November 9 – 15, 2019
News
Comment
Comment
Anthony Kelly
Brutality checks on activists
“For those who have watched the evolution of public-order policing in Victoria over recent years, the sort of police violence we saw at the International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) protests in Melbourne would’ve come as no real surprise.”
Comment
Paul Bongiorno
Post-election blues all round
“Never has it been more obvious: getting elected is one task, governing is another. While Labor tries to move on from its election loss review, delivered to the executive on Thursday, Scott Morrison is finding that running the country is harder than winning the unwinnable election. ”
Letters, Poem & Editorial
Culture
Profile
An audience with Antonio Banderas
Drawing on his recent experience of a heart attack, as well as his decades-long friendship with director Pedro Almodóvar, Antonio Banderas has produced what may be his finest performance in Pain and Glory. “We hadn’t worked together in eight or nine years, but suddenly he calls me and says, ‘Hey, I’m gonna send you something. You’re going to find a lot of references to people that you and I know.’ And I received Pain and Glory. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it because he was there, it was such an opportunity. So, I went to him as a soldier, as a very, very plain soldier, ready to listen. Really listen.”
Music
FKA twigs’ Magdalene
Electronic musician FKA twigs is at the height of her powers on her new album, Magdalene, which combines formal ingenuity with visceral emotion.
Portrait
Nuriya Benson
“People think I made the decision to leave Islam quite easily. It’s not true. This has been a lifelong journey, filled with grief. I spent many years trying not to be exiled for things that non-Muslims take for granted. You’re never enough. No matter how practising you are as a Muslim, especially as a woman, you’re always toeing the line of exile.”
Books
Life
Puzzles
Quotes
ENTERTAINMENT
“Look, we’re having a conversation about Phoebe’s gender here, which is fucking ridiculous.”
The actor dismisses suggestions writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge was brought onto the forthcoming James Bond movie as a diversity hire. You know a franchise is fusty when hiring an award-winning RADA graduate who’s descended from landed gentry is read as a PR play to make things seem more “modern”.
RESPECTABILITY
“No, I fucking don’t. If you go low, I’m gonna come for you.”
The writer and activist rejects Michelle Obama’s catchcry “When they go low, we go high” on Q&A. Both mantras remain decidedly more useful than “If you have a go, you get a go”.
BARGAIN HUNTING
“The travel was within normal guidelines.”
The Defence Industry minister charged taxpayers $77,254 for a recent European trip. Explains where she was hiding all that time when she had the Environment portfolio.
SELF-AWARENESS
“If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get my consent. It won’t last forever, you’ve gotta ask again…”
The state’s police force shares a catchy rework of the Spice Girls hit “Wannabe” to illustrate the importance of consent, in the same week it is accused of strip searching more than 120 under-age girls.
MELBOURNE CUP
“It’s a lovely story. This is the horse that grew here, not flew here.”
The Herald Sun journalist manages to find a xenophobic take on Australia’s best-known race in personal best time, though still a few lengths off the record set by previous Sunrise guests.
NOBILITY
“We were so afraid we wouldn’t be able to interview Kate and Will that we … quashed the story.”
The ABC America anchor is caught by a hot mic expressing her anger at the US network spiking her story about Jeffrey Epstein three years ago. Because no number of Pulitzers, nor bringing down “America’s most prolific paedophile”, is worth jeopardising your Royals special.
