March 10 – 16, 2018
News
Comment
Comment
Natalie Cromb
The economics of reparations
“The success of the Australian economy is not down to economic management. Despite what the constant political posturing would have us believe, it is because a benefit has been derived from the Indigenous people and cultural lands without any payment. Only a small portion of the cultural lands have been returned to traditional owners and almost all of the land “returned” is vulnerable to native title extinguishment for mining if they are not already subject to the 99-year lease provisions.”
Comment
Paul Bongiorno
Malcolm Turnbull’s poll count looms
“Of course preferred prime minister is not an indicator of an election outcome – it is not unusual for a premier or prime minster to be preferred right up until the time voters dump them and their party. But this metric was for a long while a morale booster for Turnbull and his team. Now even that shield has gone and the PM is left languishing with Shorten in deep negative territory of disapproval.”
Letters, Cartoon & Editorial
Culture
Profile
Gail Jones and the art of words
Author Gail Jones’s latest novel, The Death of Noah Glass, reflects the cross-cultural interests of an enthusiastic traveller who finds inspiration in getting lost. It also revisits her original passions of art and art history.
Theatre
‘Beautiful: The Carole King Musical’ and ‘The Show Goes On’
While the cast of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical fails to deliver an uplifting experience, Bernadette Robinson, in her solo performance of The Show Goes On, is transcendent as she channels the great women of song.
Portrait
Glass artist Emma Camden
“I watch Emma Camden through her studio window. She’s water blasting and she looks fit for a storm: bright yellow plastic pants and coat, gumboots, a face mask and industrial green gloves that reach above her elbows. When she’s finished she carefully sloughs off this protective skin and clocks me.”
Food
“Kasoundi is like a magic addition to so many things. It’s a sort of spiced tomato sauce, originating in the Bengal region of India but bastardised and plagiarised until it became a sort of staple on school fete counters the country over. Or so I thought. Kasoundi, it seems, is not recognised by some of my colleagues. ”
Books
Life
Life
Elder abuse
Attending a conference on elder abuse, the author is confronted to realise how readily a carer’s frustration, or the ingratitude of an aged cohabitant, can escalate to a harmful relationship.
The Quiz
Quotes
POLITICS
“Am so sorry. Guess that’s why I have few friends who are politicians. He seemed very open and excited about Mardi Gras and LGBTI community.”
The singer apologises for posing with Malcolm Turnbull at Mardi Gras. Turnbull learnt a simple lesson: don’t leverage politics off celebrity, or subject an entire community to a debate on their worth, purposely giving voice to decades of suppressed homophobia.
FINANCE
“How many Mongolian models did we have to bury in the jungle for this pricing.”
The prime minister’s son complains of a shadowy deal done to benefit Malaysia’s elites while he was at Goldman Sachs. The negotiations were still only slightly worse than Julia Gillard’s refugee swap with the country.
TAXATION
“Look, once you start having these sorts of exemptions, where does it end? Where does it end?”
The former prime minister questions Labor’s commitment to remove the tax levied on tampons. Where it ends is something approaching financial equality, which is admittedly terrifying.
LANGUAGE
“Rick Morton’s article in The Australian today highlights braod multicultural agreement that English is key to intergration.”
The citizenship minister continues his campaign for a strengthened English test to exclude migrants. You can’t misspell “broad” and “integration” without also spelling “bigot” – and “inbred” if you use the “b” twice.
LEADERSHIP
“I’m a little worried about what often sounds like an anti-man agenda.”
The former prime minister expresses his fear of quotas. And women. And progress. And, probably, birds.
CONDUCT
“I must be the only one not in the bonking circle because I’m certainly not getting any.”
The former senator reflects on the prime minister’s changes to the ministerial code of conduct. Elsewhere, she said Nick Xenophon took her on a date to KFC – a claim Xenophon denies, although he admits they shared chicken nuggets.
