Will we ever see this mythical vaccine? As Joe Biden and Boris Johnson vaccinate a milion people a day Scummo hasn’t even been able to vaccinate people in nursing homes and health-care workers. A bold prediction that he’d have us all vaccinated by October (October!) now looks wildly optimistic. Try next year, or maybe we should wait until the next pandemic.
It’s looking as if our success in keeping the virus in check also ensures we will be the very last (non emerging) nation to get vaccinated. When the rest of the world is back on a plane, Australians will still be hunkered down at home, not allowed to leave their own country. That’s apart from the 40,000 Australians that haven’t yet been able to get back from overseas.
As of this week Our Leader is back on a “war” footing. Yes he’s had some problems with the roll out, but what about the states? Haven’t they had problems too? A dedicated adherent to the philosophy of Whataboutism, Scummo believes that the best form of defence is to attack someone else.
It’s a tactic that went awry this week when Christine Holgate, the fomer CEO of Australia Post, had her revenge to a Parliamentary committee. Holgate who was humiliated by the PM, over her purchase of four Cartier watches as presents for executives (“It’s disgraceful!” he shrieked), accused Scummo of bullying. She played the all-powerful gender card, and like Megan Markle, confessed that she’d felt suicidal. All in all, a pretty comprehensive return of serve against a PM struggling to convince us he doesn’t have a “woman problem”.
The watches may have been a rather haute bourgeois form of bonus, but it’s obvious that if Holgate had given her executives two or three times the same amount in cash, no questions would have been asked. Was it purely coincidental that Scummo was under pressure that week over a long list of corruption and incompetance scandals, and was able to use the incident to create a distraction?
It’s also pretty rich considering that one of his most scandal-plagued Ministers (and fellow Jesus Freak), Stuart Robert, was among a group of four Libs that accepted gold Rolexes (valued at $250,000) from a Chinese billionaire in 2014.
Did Scummo ever consider ringing Holgate for a quiet word before standing up and ranting in parliament? Would he have done the same if the CEO had been a bloke? And now he’s being asked for an apology…
Scummo must envy Gladys in NSW, who is not only protected by virtue of gender from having a “woman problem”, but seems to be able to say and do anything she likes with impunity. “Pork-barrelling? What’s wrong with that? Everybody does it!”
Upon learning that Gladys and the gang are about to unleash a new round of savage cuts on the operating budgets of the state’s cultural instititutions the Herald asked me to write an opinion piece, which I’m including as a blog this week. It speaks for itself.
I’m also including two art columns, on the 2021 Dobell Drawing Prize, and the tripartite contemporary art survey, The National. In a nutshell, the Dobell turned out to be better than expected while The National had its ups and downs, but I’ve tried to accentuate the positive.
This week’s movie is another Netflix special and another Academy Award nominee. David Fincher’s Mank is a tale of ye olde Hollywood shot in sumptuous black and white. It introduces us to Herman J. Mankiewicz, scriptwriter of genius and major alcoholic. Between drinks Mank managed to write the script of Citizen Kane so one can’t be too censorious. I think most of us would prefer one honest dipsomaniac to an entire party of moralising politicians.