Thanks to everyone who pointed out that I wrote “Samoa” when I meant “Solomons” in last week’s newsletter. That’s the problem with doing one’s own subbing: you miss some really obvious, dumb things. The log jam is starting to move a little this week with the Herald printing a column on the impressive new Bundanon and its Art Museum – although I had nothing to do with the headline, which makes the article sounds like a puff piece from the travel section. The paper has also given a run to an obituary on Ken Whisson, which I can now post as well.
The movie being reviewed is Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness – not exactly my first choice, but I’m not able to indulge myself week after week with foreign films when there are blockbusters that will appeal to a much larger number of AFR readers. In other words, I have to balance the subtitled arthouse movies with the occasional superhero or action extravaganza. I have a terrible premonition that I’ll soon be writing about the new Top Gun movie.
Doctor Strange was diverting enough, but one would need a PhD in Marvel Comics to understand what on earth was going on for most of the time. I’m beginning to think life’s too short to start learning about the multiverse – or at least about the Marvel version. It’s definitely too short to become knowledgeable about bitcoin or NFTs. Even people who think they can make money out of these things often have only the most rudimentary ideas about how they work.
Putin keeps griding away in the Ukraine, while the election campaign grinds us down in Australia. Vlad would have us believe that the war is not really a war, and certainly not his fault, but Scummo refuses to accept responsibility for anything. His main line of attack on Labor seems to be that we should stick to the government we know, but surely that’s the problem. We know this mob only too well. If Albo and co. hid behind veils and spoke in riddles they would be well worth a punt after what we’ve seen from the incumbents.
Our Leader wants us to believe he’s a great economic manager, but when interest rates go up that’s got nothing to do with him. He’s hot on “jobs, jobs, jobs”, but his plan for job creation seems to centre around tax cuts for the wealthiest Australians. He cares so much about women that he chose an unelectable one as candidate for Warringah, and gave Rachelle Miller a pay-out of more than $500,000 of taxpayers’ money, after she complained about her former boss, Alan Tudge, and another mysterious Liberal male – now tipped on Twitter to be none other than Josh Frydenberg. True or false, according to an expensive investigation it seems that nobody has actually done anything wrong, so the money must be some sort of honorary gift to Ms. Miller – another sign of the PM’s great respect for women.
Every week, every day, some new scandal or lie comes along. Albo has a long way to go to make himself half as interesting or entertaining. He doesn’t even wash people’s hair, or pull beers in the pub. And when was the last time he attended a sharkies’ game, or was seen in Bunnings? It’s almost unAustralian! Neither is Albo in the running when it comes to being linguistically inventive. Scummo’s great moment in this regard came along last week, when he was explaining why Australia didn’t need a Federal integrity commission. The obvious answer was that it would interfere with Coalition pork-barrelling and clandestine deals, but instead he said it was because such a body would turn Australia into “a public autocracy”.
This has caused a lot of head-scratching, because nobody can work out what on earth he’s talking about. Personally, I think he was referring to the old Marxist classic, “the dictatorship of the Proletariat”. Whatever he meant, it certainly sounded as if he didn’t believe the public had any right whatsoever to know what the government is up to, let alone interfere. This is what he calls “strong leadership” – ie. the strength to withstand calls for transparency and accountabilty. That’s the kind of high principle we can all get behind!
Alas, Scummo seems like a deep political thinker alongside anybody who puts up one of Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party signs in their front yard, proclaiming: “Freedom, Freedom, Freedom!”. It’s not exactly clear in what way these people’s freedoms are being curtailed or hampered. Maybe it’s about the freedom to cheat your workers in nickel mines, or to buy Adolf Hitler’s Mercdedes. Clive has succeeded with both projects. If he printed signs reading: “Stupid, Stupid, Stupid!” I’m sure his party faithful would be just as happy to put them up alongside the hedge.
Speaking of stupid, it’s Archibald Prize time again! As another installment of this Aussie institution looms on the horizon I’ve taken a first look and written a brief piece which I’m adding out this week’s mail-out. I’ve the gravest of concerns that our obsession with this portrait show is in danger of turning Australia into a public autocracy.