picasso’s Guernica and Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights. Chances are António will answer the door without pants on. At the very least, in the summertime, expect him to be shirtless.”
Books
Life
The Quiz
Quotes
THEATRE
“I saw Geoffrey’s hand cupping around the body of EJ’s breast, which was something I hadn’t seen before on stage.”
The actor testifies in support of actress Eryn Jean Norvill’s claim that Geoffrey Rush groped her during a production of King Lear. A rare member of the theatre community who’ll break the fourth wall and defend a woman’s experience.
AMERICA
“I’d like to be president.”
The former senator leaves open the possibility of a 2020 run. Unfortunately, there is still the lingering question of those emails...
NAZIS
“These people need to be expelled from the National Party … they do not need deserve to be part of our Australian way of life and community.”
The journalist turned TV presenter condemns the neo-Nazis who infiltrated the Young Nats in New South Wales. Markson may well be the least charismatic TV talent since Andrew Bolt, but at least Sky News seems to have learnt that giving actual Nazis a platform is wrong.
CRICKET
“The fact that Steve Smith was captain of Australia, he is not a bad person. He did not run over a pram with a kid in it.”
The drought envoy defends the players caught up in the ball-tampering scandal after the release of a scathing report about Cricket Australia’s culture. Finally, Australia, the moral arbiter we’ve always deserved.
RESEARCH
“This is not a foreign concept. This is something that is done in other parts of the world.”
The education minister says academics will need to prove “the national interest” when applying for funding. Yes, it does appear the education minister doesn’t understand the term “foreign”.
DIPLOMACY
“He was there to actually attend an oceans conference. The issues of trade and other things were not really part of the brief.”
The PM upbraids his predecessor, Malcolm Turnbull, for talking diplomacy on a trip to Indonesia. Scott Morrison knows middle Australia and he knows you don’t go to Bali to talk world politics.
