January 15 – 21, 2022 | The Saturday Paper

News

Let it rip: the week it started to fall apart for Morrison

“It is clear that a series of overlapping crises are now unfolding. It is a situation governments had not prepared for or even contemplated. Those who were accused of scaremongering with predictions of 25,000 cases a day now look cautious.”

Wendy Bacon A cascading series of crises, across various sectors, has undone any pretence that the government is managing the pandemic.

News

Inside the independent campaigns that may decide the election

“Mistakes will be made, candidates will trip, but in at least eight once-safe Liberal seats – and perhaps the National Party seats of Cowper, Nicholls and Mallee – traditionally dead election campaigns will come to life.”

Margo Kingston How a movement that began in earnest a decade ago, built on grassroots representation, could affect at least eight seats at the next election.

News

Solomon Islands and the switch from Taiwan to China

Edward Cavanough Changing allegiances in the Solomon Islands – from Taiwan to China – have made unlikely heroes for Australia’s right-wing media.

World

Kazakhstan quells protests over rising fuel prices

Jonathan Pearlman Damage from tropical cyclone Cody in Fiji leads to a government warning on diseases. Drone strikes targeting Tigray hit a camp for displaced Ethiopians. Ugandan students are back at school after two-year closure.

Comment

Raina MacIntyre
Why Covid-19 will never become endemic

“Denial of the science of epidemiology is widespread, even among ‘experts’. We are told repeatedly that SARS-CoV-2 will become ‘endemic’. But it will never be endemic because it is an epidemic disease and always will be.”

Comment

Chris Wallace
The prime minister says: Let them eat Covid

“The savage, reckless, wantonly negligent public health policy of the federal government that is supposed to protect us – and above all, make sure people in places like Kooyong and Higgins never face the horror of queues and half-empty supermarket shelves – has plunged Australia into a debacle of massive and unprecedented proportions.”

Comment

John Hewson
How Scott Morrison is failing small business

“There will not be a sustained economic recovery without a recovery of small businesses, and at this point they are on their knees. They are an essential element of the fabric of Australia and employ millions of Australians. They are the most innovative of our businesses and the developers of new technologies in our country. Small businesses are increasingly fundamental to our overall export performance, too. In 2022, they are ‘the sheep’s back’.”

Letters, Cartoon & Editorial

Cartoon

Read

Editorial
The halfway man

There is an argument that says prime ministers, whatever their qualities, tell the story of the country that elected them. Australia was brash like Bob Hawke and confident like Paul Keating and boring and self-interested like John Howard.

Letters

Morrison’s sole focus

Geoff Kitney offers an excellent summation of Scott Morrison’s many leadership failures, which have imperilled our lives, widened inequality, normalised corruption, favouritism and extreme libertarian …

The life of Mehdi Ali

How many more Christmases and new years must Mehdi Ali (“A life on fire”, January 8-14) be forced to watch as life passes him by? Our government refuses to grant those who reach our shores and …

Culture

Profile

Artist Yasmin Smith

Susan Skelly Artist Yasmin Smith uses ash glazes to reveal the history of soil through the trees that have grown in it.

Festival

2022 Sydney Festival

Cassie Tongue The Sydney Festival opens with work that pushes against structures of promise and oppression.

Film

House of Gucci

Isabella Trimboli Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci disappoints, but the cast’s committed performances still make it worth watching.

Life

Food

Rolled chicken with potatoes

Annie Smithers

Fiction

The lost lives of Sisyphus

“Older now than the gods who had died long ago, Sisyphus rarely left his head. One day he imagined himself as Tantalus, standing in a lake with water up to his chin; another Zeus, the infinity on the edge of things. But most of the time he imagined himself as Sisyphus. The Sisyphus he imagined was slowly building a wall from large stones he pushed up a hill. The wall grew with the passing years, high enough that he could no longer scale it, and so long he could no longer see where it began nor remember why he was building it.”

John Hughes

Sport

Dylan Alcott on changing the narrative and his next move

Ben Rothenberg After securing a golden slam at Flushing Meadows last year, Dylan Alcott plans to hang up his tennis racquet at the Australian Open. That doesn’t mean he’ll be stepping out of the spotlight.

Puzzles

The Cryptic

$link to this week\'s crossword$

Crossword No. 382

The Quiz

1. What is the only country whose name can be typed on just one row of a standard keyboard?

2. Which American singer–songwriter and Disney Channel star’s album, Sour, was Australia’s (and the world’s) most streamed album of 2021 on Spotify?

3. A Gibson cocktail is made with gin and dry vermouth, and most often garnished with what?

4. Nicole Kidman stars as Lucille Ball in Being the Ricardos. Who plays Desi Arnaz? (Bonus point for naming the film’s writer–director.)

5. In Muslim communities, what is the job of the muezzin?

6. For which English Premier League club does Cristiano Ronaldo play?

7. US Airways flight 1549 made an emergency landing in the Hudson River on January 15, 2009. Who captained the flight (his nickname will suffice)?

8. Which two primary colours combine to make green?

9. According to a popular saying, what is the mother of invention?

10. What is the lowest perfect number?

Click through for answers.

Quotes

Testing

“Let’s put it this way: they don’t move fast.”

Greg HoughThe chief executive of one of five companies supplying the government with rapid antigen tests says he has been pushing them to increase supply for 18 months. The Liberal Party has continued instead with unproved saliva tests on the shoes of retail executives.

Parties

“I know the rage they feel with me and with the government I lead.”

Boris JohnsonThe British prime minister apologises for attending a BYO party in the garden of No. 10 Downing Street while the rest of the country was in lockdown. He has the studied contrition of a man with three wives and seven children.

Tanks

“Because of their versatility, tanks can be used in a wide range of scenarios, environments and levels of conflict.”

Rick BurrThe chief of army defends the acquisition of $3.5 billion worth of tanks and armoured vehicles from the United States. He stopped short of saying they were cool to drive around in.

Sport

“Whatever way you look at it, Novak Djokovic is a lying, sneaky, arsehole.”

Rebecca MaddernThe Channel Seven newsreader is caught on a hot mic offering her analysis of the Djokovic affair. In fairness, that’s also the government’s position.

Climate

“You don’t reduce emissions by taking action in Australia that reduces economic activity that leads to higher emissions somewhere else.”

Anthony AlbaneseThe Labor leader outlines his ongoing support for coalmining. A lot of people want someone to do Scott Morrison’s job for him, but not like this.

Court

“We do not know what, if anything, went through the parties’ minds.”

Lewis KaplanThe US district judge refuses to accept Prince Andrew’s claim that the child abuse case against him should be dropped because his friend Jeffrey Epstein already paid off the alleged victim. Andrew denies the allegations or that he can perspire.