Are you rational or self-interested, PM?
“We mustn’t let empathy cloud our judgement.” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull urged the Australian people not to get all “misty-eyed” about the fate of refugees held in off-shore detention. He followed...
View ArticleHow politicians force us to make a choice we should never have to make.
The phrase, Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite, frequently attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville but in fact coined by French counterrevolutionary Joseph de Maistre, is translated as “Every...
View ArticleLet them eat toast
By now, you’ve probably all heard the tale of Duncan Storrar, the man on $20,000 a year who asked assistant treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer on QandA why people much wealthier than him are getting tax breaks...
View ArticlePolitics. What is it good for?
I don’t know if there are people out there as fed up as I am with this interminable election campaign, with its interminable commentators making interminable commentary and engaging in interminable...
View ArticleThe word that Turnbull dares not speak
I’m at a complete loss as to understand why that rasping husk of compromised humanity we’ve had inflicted on us as Prime Minister decided to co-opt this morning’s hideous mass slaughter of gay people...
View ArticleOn Turnbull and stability
Turnbull relying on Australians seeking stability during a time on [sic] unrest in Europe is the headline of Malcolm Farr’s précis of the LNP election campaign launch, held yesterday. The problem with...
View ArticleThe Marriage Act: what is it good for?
In 2004, the Howard LNP government amended the Marriage Act of 1961 to read as follows: Marriage means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life....
View ArticleLNP: “It’s not us, it’s them”
Caretaker Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull yesterday blamed an alleged “scare campaign” by Labor concerning LNP threats to Medicare, for the swing against the government in the election results thus...
View ArticleThe Perils of Pauline
Pauline Hanson has re-emerged as mouthpiece for the nation’s racism, going where the dog whistlers dare not venture, vocalising “what ordinary people are really thinking and are too scared to say.”...
View ArticleSo they want to change 18c
Returned Senator David Leyonhjelm and new One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts both want rid of section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act. Section 18c makes it illegal to carry out an act if: “(a) the...
View ArticleNo we are not “better than this”. We are worse.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton seems to be of the opinion that because people fleeing their home countries pay “people smugglers” for passage to Australia, it is perfectly acceptable for them to be...
View ArticleThere’s never been a better time for white men and Section 18C
Oh, that David Leyonhjelm! What a scamp he is! As you probably know, he’s making a complaint to the Human Rights Commission under Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, after Fairfax journalist...
View ArticleAustralia, Vietnam and white male supremacy
I don’t know who came up with the macabre notion of recreating the concert at which Little Pattie was performing when the Battle of Lon Tân commenced fifty years ago. I don’t know who came up with the...
View ArticleDutton’s message: torture works
Yesterday I had a Twitter conversation about Kathryn Bigelow’s movie, Zero Dark Thirty, which was shown on SBS last night. Many angry critics have described the film as CIA propaganda advocating...
View ArticleMorrison’s ethics and the Taxed-Nots
Treasurer Scott Morrison and I have very different understandings of what comprises a “Taxed-Not,” a term it was yesterday alleged on Twitter he plagiarised from a Fox News anchor who coined it some...
View ArticleThe profound nastiness of the Turnbull government
It was inevitable that any opposition by the ALP or Greens to Abbott’s reeking legacy, the proposed plebiscite on marriage equality, would provide the Turnbull government with the ammunition to claim...
View ArticleWhy do 13 Coalition backbenchers need to racially offend and insult?
Today, the first sitting day of a new parliament, thirteen, yes thirteen coalition backbenchers defied their Prime Minister and called for an amendment to Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act...
View ArticleThe government as sea lions
I don’t know if you’ve ever watched the sea lions at Pier 39 in San Francisco. I’m reminded of that querulous and stinking marine rabble whenever I encounter the Turnbull government in my media. The...
View ArticlePot, kettle – There’s no missing the government’s glaring hypocrisy
The Coalition’s current explosion of self-righteous outrage is something to behold. Compared to the excesses of, say, Bronwyn Bishop, or the personal gifts bestowed on Foreign Minister Julie Bishop by...
View ArticleThe year that made me
As I listened to Attorney-General George Brandis today unconvincingly bellow (shout loud: argument weak, as the father of my children used to say) that Malcolm Turnbull will be remembered by history as...
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