News

Exclusive: How our crisis hotline failed Sadif Karimi

“You could have a weeping woman hiding in a bathroom, and you’d be meant to say, ‘Can you hold, please?’ ”

Martin McKenzie-Murray In the weeks before her death, Sadif Karimi made repeated calls to a domestic violence hotline. She was told she was no longer a client.

News

News

Tracey Spicer: Starting the first Me Too inquiry

“The ultimate aim of NOW is the cultural change that underpins transformative social movements. To do this, the organisation must speak truth to power, ensuring the inquiry is robust, and the government of the day acts on its recommendations. ”

Tracey Spicer Eight months after calling for stories of sexual misconduct in the Australian arts and media, the author details her involvement in establishing the world’s first workplace harassment inquiry.

News

Getting Shorten

“Labor insiders say if both vulnerable seats were lost on July 28, it would not only be Albanese’s Left faction colleagues supporting change.”

Karen Middleton While the government continues to plot the demise of Bill Shorten, fresh threats may be again smouldering within his own party.

News

Indigenous players and the AFL

Santilla Chingaipe Five years ago guidelines were established to help Indigenous AFL recruits throughout their careers. But with little being done, a group of ex-players has now decided to turn words into actions.

News

Academic independence threatened by US-style philanthropy

“Thanks to Koch funding students can learn about the ‘role of government institutions in a capitalistic society’ at South Carolina’s College of Charleston, or philosophise about the ‘moral imperatives of free markets and individual liberty’ at Troy University in Alabama.”

Mike Seccombe The Ramsay Centre fiasco highlights the dangers of universities ceding academic independence in return for private money, in the manner of billionaire philanthropy in the United States.

World

Trump goes hog wild on trade tariffs

Hamish McDonald Trump's tariff war escalates. US Muslim travel ban upheld. Erdoğan maintains grip on Turkey. Greyhound racing ends in Asia with Macau closure.

Opinion

Opinion

Anonymous
Bureaucratising disability

“When depression stops you getting out of bed and robs you of motivation, energy, confidence and self-worth, how are you meant to proactively seek support? When anxiety stops you from answering phone calls, speaking to people or even leaving the house, how do you interview service providers? If you can’t advocate for yourself, and you have no one else to advocate for you, then I don’t know how you can possibly access the NDIS.”

Opinion

Paul Bongiorno
Bases loaded for Frydenberg

“On Wednesday, the government parties in the Senate voted with a Hanson motion calling for the building of new coal-fired power stations and the retrofitting of existing base-load power stations. It failed 34–32, but proved a revealing insight on where the whole energy debate could be heading. There is considerable optimism that the NEG will win majority party room support in the end. But there is a long way to go. The brawl over coal has alarmed the ACT’s minister for climate change and sustainability, Shane Rattenbury. The Greens minister has the capacity to sink the entire NEG as the federal government needs all the states and territories on the east coast to endorse its delivery. ”

Diary

Gadfly
Diary of a made man

Richard Ackland

The latest instalment of The Spectator Australia has some absolutely crackerjack items. You’ll probably never buy the magazine, as very few do, so Gadfly is here to do the heavy lifting for you. Bookshelves Brandis has a diary item about his meeting with Brenda, aka HM The Queen. He must have nipped down to Moss Bros for his morning suit, which was two sizes too big. The poor fellow looked as though he was drowning in his finery.

Letters, Cartoon & Editorial

Cartoon

Read

Editorial
Leave of compassion

Peter Dutton says compassion would destroy the system of offshore detention he has built. That’s his word: compassion. He says this as a man commits suicide on Nauru and his mother begs for the right to bury him. He says this as families are starved in the community and on Manus Island the fog of indecision creates what has been called the most hostile mental environment in the world.

Letters

Minding our language

In taking up the mindset behind the federal Liberal council’s vote to privatise the ABC, Mike Seccombe indirectly emphasises the critical need for truly independent journalism ( “Rancorous and file”, …

Party tensions

The Liberal Party schism Mike Seccombe describes is unsurprising, given its internal contradictions. For a start, they’re saddled with a name antonymous to their actual nature. They have also had the bad luck …

Read More

Culture

Profile

Artist Yvette Coppersmith on the meaning of self-portraiture

Kate Holden Archibald Prize-winning artist Yvette Coppersmith’s principal subject is herself, in works created with little concession to how they might be perceived by others. “To make a work without an awareness of an audience is virtually impossible, even though I began doing portraits or drawings of faces to hang in my childhood room, and that’s probably what I still want to do. It’s a very private process. It’s really private, actually. It’s only the fact that you’re an artist and part of your role is to share your work.”

