“It’s been a very torrid time, and I’ve been through a few. This is the worst. People are choosing sides.”
As the Greens continue to fight internally ahead of the NSW election, their dysfunction across branches is threatening the party’s prospects federally.
News
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John Hewson: Morrison isn’t Paul Keating
“People don’t believe it. Their lived experience is completely different.”
By zeroing in on the economy, Scott Morrison is attempting to re-create Keating’s unlikely victory over John Hewson. It’s a losing campaign strategy, says the former Liberal leader.
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How politics, power struggles and the 2022 FIFA World Cup are all at play in the detention of Melbourne-based soccer player and Bahraini refugee Hakeem al-Araibi.
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Risks to foreign students on campus
The rape and murder of Aya Maasarwe near her La Trobe University accommodation shocked the world. But absent from the headlines was acknowledgement of the increasing prevalence of sexual assaults on international students.
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‘Gross negligence’ on Murray-Darling
Murray-Darling Basin royal commissioner Bret Walker, SC, has savaged successive governments and found the basin’s management authority is ‘unwilling or incapable of acting lawfully’.
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Hunger for change in Venezuela
Huawei caught in US–China fight. West Papua petition presented in Geneva. Venezuela’s leadership crisis. Taliban deal in Afghanistan.
Opinion
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Neela Janakiramanan
Opting out of My Health Record
“It seems particularly galling that so much taxpayer money has been spent on a system that cannot improve health unless it is a data source, only to have it fundamentally fail at accurately collecting data in a comprehensive and usable way. For clinicians, it is of little use, as the technologically literate may heavily edit their record while those among us who struggle with technology will likely find it difficult to generate the personal health summaries that are central to the system.”
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Paul Bongiorno
A trip down memory pain
“The speech in Brisbane on Tuesday was billed as a “major” announcement, the first for the year from the prime minister. Absent from this manifesto, though, was any mention of climate change, energy policy or stagnating wages – all issues critical to the performance of the economy that are, not surprisingly, weighing strongly on the minds of voters as well. If nothing else, their absence points to the extreme sensitivity these policy areas hold for Morrison. ”
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Let’s try to keep a sense of proportion about the recent performances of a few of our most adorable contenders. First, The Mad Monk, sportsman and all-round fitness freak, who is raring to have another crack at winning Warringah for the Nasty Party, was in the Palm Beach to Whale Beach 2.8-kilometre swim last Sunday, where he finished 1013th out of 1050.
Letters, Poem & Editorial
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Maxine Beneba Clarke
Ancient Giants
we’ll say
the summer right before
was blue-green algae
bastard took the bony bream
and silver perch
reckon it grew from heat
and farming run-off
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“Black children aren’t safe in their own homes.” It’s a line that stretches deep into this country’s history, stringing together atrocities to justify paternalism and refuse self-determination. Kennerley's comment is a familiar straw man, to reach for the worst abuse suffered by First Nations people and then use it to deny action on any other issues.
Culture
Where’s home for theatre and opera director Barrie Kosky?
Barrie Kosky’s peripatetic career has led him to work throughout Australia and Europe, before finally establishing a true connection with Berlin. Still, for the Melbourne-born theatre and opera director, nothing says “home” like a rehearsal room. “It just happened that theatre discovered me, and performance and music discovered me, because the very same time that I started to think, ‘Who am I? How does this relate to me?’ and felt that disconnectedness, was the very same time I was experiencing music: Mahler symphonies or puppet shows or musicals or opera. And it was very linked.”
Christian Marclay’s hypnotic 24-hour film installation The Clock, comprising a film or video clip for each minute of the day, compels us to consider our mortality.
Maggie Rogers’ Heard It in a Past Life
Pharrell Williams thrust Maggie Rogers and her song ‘Alaska’ into the spotlight. Now, with her debut album, Heard It in a Past Life, she’s taking a more rootsy, spiritual and sedate path to long-lasting success.
“He explains that we are surrounded by quite young forest, that we can tell by the pyramid shape of the mountain ash growing over the tops of the hills that the trees are young. He says we’ll struggle for the rest of the day to find many old trees in the whole system. This was a rare patch of old growth forest that’s now gone. ‘This is hard,’ he says, ‘to come back and see this.’ His face is shaded by a holey Akubra, soft with wear. It’s stamped down over a thick cap of silver hair. He looks out over of the coupe, but he doesn’t pause for long.”
Life
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Singapore International Festival of Arts
A visit to Singapore to see a theatrical version of Orwell’s 1984 leads to deeper insight beign found in an esteemed Indian couple’s poetic relationship.
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NBA rookie Jonah Bolden on life with the Sixers
Never short on self-belief, 23-year-old NBA rookie Jonah Bolden has found success with the Philadelphia 76ers. But his interests don’t just lie on the basketball court.
Books
The Quiz
1. In vehicles, what does the abbreviation ABS stand for?
2. What is the alcohol ingredient of a traditional gimlet cocktail?
3. Sandy Brondello is head coach of which national sports team?
4. Pierpaolo Piccioli is the creative director of which Italian fashion brand?
5. Which singer links the albums The Sound of White, The Ol’ Razzle Dazzle and Solastalgia?
6. What is a mistral?
7. What is the official language of Brazil?
8. Which Monty Python member was knighted in Britain’s 2019 New Year Honours? (Bonus points for naming the five other Monty Python members.)
9. True or false: like its fur, a tiger’s skin is also striped?
10. Soba noodles are traditionally made using what type of flour?
Quotes
RETIREMENT
“If I was a wild pig, a duck or a mud crab, I’d be starting to get nervous.”
The Indigenous affairs minister announces his plan to leave politics and focus on hunting. Let’s be honest: he’ll be doing less harm.
TENNIS
“I’m not sure how you carried it all this way.”
The Nine commentator asks Australian Open winner Naomi Osaka how she managed to carry her trophy. She dragged it there in a womanly trolley, lined with cliché and condescension.
COMPARISONS
“I think he has the potential to be the most extraordinary leader not just of the federal Liberal Party, not just of the Liberal Party across Australia but of any party since John Howard.”
The health minister backs Scott Morrison after questions about his role in the removal of Malcolm Turnbull. Remember, Hunt’s capacity to interpret information and make projections gave this country its current climate policy.
RELIGION
“Without social networks, she became the first ‘influencer’.”
The pontifex reframes the Virgin Mary for the internet generation. By the same measure, think of Jesus rising from the dead as the first “Have you tried turning it on and off again?”
ELECTIONS
“There’s still work to be done and unfinished business.”
The former Liberal MP announces she will stand against Greg Hunt in Flinders at the next election. No news on whether Banks believes she can run her campaign “on 40 bucks a day knowing the government is supporting me with Newstart to look for employment”.
POLITICS
“I have a track record of under-promising and over-delivering.”
The prime minister defends his promise to create 1.25 million jobs in the next five years. On other projections, he will be able to lose his in the next four months or so.
