May 21 – 27, 2022
News
Comment
Comment
Kevin Rudd
What happens if you win the election?
“Whoever wins this election, Australia’s next government will face enormous challenges across the full spectrum of foreign and domestic policy. But the arsenal of policy tools available to the incoming government will have been undermined after nearly a decade of short-term thinking, deeply politicised decision-making and misspent political capital. For the national interest, this must stop.”
Letters, Cartoon & Editorial
Culture
The Influence
Morgan Rose
For playwright Morgan Rose, Hofesh Shechter’s dancework Sun opens up the mess and contradictions of being human.
Fiction
Mud
“Brown shapes move across the screen, leaving dark streaks in the mud behind them. Salt glitters, and some darker crystal. The bodies move purposefully, now and then a flash of teeth that must be laughter. Happy workers, covered in the earth they think they’re saving. Later the mud will dry on their skin, cracking and burning.”
Books
Life
Puzzles
Quotes
War
“The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean, of Ukraine.”
The former United States president says what others have been saying for two decades. John Howard and Tony Blair are now the only people on Earth pretending it was a legitimate war.
Law
“Victory!”
The refugee advocate celebrates a win against Peter Dutton after appealing the defamation case against him. Dutton’s not a rape apologist, he’s just a minister in the Morrison government.
“This deal cannot move forward until he does.”
The entrepreneur demands that Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey release proof that bots comprise 5 per cent or less of the platform’s accounts. It’s the sort of thing you might ask before you made a $63.5 billion takeover bid, but we’re sure he knows what he’s doing.
Football
“Where’s Luca? Please tell me he hasn’t gone off to the hospital.”
The prime minister accidentally crash tackles eight-year-old Luca Fauvette on a soccer pitch. His policy is clear: boys play against boys or oversized man babies.
Courts
“It was for writing. It was not to, as you would have it, murder my husband.”
The American romance novelist gives evidence while being tried for the murder of her husband. A lot of people regret old blog posts, but her 2011 piece, “How to Murder Your Husband”, really has aged well.
Bombs
“It was frothing, the shell was bubbling. It was strange and frightening.”
The British scavenger hunter described driving home with what she thought was an antique canister in the back seat. In fact, it was a live bomb from World War I.
