News

ASIO officers broke law on warrant

“Whilst operational staff complied with ASIO’s operational planning procedures, these procedures were inconsistent with other ASIO policies and were insufficient to ensure that ASIO acted lawfully.”

Karen Middleton The agency’s watchdog, tasked with unravelling the breach, has echoed growing concern about flawed and confusing new anti-terror laws.

News

News

Mental health cost of welfare

“One of the things that I have experienced myself … is the utter stress of living on Centrelink payments that are inadequate. Me having to choose between going to therapy to actually get better or having food.”

Rick Morton A wide-ranging review of Australian mental health has pointed to the welfare system, particularly the troubled jobactive program, as a key driver in the crisis.

News

Reporting racism

Santilla Chingaipe A new study highlighting systemic racism in the Australian media has called for stronger guidelines to regulate against both overt and covert prejudice.

News

Activism and secondary boycotts

Mike Seccombe Although the Coalition is talking tough about criminalising consumer advocacy, legal experts say any attempt to do so will be hamstrung by reality.

News

Risking life in PNG limbo

“They are known in PNG as the ‘negatives’. Australia doesn’t want them, America doesn’t want them, Papua New Guinea doesn’t want them.”

Paddy Manning Ahead of a senate vote that could repeal the medevac legislation, the fate of more than 200 asylum seekers in Port Moresby hangs in the balance.

World

India’s PM rejects East Asia trade pact

Jonathan Pearlman US to formally leave Paris climate agreement. Australia joins trade pact but Narendra Modi declines. Daesh attacks continue in Africa. Delhi closes schools and restricts car use over smog.

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Opinion

Opinion

Anthony Kelly
Brutality checks on activists

“For those who have watched the evolution of public-order policing in Victoria over recent years, the sort of police violence we saw at the International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) protests in Melbourne would’ve come as no real surprise.”

Opinion

Paul Bongiorno
Post-election blues all round

“Never has it been more obvious: getting elected is one task, governing is another. While Labor tries to move on from its election loss review, delivered to the executive on Thursday, Scott Morrison is finding that running the country is harder than winning the unwinnable election. ”

Diary

Gadfly
Voters look back in anger

Richard Ackland

Here we are six months after the federal election and upon swaths of citizens it has dawned that they have bought tickets to a flop. If it’s cringeworthy now, imagine another two-and-a-half years of this clapped-out music-hall routine.

Letters, Poem & Editorial

Poem

Maxine Beneba Clarke
Waltzing Matildas

a lot can go down

along the 200 red burning

      metres of track

between the victory lap

 

         and the starter gun

Read More

Editorial
Everything is not okay

Labor’s campaign was flawed but its policies were right. Its failure came in acknowledging that the country needs to change. More than anything, Australians want a prime minister who covers for their shortcomings – who says not to worry, and that most of you will be okay.

Letters

Bailing out water

The more we hear about the problem of managing water rights in the Murray–Darling system, the more it sounds like a classic example of too many cooks spoiling the broth. Karen Middleton’s report (“Former …

Getting to the truth

The only hopeful news I’ve read in way, way too long. A proper integrity commission? Yes, please. A proper investigation into the Murray–Darling Basin Authority on both federal and state roles? …

Read More

Culture

Profile

An audience with Antonio Banderas

Andy Hazel Drawing on his recent experience of a heart attack, as well as his decades-long friendship with director Pedro Almodóvar, Antonio Banderas has produced what may be his finest performance in Pain and Glory. “We hadn’t worked together in eight or nine years, but suddenly he calls me and says, ‘Hey, I’m gonna send you something. You’re going to find a lot of references to people that you and I know.’ And I received Pain and Glory. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it because he was there, it was such an opportunity. So, I went to him as a soldier, as a very, very plain soldier, ready to listen. Really listen.”

Music

FKA twigs’ Magdalene

Shaad D’Souza Electronic musician FKA twigs is at the height of her powers on her new album, Magdalene, which combines formal ingenuity with visceral emotion.

Books

Jung Chang
Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister

Peter Monteath
Battle on 42nd Street

Lily Hibberd, Bonney Djuric (eds)
Parragirls

Life

Food

Licorice molasses cake with candied ginger

David Moyle

Health

Nimbin’s recreational cannabis trial

Michele Tydd Medicinal cannabis may be garnering the majority of research attention but a new study by Monash University is investigating how the ratio of chemical compounds in the drug affects long-term recreational users.

Sport

Alicia Molik eyes Fed Cup glory

Linda Pearce As Australia sets itself for its first Fed Cup final since 1993, team captain Alicia Molik reflects on her own on-court highs and lows and assesses what makes world No. 1 Ash Barty so special.

Puzzles

The Cryptic

Crossword No. 278

The Quiz

1. Name the Kahlil Gibran book, first published in 1923, that comprises 26 prose poetry fables.
2. American rapper Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar is known professionally by what name?
3. Who are the subjects of Michelangelo’s Pietà?
4. What are the first names of Justin Trudeau’s parents?
5. What is -80 divided by -2?
6. Which Australian rock band’s name is an anagram of “old clichés”?
7. What is the meaning of the Greek root word bio?
8. The West End of London’s is best known for which field of the arts?
9. When looking towards the bow of a ship, is the port side on the left or the right? (Bonus point for naming which colour navigation light indicates the port side.)
10. Name the nosy neighbour on the TV series Bewitched.

Click through for answers.

Quotes

ENTERTAINMENT

“Look, we’re having a conversation about Phoebe’s gender here, which is fucking ridiculous.”

Daniel CraigThe actor dismisses suggestions writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge was brought onto the forthcoming James Bond movie as a diversity hire. You know a franchise is fusty when hiring an award-winning RADA graduate who’s descended from landed gentry is read as a PR play to make things seem more “modern”.

RESPECTABILITY

“No, I fucking don’t. If you go low, I’m gonna come for you.”

Mona Eltahawy

The writer and activist rejects Michelle Obama’s catchcry “When they go low, we go high” on Q&A. Both mantras remain decidedly more useful than “If you have a go, you get a go”.

BARGAIN HUNTING

“The travel was within normal guidelines.”

Spokesperson for Melissa PriceThe Defence Industry minister charged taxpayers $77,254 for a recent European trip. Explains where she was hiding all that time when she had the Environment portfolio.

SELF-AWARENESS

“If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get my consent. It won’t last forever, you’ve gotta ask again…”

NSW Police ForceThe state’s police force shares a catchy rework of the Spice Girls hit “Wannabe” to illustrate the importance of consent, in the same week it is accused of strip searching more than 120 under-age girls.

MELBOURNE CUP

“It’s a lovely story. This is the horse that grew here, not flew here.”

Andrew Rule

The Herald Sun journalist manages to find a xenophobic take on Australia’s best-known race in personal best time, though still a few lengths off the record set by previous Sunrise guests.

NOBILITY

“We were so afraid we wouldn’t be able to interview Kate and Will that we … quashed the story.”

Amy RobachThe ABC America anchor is caught by a hot mic expressing her anger at the US network spiking her story about Jeffrey Epstein three years ago. Because no number of Pulitzers, nor bringing down “America’s most prolific paedophile”, is worth jeopardising your Royals special.