Department of Immigration and Border Protection’s lack of preparedness on organised crime
The focus on asylum seekers has left the immigration department lacking intelligence capabilities and measures to combat crime.
News
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Questions over Nant Angus and whisky investment schemes
It was an elaborate scheme: invest in Nant whisky, to be drunk in Nant bars, eating Nant beef from Nant cows in which you had also invested. Except the cows are hard to track down, the whisky takes years to mature and your 9.55 per cent return looks a long way off.
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Unions poisoned by ALP affiliation
“As soon as affiliation comes, so come all the apparatchiks and the wannabes. It’s mighty healthy for a union not to have that.”
With plotters using the labour movement as a means to amass power, unions have become vulnerable to rorting and the erosion of workers’ rights.
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FIFA pushes for Football Federation Australia reform
“The current FFA Board is no less ‘stacked’ than the former Soccer Australia board was. It’s simply stacked another way.”
It may not be long since FIFA itself was rocked by scandal, but now soccer’s world governing body is in Australia to push through reforms to Football Federation Australia.
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Tim Flannery names his three priority areas in addressing environmental concerns.
Environmentalist and chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council Tim Flannery explains the need to overcome the vested interests against climate change action and how to best use an innovation fund.
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Syrian truce over as aid convoy bombed
US bill for wars estimated at $5 trillion; Putin gains more seats; Anti-immigrant party joins Berlin’s local parliament; Labour activist found guilty after Thai factory exposé
Opinion
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“Properly curated, Sydney and Melbourne could preserve their high standard of living. Extrapolating current trends, they will become sinks of inequality, blight and obliterated heritage.”
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Paul Bongiorno
Malcolm Turnbull at the United Nations General Assembly
“If ever leadership was needed it is now, before these corrosive views are allowed to destroy the multicultural cohesive society Australia has become.”
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Gadfly
Assisting themselves with their inquiries
Diarist-at-large Richard Ackland flies about the nation.
An insider’s outside view
Returning for a second season
The Lucky Country is an insider’s outside view of Australia’s most important political and economic debates. Hosted by The Australia Institute’s Chief Economist Richard Denniss, The Lucky Country is a weekly podcast from Schwartz Media which applies common sense to complex issues.
Find The Lucky Country on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.
Letters & Editorial
Culture
Kate Cherry takes centre stage
Director Kate Cherry takes the helm at NIDA with a vision of the school not just as an incubator of dramatic talent but of the nation’s cultural future.
Food
Life
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On the farm with her dying father, the author ponders the complexities of grief and the path she will take when facing her own mortality.
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Rebounding: Lauren Jackson, 35, basketballer turned administrator
Lauren Jackson on the intensity of being one of the world’s best basketballers, and the heartache of retiring.
Books
The Quiz
1. What word describes both the equipment relating to the saddling and harnessing of horses and a long stitch used to fasten seams?
2. Which is further south: Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope?
3. Protanopia and tritanopia are types of which condition?
4. What is the principal monetary unit of Sweden?
5. The young lovers Demetrius, Lysander, Hermia and Helena feature in which William Shakespeare play?
6. River Rocket is the recently born son of which celebrity.
7. Which naturalist wrote the autobiographical work My Family and Other Animals?
8. Which actor was born Jerome Silberman in 1933?
9. Name two of the four cities bidding to host the 2024 summer Olympics.
10. Who is North Korea’s supreme leader? (Bonus point for naming his predecessor.)
Quotes
LANGUAGE
“Your pronunciation is very bad.”
Myanmar’s leader corrects Kevin Rudd at an Asia Society meeting in New York. It’s a soft “c” in “sociopath”.
HUMOUR
“Waffen-SSM.”
The cartoonist draws gay rights advocates as Nazi soldiers. Presumably because the letters SS appear in the acronym for same-sex marriage, and because he has the wit of a freshly polished doorknob. Wait until he finds out about the acronyms for School Sport Victoria and the Australian Council of Social Service.
RACE
“I said something to Gilda about Michelle not being her boat nigger, but it came out wrong.”
The Real Housewives of Auckland cast member explains a racial slur she used to describe a black woman during the show. One day, years from now, a child will go to Book Week dressed as her.
MEDIA
“Our whole family has been dragged through the mud. She is a 17-year-old teenage girl and they should at least have done some checking.”
The father of a school leaver who was splashed on the cover of The Daily Telegraph as a “new breed of bludger” explains that his daughter is neither uneducated nor unemployed. The paper said that might be true but if you look at data from 1998 onwards the Earth is actually cooling.
LOVE
“Following the news that has shocked celebrity watchers worldwide we can confirm we have separated Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s figures.”
The wax museum responds with grace to news of the actors’ impending divorce. Models of their six children will be melted down and used to expand Jennifer Aniston’s smirk.
TRANSPORT
“I’m a great fan of subways generally.”
The prime minister finds seven truthful words to speak on his trip to New York, before he got back to lecturing the world on refugee processing.
