June 12 – 18, 2021
News
Comment
Comment
Richard Ackland
Bernard Collaery and Witness K
“In Franz Kafka’s book The Trial the accused, Josef K, manages to arouse the court’s anger by loudly complaining about the absurdity of the proceedings and the accusation itself, if he could only understand it. The book is alternatively macabre and comical – much like the Commonwealth’s case against our own K, Witness K, and his former lawyer, Bernard Collaery. ”
Comment
Paul Bongiorno
The human toll of border protection
“This weekend, Scott Morrison would be hoping pictures of him rubbing shoulders with United States President Joe Biden and the world’s major democratic leaders at the G7 summit in Britain would speak volumes about his importance and worth to Australian voters. But he will be vying for screen time with the heart-wrenching pictures of two distressed children kissing before they are separated so that the younger of them might be evacuated to mainland Australia, an emergency caused by a failure of medical treatment. ”
Letters, Cartoon & Editorial
Culture
Profile
Performance artist Mike Parr
Mike Parr is Australia’s most-celebrated performance artist. His latest work undoes assumptions about what it means to look and to see.
The Influence
Alexander Briger
Alexander Briger AO, an Australian and international star of classical music, discusses the influence of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony on his career.
Fiction
Old Orphan Creek
“Up here, the cold permeates. It presses against you and breathes itself back in. You like the way it stings your fingers, how every inch of your body is forced to feel. Arterial, the roads pulse you along, each town you pass fleeting and unacknowledged. You think that every place must have a road named Station Street. You cross Old Orphan Creek. The air is thinner than you’re used to. It’s evening when you pull in. Your headlights cut through the mist, tyres grinding the gravel. You sit in the car, unmoving, as it ticks and cools around you. You don’t know for how long.”
Books
Life
Puzzles
Quotes
Courts
“I’m uncomfortable with the situation.”
The judge responds to the news Ben Roberts-Smith, the former soldier who’s suing Nine for defamation over allegations he committed war crimes in Afghanistan, was once reportedly in a relationship with one of his lawyers. One of the two accusations is clearly preferable.
Answers
“Nobody’s got footage of the stairs. Nobody’s got really any idea where it happened ...”
Victoria’s shadow treasurer demands Premier Daniel Andrews answer 12 questions about the circumstances of his severe back injury. In fairness, this list is the closest the Victorian Liberals have been to a policy platform in a very long time.
Infrastructure
“We are not proposing construction of an international space station.”
The Queensland premier says the federal government should fund a purpose-built quarantine facility near Toowoomba, more than 500 days after Covid-19 first arrived in Australia. Palaszczuk said it would be a basic structure, somewhat like the Maroons’ defence in State of Origin I.
Media
“The most dangerous enemy of the journalist is bad, lazy, deceitful journalism.”
The national broadsheet takes aim at Four Corners journalists Louise Milligan and Sally Neighbour in a baseless editorial. Although this last line may suggest the newspaper has seen the error of its own ways.
Immigration
“Do not come ... If you come to our border, you will be turned back.”
The United States vice-president offers some welcoming words to Guatemalans seeking asylum. And here Australia was worried that the US never takes any notice of us and our bipartisan support for punitive border policies.
Politics
“In a free and democratic country, every citizen is entitled to the presumption of innocence and protection by the rule of law.”
The independent MP defends his adviser, Frank Zumbo, after the latter was charged with 18 offences including aggravated indecent assault. It’s a quirk of Australia’s legal system that the “rule of law” defence can only be invoked by politicians and their advisers.
