Category Archive: Australian Politics
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…
Continue Reading →“My Job is My Number One Priority”
Actually, to be fair, the Premier didn’t say that – his campaign ad launch stated SA jobs were his number-one priority. We guess that’s right. Only – do you feel better off than you did 16 years ago, when a ‘paedophile-hunter’ and self-confessed murderer decided, after having ‘searched his soul,’ to throw the keys of government to the Labor party? They tinkered with the market and feather-bedded it to death. They sand-bagged to weak levies till we all are fit to drown. Now this, “jobs, jobs jobs” after 16 years of “mass misery, mass tedium, mass impotence, mass lifelessness…Cathedrals to…
Continue Reading →Shame
On 13 February 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made the following statement in the House of Representatives, Canberra: “I move: That today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history. We reflect on their past mistreatment. We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations—this blemished chapter in our nation’s history. The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future. We apologise for the laws and policies…
Continue Reading →Lambaste the Critic
Balance of power
Morry Bailes’ In Daily article entitled “Anti Judge rhetoric a danger to democracy” (https://indaily.com.au/opinion/2018/01/18/anti-judge-rhetoric-danger-democracy/) made the following fairly remarkable claim: “The recent criticism of Victorian judges is not helpful and serves only to undermine the public’s confidence in the judiciary. It’s up to all of us to protect the separation of powers and to denounce anyone’s criticism, especially politicians seeking bumps in the polls.” Unfortunately, this admonition to back off from judicial decisions shows the profession to be several passes behind. If criticism of a judicial decision must be confined to someone with standing and wealth to appeal, a right limited to the…
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