December 12 – 18, 2020
News
Comment
Comment
Shakira Hussein
Christchurch massacre: an Australian crime
“There needs to be a moment of reckoning that the man behind the Christchurch massacre is an Australian. He was born here, and it was in this country that his hatred and racism developed at a young age. While New Zealand’s government has accepted responsibility for intelligence failings that allowed the shooter to slip past checks in the months leading up to the attack, Australia’s intelligence services missed him for many, many years. There has been no contrition.”
Comment
Paul Bongiorno
PM’s year-end review masks ongoing woes
“The prime minister was more the circuit preacher than ‘Scotty from marketing’ as he addressed the final Coalition party room meeting of the year. His stirring words of self-congratulation were tempered with a gentle reminder they all needed to stay humble. The old retort – they have plenty to be humble about – can be applied, but at the end of a year that ‘has been like no other’, Australians have survived better than many. And Morrison wouldn’t be a politician if he didn’t claim a lion’s share of the credit. ”
Letters, Cartoon & Editorial
Culture
In Progress
Daniel Boyd
After the tumult of 2020, Kudjla–Gangalu artist Daniel Boyd aims to find the beauty within chaos, as he continues to reframe the mythologies of colonialism.
Fiction
Home is a rectangle
“Sagal rejoiced when she got the keys to her apartment in Flemington. ‘The war is officially behind us, kids,’ she told them. But both Samia and Idriis believed she had brought the war with her. ‘I reckon death feels like hooyo’s anger nonstop,’ says Idriis. ‘Nah, I reckon hooyo’s anger is more like the ocean on the attack,’ Samia says. ‘You can’t see what’s inside the ocean, the same way we never know hooyo’s intentions for us.’ ‘God,’ says Idriis. ‘I feel a bit faded, sis.’ ”
Books
Life
Puzzles
Quotes
Vale
“I really think I have said all I know over some 60 years of polemicising.”
The sharpest observer of Australian politics in recent memory and eminent cruciverbalist signs off, aged 78. Requiescat in pace, Mungo.
Politics
“He is so precious. This is the same shadow treasurer … who cried in Kevin Rudd’s office, Mr Speaker, we know how sensitive he is.”
The prime minister, who went into Covid-19 quarantine with his own personal photographer, accuses Labor MP Jim Chalmers of having an outsized ego.
Responsibility
“In order to ensure New Zealanders are safe, the government has agreed in principle with all 44 recommendations contained in the report.”
The New Zealand prime minister responds to the report from the Christchurch terror attack royal commission. Australia’s official response to the killing of 51 people has remained consistent: ignore the fact that the shooter came from here.
RSVP
“There has never been an occasion where the senate had ordered a senator who was not a minister to appear before a committee.”
The Nationals senator politely declines to appear before the senate inquiry into the sports rorts scandal, which occurred while she was Sport minister. It seems she’s taken to heart the constant advice this year about thoroughly washing one’s hands.
Welfare
“When you go on this card, you basically lose your rights as well. When you go on the welfare system, you’ve lost your rights.”
The One Nation senator, no stranger to drawing a pay cheque funded by the taxpayer, throws her support behind the cashless welfare card under the apparent misapprehension that losing one’s job is a crime.
Candour
“There is an inverse relationship between leadership tensions and truth in question time.”
The attorney-general, Industrial Relations minister and busiest man in Canberra accuses Labor of launching a scare campaign over the new IR reforms. As the one arguing that the reforms will lead to higher wages, Porter knows something about an inverse relationship with the truth.
