That was then, this is now That something is entirely predictable and transparent doesn’t always stop it from taking the breath away. Case in point: the front page of The Australian today, featuring the headline “Lockdown or months’ more pain”. This concerns the six day lockdown imposed by the South Australian government, under some of the strictest conditions the world has seen in the past year.
For comparison, here are the first couple of Oz front pages from back when when Victoria announced its lockdown. See if you can spot the difference.
We also can’t help but wonder if we’ll see the same response to any setbacks the people of South Australia experience in quelling this latest outbreak.
But our favourite has to be this one, after the lockdown — and News Corp’s incessant sniping — failed to dent Dan Andrews’ approval ratings.
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What does SA say? While the Oz might be refraining from giving SA Premier Steven Marshall a Dictator Dan-style nickname (come on guys, “Marshall Tito”, it’s right there…) at least we can rely on former turncoat senator and shit blogger Cory Bernardi for some consistency. He’s been relentlessly tweeting since the announcement, starting with the not-at-all hysterical-or-insulting comparison between a six-day lockdown and the repression faced by people under communist dictatorship:
Police state Though it failed to make the news splash that the government might have liked, it’s still worth noting what yesterday’s raids on the offices of the CFMMEU tells us about the priorities of the Australian Federal Police.
When it’s a union accused of wrongdoing, we get public, co-ordinated raids on offices. When it’s a minister, they apparently aren’t able to pick up a phone.
How Abbott that Former prime minster Tony Abbott has urged his new bosses in the UK not to “sabotage” trade deals by incorporating “relatively theological points” like the trifling matter of climate change. We’re surprised to hear that he’s suddenly so keen to keep theology out of policy, and equally we wonder what he exactly he meant by theological.
Perhaps, as a devout Catholic, he was referring to Pope Francis’ second encyclical Laudato si’, which deeply concerned itself with the environment, and unambiguously accepted the scientific consensus on climate change and “unchecked human activity”.
We can see why Abbott in particular might want to keep that kind of theology out of the conversation.
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Please don’t remind me about Tony Abbott.
I’m desperately trying to forget.
Pope Francis. Perhaps his heart is in the right place. And he’s an improvement on his predecessor.
But let’s not be too generous.
Embracing the importance of climate change without acknowledging the need for population stabilisation is a non-sequitur.
Colour me unconvinced.
Maybe those who write headlines at The Australian think that their readers have the attention span of a goldfish. Look on the bright side, The
AustralianEastcoaster is paying attention to SA for once.“Marshall Law”, I mean really, what do they teach you people at headline writing school these days?
Yeah, it was obvious wasn’t it. You beat me to it on Crikey, was virtually the first phrase that came to mind when news came out.
Where’s Micallef?
When will the federal police get a name change from the Australian Federal police to the Coalitions Personal Special Political Police force, not AFP, but the SPSPF, It has a catchy ring to it and Scomo loves that.
The AFP has no credibility – none. Jack Waterford rips into it regularly in his Saturday Canberra Times column, which is usually republished by John Menadue.
You might think the ANAO’s comment that the AFP could usefully have considered actually talking to someone in Angus Taylor’s immediate circle would have warranted some further discussion but I saw no mention on SBS or ABC News or The Drum, or the Sales Report at 7.30.
In his reference to “relatively theological points” Tony Abbott is wilfully conflating the warnings from respectable climate science with the starry-eyed renewables movement, who ideologically believe that the earth is running out of minerals. We should take warning from the sideswipe. To conservatives and reformers alike, we should be able to sell fossil carbon as the enemy of the climate, based as it is in respectable science. However we do need to shake off the flower-power language of ageing hippies.
Describing big business, national governments, scientists and even fossil fuel companies, all of which accept that renewable energy is the way of the future, as starry-eyed ageing hippies is just plain ridiculous. You’re an old man shouting at the sun and the wind. You should have a look around that planet you are living on, as it seems to be a long way from Earth and you might want to get back home sometime. In the meantime, my solar panels and battery are cheerfully producing more power than I need. How’s your backyard nuclear power plant going?
“the starry-eyed renewables movement, who ideologically believe that the earth is running out of minerals”.
Really? I read a fair bit from numerous sources and haven’t read one renewable supporter who has been arguing that the world is running out of minerals. Strange.