October 13 – 19, 2018
News
Comment
Comment
Tony Windsor
How climate change policy helps farmers
“Drought is ravaging the land. Large swaths of eastern Australia are experiencing some of the worst seasons on record. Frosts have wiped out large areas of crops in Western Australia, southern New South Wales and Victoria. Hail has beaten crops into the ground in Queensland. The government is scrambling to be seen to be doing something meaningful for farmers, particularly in Queensland where traditional National voters are looking to desert in favour of minor parties, such as One Nation and Katter’s Australian Party. At the same time, the climate change debate proceeds at a crawl.”
Comment
Paul Bongiorno
Morrison’s race to the bottom
“Morrison is signalling he wants stronger laws exempting religious institutions from Australia’s discrimination laws. Government sources say Morrison believes the Ruddock recommendations are too weak. For example, its recommendations on the legality of refusing gay students say a discrimination policy should apply only to new enrolments and when “the school has regard to the best interests of the child as the primary consideration in its conduct”.”
Letters, Cartoon & Editorial
Culture
Profile
The key concepts of Ryuichi Sakamoto
Ryuichi Sakamoto is perhaps best known for his many film scores, including The Revenant, but the composer and keyboardist’s long career spans the synth pop of Yellow Magic Orchestra, pioneering electro-funk and subtly complex ambient music. “Making music for me is a chain reaction, always going towards something. Some ideas, a glimpse of something, a fragment of a memory that triggers more images. Your mother’s smell, a person from TV news. That kind of imaginative fantasy, that journey, is already very musical. So, I hope my music can trigger some kind of image series for the listener.”
Theatre
Barry McGovern’s Watt
Barry McGovern’s one-man adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s novel Watt is a masterpiece of poignant, pratfalling absurdity
Portrait
Author Deb Kandelaars
The writer of Memoirs of a Suburban Girl on her long road out of a violent relationship. “There I am, right in the middle of my teenage years and suddenly in a serious relationship. A relationship that pushes away my other life. Being hit was beyond my world experience. I didn’t want it to happen again. I started treading a little bit more carefully, and that set up a power dynamic.”
Books
Life
The Quiz
Quotes
ISOLATION
“If we did, nobody invited me to join either of them.”
The Howard-era treasurer offers the fact he was never asked to join a Liberal Party faction as proof the party didn’t have them. That said, he never got asked to be prime minister, either.
CLIMATE
“We’re very comfortable with where we’re heading.”
The environment minister responds to this week’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, confirming the Coalition is comfortable to be careening towards a future of perpetual day, lit by the warm glow of all-consuming bushfires.
EQUALITY
“All four are women.”
The controversial United States Supreme Court justice cancels out his karmic debt with the universe by hiring an all-female staff. Everything is totally fine now.
DEFAMATION
“I couldn’t cavil with the fact that the [first] defence was an interesting document.”
The lawyer representing Mark Latham in a defamation case shaves his original 76-page defence argument down to just three. Really, though, “I did accuse Osman Faruqi of aiding Islamic terrorism but I didn’t think he’d actually sue me” shouldn’t take up that much space.
WENTWORTH
“Emissions are at their lowest levels in 28 years.”
The Liberal candidate for Wentworth observes that his party has done enough on climate change. Easy enough to do, but he is confusing emissions with the Liberal primary vote in the seat.
REALITY
“Just don’t hassle me … I’m trying to chill out, copping enough crap from people like you, mate.”
The Honey Badger is cornered in a Port Moresby hotel by A Current Affair’s Reid Butler, who was outraged Cummins failed to marry one of the women he met on reality television. As always, ACA doing God’s work.
