July 9 –15, 2022
News
Comment
Comment
Kieran Pender
On trial for telling the truth
“Four years. Four million taxpayer dollars. More than a dozen judgements. Days and days in court – often in closed court, with the media and public barred from attending. On Thursday, it was finally over. The prosecution of Bernard Collaery came to an end.”
Comment
Chris Wallace
A letter from Camp Cooker
“It was the drum that alerted them to the political event unfolding on the grass between the old and new parliament buildings early on Saturday afternoon. A ‘freedom movement’ rally was under way. A hundred people gathered around a flatbed ute with a pleasant young female MC and PA system perched on top, conducting amplified chats with identities familiar to the crowd. This was the hard core of the ‘cookers’, as Canberrans call them.”
Comment
John Hewson
Flat-earth politics
“One of the most disappointing aspects of our recent politics – at a tremendous cost to our national interest and wellbeing – has been the treatment of education as something of a political football. Such a fundamentally important policy area has been basically neglected, ignoring the reality of the system’s failures and the magnitude and urgency of the challenge to ‘fix it’.”
Letters, Cartoon & Editorial
Culture
Profile
Writer, theatre-maker and comedian Vidya Rajan
Vidya Rajan’s gift for absurdist comedy has led to a career spanning everything from avant-garde internet performance to mainstream theatre.
The Influence
Andrea Battistoni
A rising star on the international music scene, conductor Andrea Battistoni looks to Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights for divine inspiration.
Fiction
The receptionist
“Lucy sat on a chair that used to swivel, behind a desk that once greeted hundreds of people. The building’s staff had been working from home for months. There was no one to notice whether the secretary was alive. Packages still came occasionally, and Lucy gnawed at their corners. She no longer needed sleep, and spent her nights under the desk or roaming the empty docklands. Trains still rattled past but even the homeless had been swept up by the government and tucked away in the city’s flickering towers to protect their lungs, brains and hearts.”
Books
Life
Puzzles
Quotes
Leadership
“I’ve got news for him: PMs don’t get days off.”
The deputy Liberal leader criticises Anthony Albanese for being overseas during recent floods, somehow confusing a wartime visit to Ukraine with a holiday to Hawaii. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is on leave.
Police
“What I want to do today is to encourage every 17-year-old in Queensland to apply for the Queensland Police Service.”
The Queensland Police Commissioner poses the question: What’s scarier than a Queensland copper? One without a fully formed prefrontal cortex.
Politics
“We have finally skewered the greased piglet.”
A colleague celebrates the demise of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. It’s the first time Johnson’s rooted something and taken responsibility.
Sport
“Obviously I read about it and obviously everyone else was asking questions.”
The tennis player responds to a summons to appear on charges relating to the alleged assault of a former partner. The phrase “read about it” is uncharacteristically distant.
Guns
“The only reason you’re celebrating Independence Day is because citizens were armed. #FourthofJuly.”
The gun rights lobby tweets in support of armed citizens an hour before one shot seven people dead and injured 24 during a July 4 celebration in Chicago. There have been more than 300 mass shootings in the country this year.
Law
“It is my view that the prosecution of Mr Collaery should end.”
The attorney-general ends the prosecution of lawyer Bernard Collaery for his role in exposing the bugging of Timor-Leste during oil negotiations. It’s almost as if he doesn’t want a job with Woodside after this.
