The Saturday Paper

News

How News Corp is framing the ‘No’ case

“If the referendum gets up in October, or whenever it ends up being, The Oz will triumphantly say, ‘We supported this from the beginning’ … And they’ll just pretend that they never ran anyone who said this is a terrible thing.”

Paddy Manning News Corp has become the unofficial mouthpiece of the ‘No’ campaign against the Voice to Parliament, although its editors say they are just reporting both sides.

News

‘He’s not Bambi’: How the Liberals lost NSW

Mike Seccombe As the NSW Liberal Party reels from its loss last weekend, party insiders worry the debate is being framed in a way that will push them to the right and further from electability.

News

What’s next for Labor’s housing future fund bill?

Karen Middleton Criticised as an unreliable and inadequate source of funding, the government’s $10 billion housing initiative has stalled in the senate, in what has become a test of one of the Greens’ rising stars.

News

Homelessness on the rise across Australia

Jesse Noakes The latest census shows the number of homeless Australians has risen more than 5 per cent since 2016, and lags in the data mean that many people currently sleeping rough aren’t captured in the count.

News

China’s economic expansion in Laos

Michael Sainsbury The expansion of energy and transport projects along the Mekong River reflects a shift in economic reliance among Laos and other small South-East Asian nations, particularly towards China.

World

Russia moves nukes to Belarus as Ukraine gets tanks

Jonathan Pearlman Labour crisis in Vanuatu. Israel suspends judiciary overhaul. US mulls TikTok ban.

Australia's No.1 news podcast.

Opinion

Richard Denniss
What the safeguard means for the climate wars

“The climate wars are far from over. They will not be over until the fossil fuel industry stops waging them. While their progress has been slowed in recent years, the relentless bombardment of our future by the coal and gas industries continues unabated.”

Opinion

Paul Bongiorno
Dutton sweating on Aston byelection result

“Peter Dutton faces his first real test at the ballot box as Liberal leader in the Aston byelection. He is bracing for the worst while hoping he is saved by the century-long precedent of oppositions never losing seats to governments in these contests.”

Opinion

John Hewson
How stable is our banking system?

“The global drift towards a recession with entrenched inflation was quite enough for central banks and governments to grapple with. Now add to that concerns about the stability of the financial system.”

Letters, Cartoon & Editorial

Cartoon

Read

Editorial
Voice of a coward

Tony Abbott has now made his slithering, onion-skinned contribution to the “No” case for the Voice to Parliament. It is useful in as much as it synthesises the 12 key arguments against the Voice.

Letters

Missed opportunity

I am pleased the Greens came to a deal with Labor on the safeguard mechanism reform because we need to deal with industrial emissions (Mike Seccombe, “IPCC: This is the last chance to avoid catastrophe”, …

Surviving change

I am pleased to note that our government has finally placed limits on emissions and is taking positive steps to reduce human impact on the planet. I have been frustrated by the “numpties” denying our …

Culture

Black and white image of Amanda Brown wearing sunglasses in the foreground, her hair pulled back in a ponytail.

Profile

Musician Amanda Brown

Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen Amanda Brown is best known for her work with The Go-Betweens, but it’s just one part of a long and distinguished career.

Graphic of a corked bottle floating past a grass headland.

Games

Idyll

Jini Maxwell The gentle minimalism of Idyll’s microsociety leads this gamer to question the hungers that drive social media platforms.

A performer lies on the stage. Behind her, a large projection of two hands.

Dance

FRAME

Anador Walsh The Melbourne festival FRAME not only shows the breadth and strength of the city’s dance sector but also moves beyond usual programming and performers.

A large room with wooden floorboards and a projection of an art installation in the centre.

Visual Art

Rosa Barba – Emanations

Andy Butler German–Italian artist Rosa Barba brings a sense of historical continuity to our feelings of dread and awe in confronting the universe.

The Influence

Matthew Thorne and Derik Lynch

Neha Kale The cross-cultural friendship between award-winning filmmakers Matthew Thorne and Derik Lynch has deep echoes of Rolf de Heer and David Gulpilil in the making of Charlie’s Country.

Fiction

Achillea

“Young women can pull achillea from the soil of a night-time graveyard. Preferably the grave of a young man, although any graveyard new to them will do. They must be silent. This is how I know it is a tale for women. The young women should tuck their prize – blooms, stalks, leaves, roots, grave dirt – under their pillows. They can wash their sheets in the morning but grave dirt is not so different from any other: all dirt is made from the dead. The achillea I’ve seen in graveyards is always white.”

