January 11 – 17, 2025 | The Saturday Paper

News

Labor insiders prepare for an early-April election

Martin McKenzie-Murray As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese begins a campaign to reset his political fortunes, insiders anticipate an early election will be called to avoid a horror budget.

News

News

Exclusive: Children targeted in NDIS crackdown

Rick Morton Despite claims the government’s reform of the National Disability Insurance Scheme is focused on fraud, a third of the savings will come from pushing children off the scheme.

News

Is Musk tweaking X’s algorithm to push right-wing conspiracies?

Elle Hardy As Elon Musk reignites a British scandal involving gangs of men who sexually groomed underage girls, there is increasing evidence he is distorting the algorithm of his social media platform to advance his own political views.

World

US-brokered ceasefire hinges on living hostages

Jonathan Pearlman Indonesia launches free-meal program. Impeached South Korean president tries to avoid arrest. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resigns, LA burns.

Palestinians pick their way across the ruins of a city.

Comment

Cathy McGowan
How community independent campaigns actually work

“The community independents movement is motivated by a shared sense that our democracy is not delivering the benefits it could or should. The offer of this movement is for each and every one to be the change, to turn up, speak up and step up.”

Comment

Chris Wallace
The good and bad in Albanese’s reset

“Irrespective of the election outcome, Australia’s major parties would do well to study the dynamics of the Pat Cummins-led cricket team … Unselfish, inclusive leadership is the foundation of that really good side … It’s about playing off the front foot rather than endlessly playing catch-up …”

Comment

John Hewson
Dutton’s white Australia dream

“Leading up to Australia Day, which is understandably known to many as Invasion Day, should we not at least be asking more questions? What model would be better? What do Australians as a people want to celebrate?”

Letters, Cartoon & Editorial

Cartoon

Read

Editorial
Dutton and Murdoch’s grift on Welcomes to Country

You can picture the staffer who thought of this, some slippery little Tarocash chancer. It would have been pitched as the perfect story for the quiet weeks of January, a chance to capture the news cycle for a day or two, to get ready for the annual race-baiting of Australia Day. It is the budget line equivalent of a Chinese-made flag.

Letters

Awake to evil

Right-wing attacks on wokeness were referenced by two contributors in the December 21–January 10 edition (Karen Barlow, “Exclusive: Dutton set to revive Indigenous placenames fight” and Thomas Mayo, …

Clear hypocrisy

The possible revival of the Indigenous placenames fight – particularly in light of the referendum result – I found to be rather depressing. The uniqueness of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait …

Culture

Profile

Actor Adrien Brody

Andy Hazel Adrien Brody drew on the immigrant experience of his own family for his Golden Globe-winning performance in The Brutalist, which is now a frontrunner for the Oscars.

Profile

Musician and composer Nils Frahm

Jacob Robinson

Nils Frahm, the king of ambient electronica, brings a unique spontaneity to his live performances.

Image for article: Burn<sup><span style="font-size:20px">8</span></sup>

Fiction

Burn⁸

“An old ex of mine would grumble that the work they did, their day job, was beneath them. They were an artist in their not day job, their real job, and not at all untalented, working at huge scale and hyper-fine detail in pencil, portraits so large and close that the face within the frame would show a forehead or a chin, but never both; a nose and one ear, but never both.”

Fiona Wright

Selena Gomez under red lights in a scene from Emilia Perez.

Film

Emilia Pérez

Christos Tsiolkas Jacques Audiard’s Golden Globe-winning musical Emilia Pérez is superficial, ham-fisted and fails to access the subversion made possible by camp.

Life

Food

Grilled bananas with salted caramel sauce, vanilla ice-cream and peanuts

Annie Smithers

Sport

Bowled over by the Australia v India Test series

Martin McKenzie-Murray A tantalising series between India and Australia – complete with polar opposite debutants and the jubilant return of Scott Boland – saw Test cricket reclaim its place as a crowd favourite.

Puzzles

The Cryptic

$link to this week\'s crossword$

Crossword No. 532

The Quiz

1. The Japanese institution Nippon Ginkō translates to what in English?

2. Io is a moon of which planet?

3. In which European city is the International Court of Justice?

4. Orlando is a fictional character and romantic male lead in which Shakespeare comedy? (Bonus point for naming who wrote the unrelated 1928 novel Orlando: A Biography.)

5. Which empire, established at the end of the 13th century by Turkish tribes, lasted until the early 1920s?

6. Name the Australian Test cricket debutant who this month scored the winning runs in the fifth Test in Sydney?

7. Fianna Fáil is a centre to centre-right political party in which country?

8. True or false: locusts belong to the grasshopper family?

9. Who wrote the opera The Magic Flute?

10. What word beginning with ‘s’ does youthful comic book character Billy Batson say to transform into a superhero?

Click through for answers.

Quotes

Etiquette

“Well, that’s not on … Here, everyone owns the beach.”

Anthony AlbaneseThe prime minister expresses his concern over cabanas being used to reserve space on the beach. If you want to do that, you should buy a $4.3 million house like everyone else.

Survival

“I would like to thank all of the emergency services personnel for their tireless work searching for 13 days in tough conditions to locate me.”

Hadi NazariThe man who spent two weeks lost in Kosciuszko National Park responds after being rescued. He lived on foraged berries and two Uncle Tobys muesli bars.

Environment

“The windmills are driving the whales crazy, obviously.”

Donald TrumpThe president-elect explains the problem with wind farms, obviously. It’s presumed he means with desire