Category

Australian Politics

January 10, 2022
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When it comes to submarines, we sign up to some vague plan at the cost of tens of billions. When it comes to showering taxpayer money into Coalition seats as rorts, it’s considered good value. When it comes to large corporations walking away with billions of erroneously claimed JobKeeper dollars, there’s no need to get the handouts backs. But now that I would like a few RAT [Rapid Antigen Test] kits, which would be for the wider community’s health more than my own, I’m being lectured on things not being “free”. I have not been able to procure a RAT, but I sure can smell one. [https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/couldn-t-give-a-rats-pm-cuts-us-loose-as-cases-soar-20220104-p59loe.html]

Wendy Varney
January 2, 2022
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Media should speak more forcefully to the decay in our democratic systems, instead of running interference for ossified and self-serving political cartels. Unsurprisingly, representative democracy will only be rescued by itself - which is to say, by voters overwhelming the vested interests who have proved so adept at gaming it. The emergence of quality independents in 2022 might just be how that rescue begins. (https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7567771/election-2022-a-chance-for-something-better/)

Mark Kenny
December 17, 2021
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I think one of the key things that happens is that there is a belligerent demand for people to position themselves as victims. If you look at the cohort of people who are savagely antivaxxer, not the people who are scared, not the people who are simply misinformed; but if you look at the cohort who are savagely antivaxxer, they tend to be life’s losers. That’s who they are, and those people can either take on a personal narrative of ‘I’m a victim’ or ‘I’m an idiot’, and the ‘I’m a victim’ is a far happier outcome and a far easier thing to resolve. It’s difficult down at the shallow end, and that’s where they are, frankly. (The Drum [45:46], https://iview.abc.net.au/video/NC2107H229S00)

Toby Ralph
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