August 21 – 27, 2021
News
Comment
Comment
Richard Denniss
Scott Morrison is stuck
“Scott Morrison has an answer for everything and a solution for nothing. Like the neoliberalism of which his party was once so proud, he is all promise and no delivery. His press conferences have long been a masterclass in dictating the terms of debates, dodging accountability and delivering attacks on his rivals.”
Comment
Paul Bongiorno
Always late to the rescue
“Morrison defended our 20-year ‘longest war’ as worthwhile in the name of freedom. Australian soldiers dying for freedom is never in vain, he said. But whose freedom is the question? Apparently, it is not the freedom sought by those who flee the Taliban’s tyranny.”
Letters, Cartoon & Editorial
Culture
Profile
Playwright Finegan Kruckemeyer
Because he writes for young people, Finegan Kruckemeyer has mostly worked under the radar – but he’s one of Australia’s most internationally produced playwrights.
The Influence
Mitch Cairns
A 2007 retrospective of Tom Kreisler’s art has had a lifelong impact on Mitch Cairns’ work.
Fiction
The wind is trying to kill us
“A branch smashes on a nearby mudstone slab and the leaves do not rain down politely like this is a wholesome and earthy wedding, they spark as if they are flaming green from an explosion. But the red-haired man is chatting about all the books that are best-selling and wonderful, especially the one about the explorer who climbs the smallest mountains in the world that are still called mountains, and how funny it is! ”
Books
Life
Puzzles
Quotes
Outbreaks
“We have accountants, we have architects, we have a sex worker, we have members of the Orthodox Jewish community, and we have a pizza guy who works in a pizza shop.”
The Victorian Covid-19 response commander details a string of unconnected cases in Melbourne. No word yet as to whether SBS will option the series.
Science
“If there is no evidence of Covid spreading outside, why do we lock people in their homes?”
The Nationals senator shares his grasp of science and airborne sickness. Honestly, it makes his take on climate change look quite sophisticated.
Education
“Even Anzac Day is presented as a contested idea.”
The Education minister tells the country’s schooling authority its draft national curriculum will need to be substantially rewritten due to its “negative” view of Australian history. The day, of course, does nothing more than mark the invention of the popular biscuit of the same name.
Law
“Christian Porter is … seeking a safeguard over this defence not because he owns it but because he doesn’t like what is in it.”
The solicitor for Nine argues against the attempt by the former attorney-general to block media companies from ever reporting the defence in his defamation action against the ABC. Possibly he should have thought about this before he tried to sue the national broadcaster.
Warfare
“So on that criteria, the mission, whatever may be said of it, has not been a failure.”
The former prime minister defends Australia’s involvement in Afghanistan, saying there had been no terrorist attacks organised from the country since it was invaded. You could run an illegal war pretty much anywhere in the world on that logic.
Health
“We can’t pretend that we will have zero cases around Australia with Delta.”
The NSW premier says any state that opens up from lockdown will have to accept cases of the Delta variant will “creep in”. Eventually you learn to live with it, like petty corruption in Macquarie Street.
