Inside the GetUp! election machine
“In 2016, GetUp! activists made 216,000 phone calls to electors; this time, the goal is one million.”
The progressive group is gearing up to spend its $12.7 million war chest on unseating six key members of the Coalition’s hard right and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.
News
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Exclusive: Taxpayer millions spent on Coalition mailout
“DHS did not respond to questions about the letters having been printed on a weekend or whether this incurred extra cost. It is also not clear whether they were sent standard mail or at a premium.”
A mailout from the federal government to age pensioners on the eve of the election campaign cost taxpayers $2.1 million and raised concerns about the timing of the correspondence.
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Julian Assange: master of disguise
“Assange has long been an assiduous, if imperfect, manager of his image.”
The arrest of Julian Assange is just another chapter in a story of complications and contradictions.
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“The impending election has made the government reluctant to act quickly on the issue of Daesh returnees but it’s further complicated by question of complicity – how to draw lines between the willing participants and the others. ”
Repatriating from foreign conflict zones the Australian women and children who became caught up in Daesh’s now-defunct reign of terror will require exacting planning and consideration.
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Money not all an ailing health system needs
Labor’s cancer plan, backed by a $2.3 billion pledge, has put the healthcare debate on the frontburner, and divided the medical profession.
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Women and youth rise up in Sudan
Venezuelans suffering in superpower standoff. Red Cross reveals New Zealand nurse is a Daesh hostage. Joko Widodo looking the winner in Indonesia election.
Opinion
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Jill Abramson
Murdoch plays the Trump card
“Of all his holdings, Murdoch has always loved his papers the most, even if some are money pits. His empire began with the inheritance of his father’s papers, Adelaide’s The News and its Sunday edition, The Mail. Now he controls two-thirds of daily newspaper circulation in Australia. He publishes the only national broadsheet, The Australian. As in the US, and in Britain too, he has used his papers in Australia as political bludgeons. ”
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Paul Bongiorno
Dutton serves as Labor’s Easter bunny
“Peter Dutton’s war chest to save his seat is believed to be in the vicinity of $1 million. He refuses to say how much he is spending but his face is splashed across every billboard in Dickson. A Labor insider says, ‘We are delighted to see his visage everywhere.’ ”
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So good to see the Shortens among the shorthorns, baby goats and bottled preserves at Sydney’s Royal Easter Show. But it was on the Central Coast where the leader of the opposition made a lasting impression while participating with a whole pile of little kids in a “slip, slop, slap” awareness moment. Gadfly has been unable to get out of his mind Shorten’s eccentric use of his knuckles in applying sunscreen to his face. I suspect there’s a lot we don’t know about this man but the sunscreen incident was a valuable insight.
Letters, Poem & Editorial
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Maxine Beneba Clarke
Liber Pauperum
on the western façade
the archangel michael
grand wings aloft,
was weighing souls
and the serpent hissed down
at eve, regal
and adam
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Scott Morrison is a man without promise or promises. It is not clear why he wants to lead the country. He has yet to lay out a plan for it and gives no sign that he will. When he talks about Bill Shorten, he warns Labor will change everything. His own undertaking is that he will not. His proposition is the status quo.
Culture
Artist Janet Laurence and the cost of living
Artist Janet Laurence explores the relationship between the metaphysical and the physical by giving voice to our fraught but soul-deep relationship with the world in which we live. “My first review read, ‘Janet Laurence deals with nature and the dark side of life and this is not where a woman should be.’ ” She dissolves into peals of laughter. “It was a female writer!”
At the National Gallery of Australia, a new exhibition honours the power of tā moko, the Māori art of body-marking.
BTS’s Map of the Soul: Persona
Although BTS’s latest album, Map of the Soul: Persona, is a bland attempt to cover all bases, the enormous appeal of this K-pop band is ultimately undeniable.
Life
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Whisky business at the Laphroaig distillery
A wee dram at the Laphroaig distillery in the Scottish Hebrides turns into an invocation of a whisky-loving soul.
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During an unprecedented period of scandal in Australian racing, one horse carried on her back the hopes and dreams of a sport-obsessed nation.
Books
Puzzles
1. In the film Groundhog Day, Phil continually wakes at 6am to his clock radio playing which song? (Bonus point for naming the Pennsylvanian borough in which the film is set.)
2. On Earth, matter typically exists in one of which three states?
3. What are you doing if you are expectorating?
4. In which US state is the Sundance Film Festival held?
5. Which company owns YouTube?
6. A looped surface with only one side and only one edge is known as a what strip?
7. What colour are the dress uniform jackets of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police?
8. Traditional Yorta Yorta lands straddle an area of which river?
9. What is the spirit base of the aperitif Pimm’s No. 1 Cup?
10. What starting with ‘k’ is the innermost and strongest structure or central tower of a mediaeval castle?
Quotes
BIOLOGY
“Opinions are like arseholes – everyone’s got one. In politics, it sometimes seems a lot of people have more than one.”
The former politician blames the Liberal Democratic Party for his election failure in NSW. Leyonhjelm sticks to a strict 1:1 opinion-to-arsehole ratio and that opinion is that we should have more guns.
BIGOTRY
“The Chinese people come to Australia because … they want good things for their next generation, not to be destroyed ... by these sort of concepts of same-sex, transgender, intergender, crossgender and all this rubbish.”
The Liberal candidate for Chisholm shares a view she doesn’t hold but has heard in the Chinese community. In the same way that we don’t think Gladys Liu a bigot, it’s just a thing we’ve been told.
INGESTION
“I’ve always been interested in what it tastes like.”
The MP shares a video of himself eating a raw onion. Goddamn it, Matt, if Tony Abbott jumped off a bridge...
NEWNESS
“We have no plans to introduce any new taxes on superannuation.”
The opposition leader misrepresents his position on superannuation. What he meant was no new “new taxes” other than the new taxes already announced.
ELECTION
“Mr Dutton, after all, is a thug. Mr Dutton is the most toxic man in the Liberal party. Mr Dutton is mean and despicable.”
The senator hits back at the Home Affairs minister over his comments about Labor candidate Ali France. On background, several sources confirmed she doesn’t think much of Peter Dutton.
TRAVEL
“He’s not the member for Dawson, he is the member for Manila South.”
The shadow treasurer offers George Christensen a new title after it was revealed the Liberal MP spent more days in the Philippines visiting his fiancée than in parliament. Who knew Christensen was such a romantic?