Television

‘The Handmaid’s Tale’

Helen Razer As a portrayal of misogyny and violence against women, The Handmaid’s Tale ticks all the boxes. As a piece of empowering feminist storytelling, it couldn’t be more misguided.

Portrait

Author and poet Jenny Zhang

“Jenny Zhang is sitting with her back against the cafe wall, trying to work out the wi-fi password. I am surprised by how unassuming her clothes are. Going by her Instagram, I was expecting violent vintage florals and green ombré hair. In person, she wears a baggy beige jumper and large pink enamel earrings. Jenny later tells me that since being on the publicity circuit she’s started dressing more plainly; she’s nervous about being seen as that quirky girl. ”

Jessica Zhan Mei Yu

Food

Read

Food

Duck confit and ventrèche

“There is something magical about the relationship between flesh, salt and fat. Long before refrigeration and factory farming, there was a time and a place for the life of an animal to end and its flesh to be preserved for the coming months. I have a great fondness for two such types of preserved meat from the Gascony region of France: duck leg confit and ventrèche.”

Annie Smithers

Life

Life

The best wines of winter 2018

Leanne Altmann The beverage director for Andrew McConnell’s restaurants gives her recommendations of the best seasonal tipples.

Travel

Canada’s Pukaskwa National Park, Lake Superior

Patrick Pittman On a journey around the Great Lakes to honour his mother, the author takes his cue from Anishinaabe artist Rebecca Belmore and turns his ear to the water to listen to his surrounds.

Sport

Keeping the faith: Dejen ‘DJ’ Gebreselassie, 25, runner

Robert Kidd He was born in a refugee camp in Sudan; now he represents Australia on the world stage. Dejen Gebreselassie explains his pride in his adopted home and the healing power of running.

Books

Majok Tulba
When Elephants Fight

Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott
Swan Song

Ali Whitelock
and my heart crumples like a coke can

The Quiz

1. Who is Australia’s federal minister for sport?
2. What is the second most populous state in the United States?
3. The unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper was active in the Whitechapel district of London in which century?
4. In Italian, what does the word gatto mean?
5. An argyle pattern features what shape?
6. The latest film in the Mission: Impossible franchise has what title? (Bonus points for naming how many films are in the franchise and the year the first film was released.)
7. Who wrote the song “All the Young Dudes”?
8. Which book features the line: “… I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed several times since then.”
9. What is the cube root of 729?
10. What is the only Australian restaurant to make the 2018 World’s 50 Best Restaurants list?

Click through for answers.

Quotes

COMEDY

“I never saw someone ruin their entire career with one button push. That was fresh.”

Jerry SeinfeldThe comic weighs in on Roseanne Barr, whose career collapsed in a blaze of racist prejudice and Ambien. Seinfeld has clearly forgotten the career of the racist who played Kramer, but then everyone has.

SPIES

“That’s what happens in a pre-police state, where instead of a royal commission they lock up people who more likely deserve the Order of Australia.”

Andrew WilkieThe independent MP expresses outrage after lawyer Bernard Collaery and his client, Witness K, were charged for their role in exposing Australian bugging during Timor gas talks. They are accused of breaching the ironically named Intelligence Services Act.

POLICE

“At the end of the day, it’s police investigating police.”

Nick ParkhillThe chief executive of the AIDS Council of New South Wales calls for an independent inquiry into police bias over historic gay hate crimes in Sydney. The police response is missing somewhere near South Head.

SENATE

“I told him that he was a creep. His reply was to tell me to ‘F-dot-dot-dot off’.”

Sarah Hanson YoungThe Greens senator asks David Leyonhjelm to apologise for telling her to “stop shagging men” while she was speaking to a motion on violence against women. The difference between a libertarian and a 12-year-old boy narrows by the day.

PRONUNCIATION

“If you can’t get someone’s name right, it says that you’ve got no regard, you haven’t done the work. You haven’t tried.”

Craig FosterThe SBS presenter addresses criticism of his co-host Lucy Zelic during the World Cup. Some viewers apparently took issue with Zelic’s decision to pronounce players’ names correctly.

CONSISTENCY

“I haven’t flip-flopped. I said no originally, then I said yes, then I have said no and I’ve stuck to it.”

Pauline HansonThe One Nation leader clarifies her position on corporate tax cuts. She’s solid on all the important issues, though, such as being a racist.