August 25 – 31, 2018
News
Comment
Comment
Marcia Langton
The folly of Jacinta Price
“Jacinta Price is useful to politicians. She legitimises racist views by speaking them against her own people. When she walks through Alice Springs and Tennant Creek with the prime minister, she waves a flag for the increasingly normal brand of race politics coming from Canberra.”
Comment
Paul Bongiorno
The collapse of Turnbull
“Previously, dumping prime ministers was not done lightly or indeed regularly. But the precedent has been well and truly set, as the musical chairs of the past decade attest. And this despite what is clearly a costly move for the government party. The so called “transactional costs” include loss of credibility in the entire political class.”
Letters, Cartoon & Editorial
Culture
Profile
The many sides of Eddie Izzard
Eddie Izzard burst onto the comedy scene in make-up and heels, later proving his chops as a dramatic actor. On the eve of the release of The Flip Side, set in South Australia, he talks about taking risks, being gender queer and his newest passion – running for British parliament. “I want people, moderate people like me, to get politicised, because it’s going to get rough and we’d better work out how we’re going to make it work. It’s up to us.”
Theatre
‘A Doll’s House, Part 2’
Solid acting from Marta Dusseldorp and her supporting cast at MTC can’t save A Doll’s House, Part 2, an unnecessary and misguided sequel to Ibsen’s masterpiece.
Portrait
Television critic Emily Nussbaum
“Emily Nussbaum recently took to Twitter to ask her 200,000-plus followers for help. She needed travel tips, for Australia, for her family, with the caveat they “don’t actually care about beaches”. The wisdom of the crowd sent her on a familiar, exhausting traipse – like so many tourists before her – around Sydney Harbour, with two teenagers in tow. At Taronga Zoo, distracted by the displays of platypuses and penguins, they miss their ferry. ”
Food
“For years I had hoarded a recipe clipping for these buns, and at last I had a good excuse to trot it out and make some. After they were removed from the oven and had cooled a little, I slathered them with butter. The crumb was close, the texture was drier than a brioche-style bun, they were packed with fruit and the saffron gave a curiously savoury note to what otherwise would have been sweet buns.”
Books
Life
Travel
Anacapri, Italy
High above Capri’s busy Marina Grande, ornithologists use the spectacular vantage of the ruins of Castello Barbarossa to catch and observe migratory birds
The Quiz
Quotes
ANALYSIS
“This is just fucked.”
The Nationals MP shares his thoughts on the leadership crisis. Nothing like that larrikin understatement.
HYPOCRISY
“The behaviour of everyone has been disgusting.”
The One Nation leader weighs in on this week in Australian politics. To think there was a time when breakfast television thought her views were worth paying for.
IMMIGRATION
“I didn’t put any people on Nauru and Manus – I got people off. I would love to get everybody off there tomorrow. If I could have brought them to Australia in a charter flight overnight, I would have.”
The man who routinely rejects medical advice for the evacuation of children from Nauru pretends he would like to close the camps. He does have experience in charter flights for sick refugees, but only to spirit them out of Australia before courts can hear their claims.
RACISM
“We all make mistakes… I used an old and offensive figure of speech that I regret saying.”
The broadcaster apologises for using on air a slur against people of colour. He didn’t realise it wasn’t Dutton’s Australia yet.
SERVICE
“They’ve got houses, school bills, cars that they’ve set up for themselves on the basis that they’re earning $200,000 plus.”
A Coalition MP expresses their colleagues’ concerns about losing their seats in the next election. Here we were setting up on the basis that they might be there to govern for voters.
TELEVISION
“We never really figured to be at year 11, let alone what’s going to happen after 12. One could easily presume that would be the end of the series but I’m just amazed we’re here.”
The creator of the television series The Big Bang Theory announces it is ending after 279 episodes. Thank God.
