September 12 – 18, 2020
News
Comment
Comment
Danielle Wood
The way out of the Covid-19 recession
“The forecasts don’t paint a pretty picture. The Reserve Bank expects unemployment to climb to 10 per cent by the end of the year and still be above 8 per cent by the end of 2021. The Parliamentary Budget Office projects the economy will run below potential for the best part of a decade. This is not inevitable though – government policy choices can change this path.”
Comment
Paul Bongiorno
The wheels fall off Morrison’s bus
“Scott Morrison emerged from last Friday’s meeting of his national cabinet a defeated leader. His hastily constructed vehicle to co-ordinate a coherent response to the coronavirus pandemic crisis had fractured. The prime minister announced that the notion of ‘100 per cent, absolute consensus on any issue’ is not the way ahead. The notion was his entirely but if consensus meant everybody agreeing with Morrison, it was always doomed to failure.”
Letters, Cartoon & Editorial
Culture
Profile
Choreographer Shaun Parker
On his company’s 10th anniversary, Shaun Parker – one of the stalwarts of Australian contemporary dance – looks over his shapeshifting career. “It’s weird, I didn’t like it. I loved it. You’d think I’d be more terrified, but I think, beginning to sing or dance or act, you’re becoming another role. I love that feeling of becoming someone else.”
Books
Life
Puzzles
Quotes
Conservation
“We are not anti-koala.”
The state leader of the Nationals clarifies his party’s position on the marsupial as a spat over koala policy threatens to tear apart the New South Wales Coalition. Say something enough times and anyone will start to believe it’s true: such as how the Nats say they care about regional Australia.
Self-improvement
“They can buy their own home so they’re not homeless.”
The Liberal MP argues against the proposed 0.5-percentage-point rise in superannuation. He instead suggests that women who are worried about becoming homeless because of inadequate superannuation should just buy a house.
China
“The group was a most ordinary social network platform on which members used to share jokes and funny memes...”
The prominent Chinese scholar rejects accusations from ASIO that he was part of a plot to influence NSW MP Shaoquett Moselmane. Thankfully the spy agency is finally taking seriously the corrupting power of memes.
Repatriation
“If you are a lobster or a crayfish, you get a chartered flight out of Australia.”
The Labor senator calls on the government to do more to help Australians stranded overseas. Crustaceans get private jets, Masked Singer judges get quarantine exemptions – we truly are all in this together.
Intimacy
“A platonic relationship … that’s very different to intimate partners, who by virtue of the fact they are intimate partners, their contact is of a different nature.”
The Victorian premier attempts to explain to reporters why couples don’t need to wear masks around one another and it isn’t awkward at all.
Secrets
“Gossip is a plague worse than Covid. Worse.”
The pontiff urges Catholics to keep their grievances to themselves. He said people should instead be reprimanded privately, which was of course very effective in stopping child abuse in the church.
