January 25 – 31, 2020
News
Comment
Comment
Nick Feik
Climate and the Coalition’s new denialism
“In recent months the federal government’s position on climate change has shifted. Not in policy terms: the change has been restricted to its rhetoric. It has a new strategy to avoid responsibility. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has become adept at evading questions on climate change and its links to bushfires and judging by his satisfied expression as he fronted up for ABC’s 7.30 recently, he remains confident he has a form of words that, like armour, journalists will be unable to penetrate.”
Comment
Sean Kelly
Scott Morrison’s efforts at hazard reduction
“Not once, before this latest foray, as far as I can tell, had Morrison been pulled into line by an interviewer on his claims about hazard reduction. This comes after an election campaign in which he managed to make the cost of Labor’s climate change policies an issue. The cost of not doing anything – which has now, tragically, been the focus of two months of wall-to-wall coverage – was largely ignored.”
Letters, Cartoon & Editorial
Culture
Profile
Writer Alice Pung
More than a decade after her best-selling debut, Unpolished Gem, Alice Pung remains one of Australia’s most beloved authors for her gentle yet forthright prose. She speaks about racism, role models and motherhood. “As a writer, I don’t know if you can really see from another person’s perspective … It is important to try and put yourself in someone else’s shoes, but I’ve realised in the last five years you can never really do it.”
Books
Life
Puzzles
Quotes
PREDICTIONS
“I’d love to see Peter Dutton in there as the leader of this nation.”
The One Nation leader announces her hopes for 2020. She said “there could be a leadership challenge by the end of the year” – but then, she’s also predicted her own death at least once.
AMERICA
“Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done.”
The former presidential candidate gives her assessment of fellow Democrat Bernie Sanders. Having said all that, there’s no way he would know how to run his emails off a different server.
STANDARDS
“Given the lack of any conclusive view offered by the auditor-general, the prime minister has sought further consideration of the issue, which I am attending to.”
The attorney-general announces he will investigate the government’s sports grants program, despite his own electorate receiving nearly $1 million in funding.
LITERATURE
“One of the reasons I did what I did when I wrote The Hand that Signed the Paper and pretended to be Helen Demidenko was to expose this claim for the hooey it is.”
The author joins criticism of Bruce Pascoe and “positive discrimination”. Here we were thinking she did it to win a Miles Franklin Award.
LEADERSHIP
“I worked with him very closely, I’ve known him for 20 years, at least, and I can’t explain his conduct.”
The former prime minister criticises Scott Morrison’s response to the bushfires. One way to explain it is that he doesn’t care about climate change.
PHILANTHROPY
“The science has so far to go.”
The mining magnate rejects climate science, unless the climate science is conducted by his brand new bushfire charity, which requires public donations.
