April 9 – 15, 2022
News
Comment
Comment
Stephen Mutch
How Scott Morrison became a tin-pot dictator
“A triumvirate of longstanding party operatives, apparently representative of the left, the right and the soft-right, has been legally empowered to bypass democratic preselections, anoint a few favoured sitting members, and appoint candidates in a plethora of outstanding seats. Two of these people happen to be the prime minister, Scott Morrison, and the premier of NSW, Dominic Perrottet.”
Comment
Paul Bongiorno
‘They know he’s a bullshitter’
“The election campaign is off to an early and intense start. There was no need to wait for the governor-general to dissolve the house – Morrison stopped governing months ago and has been swamping the media with taxpayer-funded ‘government’ ads that are blatantly about returning the Liberals to power. ”
Comment
John Hewson
Disunity is still death
“The clear message of the 1990 election was that disunity is death in politics. Bob Hawke easily capitalised on this truism to win a fourth term in office. The Liberal Party, meanwhile, had been torn apart by the leadership contest between John Howard and Andrew Peacock and this rancour followed them all the way to their loss on polling day. We arrive some 30 years later with no lessons learnt.”
Letters, Cartoon & Editorial
Culture
The Influence
Ian Strange
Ian Strange’s artistic investigations of suburban houses draw on Gordon Matta-Clark’s works on the fragility of home.
Fiction
Side eye
“Mr Bull, our new teacher, arrived in the third week of summer term. He wore formal shorts and high grey socks and we named him Bullybum. He’d lived in the desert for three years before he came to our school, and when I said I wanted to be the prime minister, he didn’t laugh. The next day he brought in a thick glossy book called Our Nation and Its Leaders and handed it to me. He said, This is really for high-school kids but I think you’ll get it, Sally. He kept his hands on the book when he passed it to me, like we were posing for a photo.”
Books
Life
Puzzles
Quotes
Offices
“If any staff member felt they had a poor experience in my office, then I apologise.”
The Liberal MP apologises after it was revealed 15 staff had quit her office. Complaints included that she had hired a former babysitter with no experience, which is essentially the definition of a political staffer.
Welfare
“You better fucking do something.”
A pensioner confronts Scott Morrison in a pub outside Newcastle. The prime minister offered to take his details and sort it out.
Politics
“I didn’t win the election.”
The former United States president admits that Joe Biden won the last election. He is only 18 months and one Capitol storming late.
Climate
“We’ve passed the laws. We’ll throw the book at these people, because their behaviour is completely unacceptable.”
The New South Wales premier promises to crack down on climate activists who block roads during protests. It might sound dramatic, but he will do anything not to read.
Floods
“I don’t want to play politics with this, I just want to make sure people are getting the support that they need.”
The prime minister agrees to partly fund a flood-relief package in Queensland, a day after refusing to contribute. Unfortunately, this is textbook “playing politics with it”.
Power
“The Morrison government is taking action to safeguard the delivery of affordable, reliable power for consumers.”
The Energy minister announces a plan to force coal-fired power stations to give five years’ notice before shutting down. Mercifully, his government will only be given about six weeks.
