After Tonga was virtually wiped out by a volcanic eruption the Australian government announced it would be giving them a million dollars in aid. This, of course, is only a fraction of the billions gifted to friendly corporations during the lockdown, but hey, when was the last time Tonga made a substantial donation to the Liberal party? Besides, how many people have you met who’ve actually been there?
I suppose we should see a million dollars as an unusually generous gesture for Scummo’s gang. There was no way they were going to give away free Rapid Antigen Tests, even if the UK and the United States were prepared to do so. This policy has proven so unpopular it should still be in people’s minds when the election rolls around. By then, our leader will have come up with some whizz-bang new announcement intended to prove he’s doing a great job – just so long as we forget almost everything that’s happened over the past three years.
Even the Djokovic saga, in which the government’s response was delayed and calibrated with the opinion polls, has tended to backfire. Although most Australians didn’t seem too unhappy to see Novax back on a plane to Serbia, the big problem was that he should never have been granted a visa in the first place. Who gives out these visas? Tennis Australia is not a branch of the immigration department. In trying to show how big and tough they are, by sticking Novax into a shabby hotel, the government inadvertantly revealed that they had filed and forgotten a whole raft of refugees in the same establishment. Nobody – except Scummo, the Boiled Egg, and their cronies – could feel anything but horrified by the Iranian guy who has been imprisoned in this place for more than nine years, since the age of 15. There are murderers, rapists and bank robbers who’ve served shorter sentences.
Although, by international law, this man has a right to apply for refuge, we have treated him like a super criminal. The taxpayer has financed nine years of detention for a poor bugger who might have been gainfully employed all that time. In pre-Howard days this would have been a front page, shock-horror story. Are we so hardened and cynical we’re prepared to accept such wanton acts of inhumanity, paid for with our taxes? And let’s not forget the (at last count) $6.7 milion spent by the government persecuting the famous Sri Lankan family. That’s almost seven times the amount given to Tonga in aid. Good to know the government has its priorities sorted out.
The art column this week is a larger, more considered take on the Matisse exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW. I’ve already written a quick ‘first glance’ at the show which highlighted a few misgivings. Nevertheless, one can’t complain too much about anything by Matisse. In this extended column I’ve concentrated on key works and tried to accentuate the positive.
The film being reviewed is Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley, which proved to be a stylish disappointment. As I’d done with movies such as A Star is Born and Little Women, I went back and watched the earlier Hollywood version of the story – made in 1946, directed by Edmund Gouding and starring Tyrone Powell. On other occasions I could report that the new versions were far superior to their predecessors, which had benefited from the false lustre of nostalgia. In this instance, the 1946 movie had the edge, an impression confirmed by reading the novel. Del Toro is great on the visuals, but is let down by his story-telling.
Perhaps what Tonga needs is a Hollywood producer willing to make a superhero disaster movie about the eruption. That’d be one way of injecting a hundred million or so into the economy. Rather than waiting for charity from the Australian government it would be better to turn catastrophe into popular entertainment, as this seems to be the only way to reach the vast majority of people nowadays. On the other hand, the Chinese have already said they’re prepared to help out, and will probably be a lot more generous than Scummo. If this happens we’ll get the chance to see him pout and wrinkle his forehead, while he denounces the Chinese for spreading their sphere of influence in the Pacific. It might be his last pre-election chance to stir up a little fear and xenophobia.