Eliza Henry-Jones

Books

Book cover: Illustrations of hands and people, all angled to create the shape of a womb.

Isabelle Oderberg
Hard to Bear: Investigating the science and silence of miscarriage

Book cover: two naked bodies entwined. The book title print dow the side.

Viola Di Grado (translated by Jamie Richards)
Blue Hunger

Book cover: Illustration of a woman wearing bright red lipstick and sunglasses, a city reflecting in their shades.

Yan Lianke (translated by Carlos Rojas)
Heart Sutra

Life

Food

Cake tin focaccia

Andrew McConnell

Several people dressed in hazmat suits surround a table on a Shanghai street, organising Covid-19 tests. Several onlookers wearing masks watch in the background.

Life

Living through the Shanghai lockdown

Dave Tacon As Melbourne marks the third anniversary of one of the world’s longest lockdowns, the author remembers a year since his own dystopian nightmare began in Shanghai.

Two nomads sit on a verandah, their arms reached towards an elephant that is facing them, its mouth wide.

Technology

The costs of becoming a digital nomad

Kurt Johnson The tens of thousands of online workers who call Thailand’s Chiang Mai their base are a boon for the local economy, but their lifestyle has its costs, both for the city’s social fabric and the ‘digital nomads’ themselves.

Sport

The hyperbole and hypocrisy of the AOC

Martin McKenzie-Murray Matt Carroll, the latest boss of the Australian Olympic Committee, is out with a begging bowl and spurious claims that funding elite sport lifts community participation.

The AOC’s Matt Carroll addresses the National Press Club

Puzzles

The Cryptic

$link to this week\'s crossword$

Crossword No. 443

The Quiz

1. True or false: Traditionally, you can only tell April Fools’ jokes until midday on April 1?

2. What would you use a tagine for?

3. Richard Osman is the author of the [What?] Murder Club series? (Bonus point for naming the BBC quiz show he is the creator and former co-presenter of.)

4. NASA’s Curiosity rover has spent more than 10 years exploring which planet?

5. What is the only landlocked country in South-East Asia?

6. Where on the human body would you find the lunulae?

7. Which two clubs played a draw in the opening match of the 2023 AFL season?

8. Which Australian banknote is nicknamed the lobster?

9. How many children does the former New South Wales premier Dominic Perrottet have?

10. Jamie Lee Curtis last month won a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award. Name her father and mother, who were both Oscar nominees.

Click through for answers.

Quotes

Faith

“At the time it seemed like all hell had broken loose within Hillsong Church and I was under immense pressure and emotional strain.”

Brian HoustonThe Hillsong founder confirms he was charged with drink-driving in the United States last year. Say what you will about Brian, he loves the blood of Christ.

Celebrity

“Well, we lost half a day of skiing.”

Gwyneth PaltrowThe actor explains the stakes in her court battle against a retired optometrist who claims she ran into him on a ski slope. Think of it less as a crash and more as unconscious coupling.

Technology

“I see a clear, but difficult, path to a >$250B valuation”

Elon MuskThe billionaire projects a huge increase in the value of Twitter – in a memo that reveals the company is currently worth less than half of what he paid for it. In another embarrassing writedown, he changed his daughter’s name from “Exa Dark Sideræl Musk” to “Y”.

Media

“It never happened. It’s complete BS.”

Richard WilkinsThe reporter says he has contacted lawyers to deal with a faked image of him being arrested in a park. If anyone is going to doctor Wilkins’ face, it clearly already is him.

Politics

“I’ve actually tried to ring Mark, a couple of times, to no avail.”

Pauline HansonThe One Nation leader condemns Mark Latham over a graphically homophobic social media post. Presumably Latham couldn’t take the call because there was a sale on at Rivers.

Law

“Knowing Clive Palmer’s record for paying his workers, I hope Christian Porter asks for his money up front.”

Anthony AlbaneseThe prime minister responds to news the former attorney-general will act for Clive Palmer in a $299 billion lawsuit against Western Australia. If serving in the Morrison government doesn’t prepare you to run interference for a mining interest, nothing will.

April 1 – 7, 2023