I was stunned to read reports that Peter Dutton’s home affairs department is rife with bullying and harassment. You learn something new every day.
I just assumed any department headed by Dutton would be a happy, friendly place, with puppies running around and flower gardens and lambs and group hugs every hour.
When the Coalition unexpectedly won the May federal elections, it was tempting to assume no good would come of it. But that type of thinking ignores just how much money the gambling industry lost with the defeat of the odds-on favourite, Labor.
It is bad enough that our rulers insist on pushing ahead on a course so disastrous that when a new report says human civilisation could end by 2050, you think “that’s optimistic” as you just saw another report saying the Arctic is melting so rapidly the scientists trying to measure it keep losing their tools, but, honestly, do they need to be so fucking smug about it?
The bizarreness of Australian politics was summed up in multi-millionaire mining magnate Clive Palmer’s election advertisement accusing Labor of “supporting the big end of town”. He's right, though he is in no position to point the finger, writes Carlo Sands.
In the aftermath of the terrorist attack on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which 50 people were killed, some of the comments from those with a public platform have been breathtakingly offensive.
Comrades! After many years of debate on the left on how to win socialism, a clear path has opened in Australia — hack the attorney-general office’s email to instruct federal Coalition MPs to vote for a motion to socialise the means of production.
A lot of people are alarmed at the rate at which prime ministers get changed these days. Personally, I’d be happy to have a new PM every week so long as none of them torture any innocent people in isolated offshore prison camps, writes Carlo Sands.
It says a lot about the state of politics today that the worst thing following the Murdoch-owned Sky News interview with neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell on immigration earlier this month, was not that a media outlet was giving a fascist a platform. The worst thing was that Cottrell’s comments were indistinguishable from those of other mainstream media outlets and elected politicians.
“REJECTING ROOM”, screamed the front page of the Herald Sun on July 6, in a very clever pun on North Richmond’s safe injecting room that had opened a few days earlier.
“Addicts snub injecting facility” and “Nothing changed in heroin hotspot” sat above the main cover slogan to emphasise the point about ungrateful “druggies”.
I’m late commenting on the royal wedding due to having to recover from a drinking game I invented for the spectacle: you had to take a shot each time you see a parasite. Here’s a tip for anyone wanting to try this game next time: best play it in the emergency department of your local hospital to save time.
Recent military actions by Western powers, backed by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, have certainly proven controversial. But the simple fact is that the civilised and democratic West cannot refuse to act in the face of the indiscriminate massacre of civilians in Yemen … I mean Syria.
Explaining his call to fast track visas for white South African farmers, the renowned humanitarian Peter Dutton, whose famed concern for those in need of asylum is matched only by his complete lack of potato-like features, explained: “They need help from a civilised nation like ours.”