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editorial
editorial November 25, 2023
Black and white and scared all over
Peter Dutton is first and always a cop. He sees the world in terms of threats and he sees all threats as opportunities. Despite appearances, he is always looking for an angle.
editorial November 18, 2023
The legislation that follows is always thin and a little scabby. It’s always a suture. Over time the whole Migration Act has become like this, patched up and half-healed.
editorial November 11, 2023
This week, one of the great pretendings of Australian life came to an end. The made-up logic of Al-Kateb v Godwin was finally undone. The High Court confronted the spurious logic of indefinite detention and found it to be unlawful.
editorial November 4, 2023
There’s a glint of excitement in John Howard’s eye, as if he’s found a lolly in his pocket. His brows hop up and down. His hands clasp his legs. He is saying out loud something he has long thought.
editorial October 28, 2023
The disclosure contained fewer syllables than the number of people trapped within it. The line was as short and unwilling as a secret: “There are currently 13 on Nauru.”
editorial October 21, 2023
Just as the history wars were fought as proxy, the referendum campaign borrowed one prejudice to express another. They were all worms in the same apple, chewing at the same mealy flesh. The enemy was always change.
editorial October 14, 2023
Lyle Shelton is a camphorous little man, a mothball in the drawer of Australian culture. He has been on the losing side of most debates in the past decade. It is sad to see him among the likely winners.
editorial October 7, 2023
The interesting part is the condemnation. Sky News describes the video as “disturbing”. It says it was made by “a neo-Nazi group”. The Australian calls it “racially charged” and a “Nazi horror”. Peter Dutton denounced it as “quite horrific” and “unhinged”.
editorial September 30, 2023
The word most used to describe Mike Pezzullo is “obsessive”. He has the cunning of a stoat. He loves military history and regards himself a student of war. As a child, he imagined his toys fighting.
editorial September 23, 2023
The rub is hidden in a line only slightly longer than a haiku. The inquiry will look at all aspects of the pandemic except: “actions taken unilaterally by state and territory governments”. In those eight words are 3000 people locked in commission flats and an entire city under curfew.
editorial September 16, 2023
It is no coincidence that in the campaign against the Voice this is happening again. Forbidding words from usage is a powerful form of disenfranchisement. The rule now is that a “Yes” campaigner cannot say the “No” case is racist, even when it is.
