Keelty warns river ‘ripe for corruption’
“The system relies on honesty and integrity but if you look at the number of prosecutions and infringement notices issued in New South Wales in the last 12 months, the pillar of honesty doesn’t appear to be that strong,”
EXCLUSIVE: Former AFP chief Mick Keelty is examining links between political donations and water licences, and calling for proceeds-of-crime laws to be expanded.
News
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What is next for the Australian Greens
“Along with Adam Bandt, six of the Greens’ nine senators are up for re-election. There’s a lot to lose, and senior Greens figures aren’t bullish about their prospects.”
While high-profile candidate Julian Burnside has animated the Greens in Kooyong, party strategists fear there is a lot to lose.
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Campaigning for votes from ethnic communities
“This will be the first election where the major political parties will spend more on social media advertising than on mainstream media marketing. And the bulk of that will be spent on ethnic targeting.”
Data shows the Coalition’s 2016 election victory hinged on just three ethnically diverse seats – Banks, Reid and Chisholm. This time around Labor is shaping its campaign around winning back these communities.
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Medivac missteps rack sick refugees
Refugees on Manus and Nauru were given hope by the passing of the medivac bill, but the reality is just another layer of bureaucracy added to their lives.
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A path to recovery on missing soldiers
The exhumation of remains from a Honolulu cemetery could bring answers for the families of Australian servicemen missing, presumed dead, in the Korean War.
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Sri Lanka looks for clues on bombings
China holds second forum on Belt and Road Initiative. Ukraine elects comedian as president. Motivation unknown for Sri Lanka terrorism.
Opinion
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A.J. Brown
Matters of trust in public office
“The nation will soon head to the polls with public integrity a higher-profile issue than perhaps ever before in Australian history. The two major parties, however, seem to be the last people in the country to realise this. Trust took a dive not only because citizens suddenly felt unsure that their vote mattered. It was also the flip side – concern about the failure of due democratic process and the role of undue influences over the decision-making in Australia’s highest office. This is the message the major parties seem to have missed.”
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Paul Bongiorno
Coalition takes water, presses on
“Just when many of his troops were beginning to believe Scott Morrison’s Easter prayers might be answered, their hopes were shattered by Barnaby Joyce. The New England MP has form in derailing Liberal prime ministers when they appear to be making headway – just ask Malcolm Turnbull. The $79 million water buyback imbroglio had been simmering for more than a week, ever since The Project on the Ten Network picked up the work of business journalist Michael West in a major report.”
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Gadfly
Gus tries to block the leaks
Gadfly always had a strong feeling The Beetrooter and Gussy Taylor would rescue a dismal election campaign from complete boredom. Citizens are now focusing on the brilliance of making $79 million from taxpayers by selling rainwater and sending the loot to the Cayman Islands where it is safely tucked up out of reach from the grasping maw of the taxman.
Letters, Poem & Editorial
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with his right arm raised
in holy rapture
and the invited camera man
angling the frame
shirt creased shadow-dramatic
like a gentileschi
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Publicly, Bill Shorten said he doubted the Adani coalmine would go ahead but that he wouldn’t change the law to prohibit it. “I don’t think the project is going to materialise. The Adani mining company seems to have missed plenty of deadlines. It doesn’t seem to stack up financially, commercially or indeed environmentally.” This has been his line since, a way of avoiding the question on something he doesn’t think will happen. He won’t criticise the mine directly, but he says it needs to satisfy science and the environment. It also needs to be financially viable. In reality, it is none of these things.
Culture
Angelica Mesiti emergent in Venice
As Sydney-born, Paris-based artist Angelica Mesiti prepares to show her three-channel video work Assembly in the Australian pavilion at the Venice Biennale, she talks about emotional responses, music as a salve and the vital need for connection. “Dissonance is a word that was really important to this work. Basically, the work is using music as a metaphor. It travels through dissonance, through harmony, through polyphony, through cacophony.”
Her astonishing debut album saw SOAK become the youngest artist to be shortlisted for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize. So, can her ambitious follow-up, Grim Town, reach the heights of her early success?
Miracle Workers’ heavenly charms
In Miracle Workers, the latest program about the afterlife, the crisis on Earth is taken to extremes with Steve Buscemi in charge of Heaven Inc.
Top End Wedding actress Miranda Tapsell
“I’m really thankful that I’m living in a climate where there’s Crazy Rich Asians, The Big Sick and The Incredible Jessica James on Netflix. These are people who aren’t Aboriginal but they are from a marginalised ethnic background, and they’re trying to understand themselves in a relationship. It did give me that permission to stand on my own two feet and trust what I was saying. ”
Life
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Yiramalay/Wesley Studio School
A two-way learning program founded through collaboration between an Indigenous community in the Kimberley and an exclusive Melbourne private school could one day become a model for other education projects across Australia.
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The self-belief of Ash Brazill
Ash Brazill is a powerful force as a netballer and AFLW player. But her true strength lies in the messages she sends off the court.
Books
Puzzles
1. Who was actress and activist Jane Fonda’s media mogul third husband?
2. Who hosted the original Mastermind television quiz series in Australia? (Bonus point for naming the host of the new SBS Mastermind series.)
3. Which Australian senator quit federal politics to contest the 2019 New South Wales state election but failed to win a seat?
4. Are pandas’ eyes circled in white or black fur?
5. Haptic relates to which of the senses?
6. Do Hardy Brothers make wine, jewellery or luggage?
7. The father of which comedian and TV presenter was a model for a Solo Man advertisement in the 1980s?
8. Which golfer won the 2019 US Masters this month?
9. Innsbruck is a city in which country?
10. Which of these is not an element on the periodic table: (a) einsteinium; (b) rutherfordium; (c) newtonium; or (d) mendelevium?
Quotes
DARWINISM
“What happened to the dinosaurs? How did they die off? Humans didn’t create it.”
The One Nation leader scoffs at the human-induced climate change during an interview on Today with Deborah Knight, who in that moment presumably welcomed the idea of an asteroid speeding towards her at 7000 kilometres an hour.
LEADERSHIP
“The prime minister’s job isn’t to be the court jester, it’s to be the man with the plan.”
The Labor leader vows to stop Scott Morrison running “around the country taking his happy pills”. Bill Shorten is promising rhymes in place of jokes, much like musical comedy group Tripod.
POETRY
“Scandal is his shadow.”
The United Australia Party candidate describes Barnaby Joyce, who was absent from a candidate forum. It remains to be seen whether Clive Palmer will tolerate having another poet in his party.
PREFERENCES
“He’s big enough to do that for himself.”
The prime minister takes the moral high ground, deciding not to use his announcement of a preference deal with the United Australia Party to taunt Clive Palmer, who once likened Morrison to Heinrich Himmler.
AMERICA
“That’s why today I’m announcing my candidacy for president of the United States.”
The former vice-president puts up his hand for the Democratic nomination. He promised not to put said hand on to the lower back of any women in his vicinity.
ELECTION
“How much worse does this candidate’s behaviour have to get before Scott Morrison takes action?”
Labor’s education spokesperson slams Kate Ashmor over recently surfaced letters the Liberal candidate wrote voicing support for public funding of private schools. Probably to the level of an indictable offence, if Gladys Liu is anything to go by.
