June 28 – July 4, 2025
News
Comment
Comment
Bob Brown
Murray Watt a net gain for the salmon industry
“Anthony Albanese has chosen corporate welfare over environmental wellbeing for Australia. His appointment of Murray Watt as minister for the environment highlights his determination to grant corporate demands for more environmental sacrifice in this age of ecological crisis.”
Comment
John Hewson
Jim Chalmers’ reform agenda
“The treasurer’s recent speech to the National Press Club seems to have caught many in the conservative media off guard. So much for the constant chant about a dangerous, mad, left-wing government. On the contrary, Jim Chalmers has outlined a reform agenda that may well be the envy of the Coalition. He has filled the vacuum that their policy inactivity has left.”
Letters, Cartoon & Editorial
Culture
Music
Composer Ólafur Arnalds on the power of silence
Rejecting the cacophony of the current age, Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds listens to the silence between the notes.
Fiction
Archipelago
“She came to see my parents about milking our goats. Have you ever milked goats, my father asked her. No, she said. My mother got down the medium good china for her cup of tea. She looked like she preferred a mug, but she took the little cup and saucer, held them in her outdoor hands.”
Books
Life
Puzzles
Quotes
Politics
“I think attracting, mentoring, retaining great people and great women in the party is incredibly important work.”
The shadow minister explains why he’s not in favour of quotas to increase female representation in the Liberal Party. The only things worth counting are in the Cayman Islands, allegedly.
Nuptials
“The news that Bezos has run away from the Misericordia is a great victory for us.”
The Venetian activist comments after billionaire Jeff Bezos moved his wedding from the city’s Scuola Grande della Misericordia to a newer warehouse district. It’s actually because the warehouses are better equipped to monitor attendees’ toilet breaks.
Posterity
“Supporting Advance Generations is a very good way to protect the values and country that we cherish for the next generation.”
The former prime minister supports Advance’s push to collect donations from deceased estates. The dead are in many ways more connected to contemporary reality than their members.
Bankruptcy
“You have come to this court half baked. You’ve failed to name the proper defendants. It doesn’t get much worse.”
The Supreme Court judge rebukes the Victorian Liberals’ administrative wing over an attempt to block a loan issued to save the party’s former leader from bankruptcy. Still would have been easier to ask the Nazis to leave.
Diplomacy
“So in that sense, I use daddy, not that I was calling President Trump daddy.”
The secretary-general of NATO explains that while he likened Donald Trump to a “daddy”, he didn’t actually call him “daddy”. Bizarrely, this was in an analogy regarding the Israel–Iran conflict.
Media
“Any undue influence or pressure on ABC management or any of its employees must always be guarded against.”
The managing director of the ABC apologises after Antoinette Lattouf wins her wrongful dismissal case, in which she was awarded $70,000 in damages.
