Leaked UNHCR report: Manus Island world’s worst
As the government prepares to meet with the UNHCR, urgent action is being demanded on mental decay.
News
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Millions of Australians caught in health records breach
“Sussan Ley did not explain why, when doctors who discover a privacy breach are obliged to alert those affected immediately, the government waited 16 days.”
The government’s negotiations with doctors over the Medicare rebate is not helped by a breach of privacy on apparently anonymised health data.
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“Because of the role I played in advocating for science, I believe I’ve been a nuisance to management, and they were seeking to reduce that influence.”
A senior researcher to be sacked from the CSIRO’s new Oceans and Atmosphere unit considers it retaliation for his role as an outspoken critic of changes in the agency’s focus.
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Class action against Montara brought by West Timorese
West Timorese seaweed farmers have launched a class action against Montara for the devastating 2009 oil spill that has threatened their livelihoods.
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Australia scoring low marks on education
“Australia, like a number of other countries that are sliding on international comparisons, tends to have a competitive, punitive approach to underperforming schools, threatening their funding.”
As elite private schools continue to benefit from government funding, Australian education standards are sliding in global terms and politicians remain reluctant to take a stand.
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US hangs up on Russia over Aleppo bombing
Trump and Clinton recruit former CIA chiefs; Insiders vie to be Jakarta’s governor; Referendum blues in Hungary and Colombia
Opinion
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Tony Blackshield
The constitution’s implied freedom
“It is not a matter of personal freedom for individuals to have their two cents’ worth, but only of ensuring ‘the free flow of ideas’.”
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Paul Bongiorno
Parliamentary bank hearings inadequate
“ANZ’s Shayne Elliott, like CBA’s Ian Narev, came to the parliamentary hearing in sackcloth and ashes. But the penitent’s garb could impress only the most gullible. ”
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
Will Eno’s deconstructive theatre
Relentlessly breaking the fourth wall, even casting the performance’s audience as characters, American playwright Will Eno strives to deliver meaningful experience.
Food
Life
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As her tumour returns, Georgia Blain knows the greatest comfort available to her would be the right to choose how she dies.
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Bijoy Jain’s Mumbai-inspired MPavilion
The bamboo, rope and wooden pegs of Mumbai architect Bijoy Jain’s MPavilion are in keeping with a global trend in handmade building, even if not everyone can afford it.
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Passion play: Sharni Layton, 28, netballer
Emotion in motion: Sharni Layton on the heart she brings to the netball court.
Books
The Quiz
1. What colour wine is chianti?
2. Which Grammy Award-winning performer has siblings named Solange, Nixon and Bianca?
3. Name the three midcourt positions in a seven-player netball team?
4. What is the main type of rock in the oceanic crust?
5. Name the journalist author of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference and Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking?
6. For what purpose is baking powder added to recipes?
7. The Flying Scotsman, TGV and Shinkansen are all types of what?
8. Which American poet described the quality of her despair as “owl’s talons clenching my heart”? (Bonus point for naming her semi-autobiographical novel.)
9. Winona Ryder currently stars in which science fiction-horror television series?
10. What is the largest island in the Caribbean?
Quotes
AMBITION
“Another government approached Mr Rudd to nominate him as a candidate for UN secretary-general.”
The former prime minister claims through a spokesperson that he was in hot demand for the top job at the United Nations. A series of unnamed people also said he was a reasonable and skilled manager.
DIPLOMACY
“It was clearly premeditated. They were wearing the budgie smugglers and had bought them in Australia.”
The foreign minister shares her views on the nine Australians arrested for nuisance after stripping at the Formula 1 grand prix in Malaysia. One of the men works for Christopher Pyne, which was considered punishment enough.
LEADERSHIP
“I’m not going to be drawn on interesting gossip or even uninteresting gossip.”
The prime minister rejects reports Tony Abbott has been talking up his chances of returning to the leadership while on a trip to Britain. Abbott’s establishment there of a government in exile takes its lead from King Zog of Albania, among others.
LAW
“Notwithstanding that there is a difference between us on these matters … from a professional point of view we have never had a cross word.”
The attorney-general contradicts evidence from the solicitor-general, which suggested he misled parliament, and which in legal circles might constitute a pretty “cross word”.
CRIME
“I’m sorry, there’s a family emergency — I have to stop the show.”
The rapper stops a New York show after hearing his wife, Kim Kardashian West, had been tied up and robbed at gunpoint in Paris. Kardashian West was uninjured in the attack.
LITERATURE
“Far from the daughter of a Neapolitan seamstress … real estate and financial records point to Anita Raja, a Rome-based translator.”
The journalist apparently reveals the true identity of Italian publishing sensation Elena Ferrante. In a follow-up report for the New York Review of Books, he promises to address other popular Google searches: “lost child ending”, “ferrante lost child synopsis” and “what happened to tina at the end of the lost child”.
