Doctors crippled by religious backlash
“Dr Jane Goddard is the only doctor in Wagga who would talk on the record for this piece. She says many doctors ‘fear the outrage of conservative reactionaries, some of whom are fairly senior in the medical system here’. ”
Exclusive: Women seeking to terminate pregnancies in Wagga are being forced to go elsewhere as doctors bow to pressure from pro-life colleagues.
News
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$500m fund was directed to key Liberals
“The half-billion-dollar fund has drawn ire from key state governments who say they were not consulted about the projects, some of which cannot be built as promised.”
Established ahead of the 2019 election, the fund pledged to upgrade commuter car parks. Forty-three of its 46 projects were in key Liberal marginal seats.
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Queensland’s domestic violence struggle
Despite the Queensland government’s huge financial commitment to the battle against family violence, the brutal murders of Hannah Clarke and her three children at the hands of her abusive husband highlight how far there is to go.
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Julian Assange’s extradition hearing
As Julian Assange’s fight against extradition to the United States finally came to court this week, allegations arose that he was bugged at the Ecuadorian embassy.
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Political warfare over climate action
While Labor’s commitment to a 2050 emissions target reinvigorated well-practised attacks from the Coalition, the cost of inaction is only becoming clearer.
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Financial markets have suffered heavy falls and major events have been cancelled in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, while scientists continue the search for a vaccine.
Opinion
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Richard Denniss
The inequality of the superannuation system
“A part-time cleaner earning $18,000 a year will receive zero tax concessions for their compulsory superannuation contribution; meanwhile, a chief executive of a big bank can get tens of thousands of dollars every year in taxpayer support for their “retirement nest egg”. This is the strange world of Australia’s retirement income system: a world in which those who need the most get the least.”
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Paul Bongiorno
Scott Morrison’s quest for immunity
“There’s an old saying in politics, ‘Never waste a good crisis.’ And it’s crystal clear Scott Morrison isn’t wasting any moment where he can be seen responding to the threat coronavirus – or COVID-19, as it’s now known – is posing to Australia and the world. It stands in stark contrast with his derelict early response to the bushfire emergency.”
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Gadfly
Merritt bastes decision
When palaeoconservatives get tangled in issues of race inevitably their pants catch on fire. So it was with the High Court decision in Love, Thoms v The Commonwealth – when a majority of the judges stopped Benito Dutton deporting a couple of Aboriginal men who had done time for criminal offences in Australia.
Letters, Cartoon & Editorial
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Editorial
Six years of making sense
It is six years since The Saturday Paper printed its first edition. At the time we said our task was to make sense of Australia. The great joy of this task is that it is never done. That is also its occasional frustration.
Culture
Community has always been important to dancer and artist Bhenji Ra, who found solidarity in New York’s ballroom culture. In the wake of this summer’s devastating bushfires, she turned her focus back home, to the NSW south coast community that supported her to pursue her dreams. “It was the most incredible New Year’s Eve I’ve had. I’d never felt so intimate with my family. We were all there together – except for my older sister, who lives in Los Angeles – and with our community as well.”
Agatha Gothe-Snape: The Outcome Is Certain
The Outcome Is Certain, the first exhibition to survey Agatha Gothe-Snape’s career, emphasises the performance strategies and collaborations that underpin this artist’s work.
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Maxine Beneba Clarke
something sure
sit down here now baby,
stop that fidgeting
listen big,
and understand
mama’s gotta school you
’bout something sure
’fore you grow into a man
Life
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The government recently announced that parents dealing with a stillbirth or infant death will be entitled to 12 months of unpaid parental leave. But advocates say there is more we can do for bereaved families.
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Sexual abuse and the National Redress Scheme
With more and more revelations of sexual predators lurking unchallenged within sporting bodies and in the wake of the royal commission, what progress is being made towards signing on to the National Redress Scheme?
Books
Puzzles
1. Sanna Marin is the prime minister of which Scandinavian nation? (Bonus point for naming her age.)
2. What is Shakespeare’s shortest play?
3. How many days are in a leap year?
4. Who wrote the 1963 Miles Franklin Award-winning novel, Careful, He Might Hear You?
5. In 1856 James Alexander Holden opened a business in Adelaide manufacturing what?
6. Which English soccer club has been banned from the Champions League for two years?
7. Which homonyms mean both an elevated habitation and uncanny?
8. Which 72-year-old singer recently told fans he had been diagnosed with “walking pneumonia” after suspending a concert in Auckland?
9. What colour is a chestnut horse?
10. In 1999 which television crime series, starring Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni, premiered on NBC?
Quotes
DIVIDES
“[It’s] definitely a regional facility.”
The North Sydney mayor defends North Sydney Olympic Pool winning a $10 million grant earmarked for regional and rural sporting facilities. Anyone who lives south of the Harbour Bridge would agree with her.
OPTIMISM
“The biggest misconception is that I’m boring.”
The Democratic hopeful responds incorrectly to a debate question. The biggest misconception about the Minnesota senator is actually that she can’t name the president of Mexico. Because she definitely can.
CIRCUMLOCUTION
“We’ve brought the budget back to surplus, next year.”
The treasurer defies time, grammar and all available evidence to assure the Australian public that the economy is fine.
ME TOO
“He took it like a man.”
Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer describes her client’s response to his guilty verdict. “But I’m innocent” was the former movie mogul’s verbatim response, which he repeated three times.
ESCAPE
“They operated as a modern relationship and I’m fine with that.”
The federal Health minister offers his blessing for the marriage between three baboons who escaped a Sydney hospital this week. Polygamy is still easier to accept than climate science, it seems.
APLOMB
“It’s a training centre. People get to be prepared for future jobs.”
The Chinese diplomat is asked about the camps where it’s estimated one million Uygurs are detained by the Chinese government. This transcript appears to have forgotten the scare quotes.
