Category Archive: Australian Politics
A Bigger Picture
By Malcolm Turnbull (2020) To re-tell a recent joke, with apologies to Frankie Boyle, Turnbull’s memoir is not like Turnbull the man, in 2 respects: it has a spine, and you may not want to put it down. Yes, we’re on record as not being Malcolm fans, for whom this pretty well written and interesting book is designed, though it holds wider interest in following the August path of destiny for Australia’s 29th Prime Minister, a path strewn with garlands and fleeting triumphs, told in a voice of peerless self-confidence, well described by Jonathon Green in the Sydney Morning Herald…
Continue Reading →Crabb and Pyne In Conversation
Old sparring partners
University of Adelaide, 13 June 2019 In the re-furbished Students’ Bar at Adelaide University, we gathered to hear a highly entertaining chat by University Alumni, namely former Commonwealth Minister Christopher Pyne, and Journalist / Presenter Annabel Crabb, with Anthony Durkin acting as Moderator. Katrina Bochner, a Judge of the South Australian Supreme Court, introduced the participants (skipping some of Pyne’s lengthy CV despite his enthusiastic prompting for more) and then a large crowd experienced the voyeuristic pleasure of eavesdropping on a relaxed, droll, indulgent and wide-ranging discussion of Law School life and beyond. Mr. Durkin, such an expert at this thing…
Continue Reading →Asked and Answered, Malcolm
On Thursday evening, 8 November 2018, former MP and PM Malcolm Bligh Turnbull appeared, jauntily jacketed, sans necktie, to “face” the nation (well, the carefully screened Q & A audience, one of whom, in a priceless moment, addressed him as ‘Tony’) in ABC’s Ultimo studios. He knew his enemies. Like the Nixon Administration, Turnbull-in-Exile has drawn an Enemies List. The enemies include Mathias Corman, News Limited (Rupert Murdoch), Peter Dutton, Radio 2GB, Right-wing extremists (see ‘Tony Abbott’ below), Sky News, Tony Abbott. This is not an exhaustive list. Perhaps Malcolm will release a complete one in due course, just before the next Federal Election. Yes, he knew his…
Continue Reading →The Football Solution
By George Megalogenis (2018) First, one disclamatory reason for liking this book. At a pub on the south side of Adelaide on AFL Grand Final day, 2017, I was the sole Richmond supporter (wearing my Glenelg Tigers scarf and barracking for my 2nd team) which earned plenty of dirty looks. Outside a restaurant in town after the match, I caught the eye of an Adelaide Crows fan, bedecked in all the gear, packing his sullen family into a people-mover. Without a trace of sarcasm (because I’ve seen a few losing Grand Finals, and you don’t rub it in in such…
Continue Reading →ADEL-AID
16 March, 2018 at “Jade”, Adelaide Fringe Raw, but we ate it up. This performance was one of those closest to the spirit of the Fringe, where non or semi-professionals can test their abilities, and material, in front of an Adelaide crowd, a crowd that is no pushover, albeit less querulous than Milan and less violent than Edinburgh. Co-producers Simon Coad and Adrian Nippress, in collaboration with Simon Goodes, created the gruesome conceit of a mock ‘Telethon,’ with all the forced striving to entertain and chaotic variety which that entails, and whilst The Varnished Culture had reservations (of which more…
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