How the church is splitting the Liberal Party
“The single-minded determination to win control of political structures, or else to wreck them, is the same. Santamaria’s apostle Abbott is its embodiment. ”
Just as BA Santamaria’s forces once split the Labor Party, hardline Catholics are again threatening to divide politics – this time on the conservative side.
News
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Greens and the dual citizenship debacle
The resignations of the Greens’ two co-deputy leaders has sent MPs scrambling to check their citizenship qualifications, and has led to calls for constitutional revision.
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Dutton’s rise to Home Affairs super ministry
“Who is accountable for implementation, if it’s not the guy who signs the warrant? You need to give one minister responsibility for warranting and then accounting for that warrant.”
Acting beyond official recommendations, Malcolm Turnbull has created a super ministry for Peter Dutton – possibly to shore up his own leadership.
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Harsh sentencing and prison violence
Robin Irvine was left requiring 24-hour care after being bashed unconscious in a maximum security prison. The harsh sentencing that jailed him has made NSW prisons overcrowded and increasingly dangerous.
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Trump’s first six months of crisis
“News that Trump’s closest advisers, including his unctuous son, cheerfully conspired with a hostile foreign government to win office is still not enough to dent “the base’s” faith. ”
Six months into his presidency, Donald Trump has shown no signs of growing into the office. His administration is in permanent crisis, spending its time denigrating the news media. Only the Republican Party can moderate him – and they show no appetite for it.
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Intel report nothing to write Home about
Political turmoil in Brazil and South Africa; Vale Liu Xiaobo; Extra voters in PNG poll.
Opinion
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Richard Cooke
Comments and the discourse of distraction
“You can advocate letting obese diabetics die from their disease, or float the end of universal suffrage, or write about Africans being cannibals who don’t understand cities – if you’re Elizabeth Farrelly, you can do all three – but so long as these suggestions are rendered in unreadable prose and directed at a bourgeois audience, no one will care.”
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Sean Kelly
Security and Malcolm Turnbull’s bluff
“By now we’ve all seen enough of Turnbull not to expect a tough guy. We want the guy who knows stuff, who is across his brief, who can explain things in detail and persuade us he has it all in hand. Instead, this week, we got Turnbull as played by Sly Stallone, the action hero who couldn’t give directions to get to the pub across the street.”
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Here we were thinking that sovereignty was so yesterday. How wrong we were. Senators are falling like tenpins because their mothers fetched up on the wrong piece of soil. The birther movement has now got a real leg-up as ancient lawyers analyse the location of maternity wards from which MPs and senators were hatched.
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Letters & Editorial
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Four years on, they’re cutting off the power and water. Inside the detention centre, men are still waiting to find out what is happening. The minister maintains everything will be resolved. These buildings will be demolished by October. “Our emotions fluctuate between despair and, occasionally, a faint flicker of hope,” Imran Mohammad wrote this week.
Culture
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Katie Noonan takes to the bush
Since arriving on the music scene as a teenager in the band George, Katie Noonan has been an evolving artist. Now, she’s seeking to empower fellow female singer–songwriters in rural Australia.
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Sam Strong’s production of the timeless farce Noises Off falters in pacing and believability, delivering an awful production of a play that is about an awful production of a play.
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“The morning after receiving the Vogel Literary Award, Marija Peričić sits in the A-One Cafe at the ABC Centre in Ultimo. Filled with people and lively conversations, the cafe is in rush hour. ”
Food
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Strozzapreti with salsa di noci
“The most essential thing about cooking pasta is timing. My other rule with cooking pasta is to take the recommended cooking time and subtract two minutes.”
Life
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Japan’s Kumano Kodō pilgrimage
‘Forest-air bathing’ is a traditional Japanese pursuit, but hiking the ancient Kumano Kodō pilgrimage paths through the Kii Peninsula mountains, the author finds herself most absorbed by the rocks beneath her feet.
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Mental health care for medical professionals
A new wellbeing initiative for trainee physicians aims to combat the medical profession’s high rates of mental health issues and suicide, and the stigma of healthcare workers admitting they need help.
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Top of the table: Matthew Bolton, 38, billiards and snooker player
2017 Oceania snooker champion and two-times runner-up world champion Matthew Bolton on chasing the Australian billiards record.
Books
The Quiz
1. In which country was Hans Christian Andersen born?
2. Which AFL team drew two consecutive matches this month? (Bonus points for naming the teams they drew against.)
3. What colour ribbon is used to symbolise AIDS awareness?
4. The Spanish word corazón translates to what in English?
5. How many days did John Paul I serve as pope: (a) 13; (b) 33; or (c) 53?
6. Chicago is on the shores of which lake?
7. What part of a rabbit is the scut?
8. In the Muslim community, what is the role of a muezzin?
9. The Australian species Callistemon is also known as what beginning with ‘b’?
10. In what year of the 2000s did Facebook launch?
Quotes
FACTIONS
“There is a great old military philosophy of what you walk past you condone.”
The retired major-general pushes for reform of the NSW Liberal Party. As Molan has made clear on several occasions regarding human rights abuses in offshore detention, he is an expert in walking past and condoning.
POLICE
“The dishonest narrative pushed by BLM is that America’s police forces are riven with systemic racism against innocent unarmed black men.”
The conservative columnist links the shooting by a US policeman of Australian woman Justine Damond to the Black Lives Matter movement. Police blamed a loud firework.
REFUGEES
“Frankly, I am a little tired of being held responsible for the non-implementation of an agreement that was absolutely explicit in terms of conditions.”
The former prime minister complains of being held accountable for his part in offshore detention. Also “a little tired” are the 2000 people being tortured in the island camps maintained by our government.
TELEVISION
“Is that where we want to be? No.”
The director-general of the BBC addresses the gender gap in pay for his employees. He would not say how much was being saved by the hiring of a female Doctor Who.
LAND
“You know we talk about legacies — we leave the legacy today for all Yindjibarndi, whether you’re with us or against us, this is your moment, too.”
The Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation chief executive greets news that the Federal Court has recognised an exclusive native title claim to land including Andrew Forrest’s multibillion-dollar Solomon Hub mine. Woodley is probably very rich now.
SECURITY
“Our adversaries are agile and nimble, constantly adapting and evolving to defeat our defences.”
The prime minister explains the need for a new super department on national security. Terrorists sound alarmingly like Turnbull’s “major drivers of Australia’s future economic prosperity”.
