The culture war drum-beats are sounding again – pounded out by the usual suspects in the Murdoch media and among shock jocks and the Morrison Government.
The mounting hysteria this time is about a new national curriculum which its enemies claim places too much emphasis on Indigenous history and ignores Australia’s ‘Christian heritage’.
A candidate in last year’s City of Port Phillip Council elections had a vision of St Kilda as Monaco. Now the Council has voted unanimously to model it on Fortitude Valley in Brisbane instead.
Fortitude Valley is close to the Brisbane central business district. It has long been the hub of Brisbane’s adult entertainment and is renowned for its nightlife and bars.
The majority of Australians aren’t that interested in politics.
They have their life to get on with and really only get involved in issues which affect them directly – like vaccinations – or which touch a nerve as Morrison’s handling of women’s issues has with Australian women.
Elections make politics difficult to ignore but most people vote for the party they voted for last time and some of them even make up their mind on the way to the polling booth.
In the past 50 years Australia has had 23 Health Ministers. But who is the worst?
Two of them, Lance Barnard and Arthur Sinodinos get passes, because Barnard and Whitlam were Ministers for everything in 1972 and Sinodinos merely filled in temporarily.
Neil Blewett, Brian Howe and Nicola Roxon would be among the best mainly because they focussed on major policy reform; expanded preventative medical programs; and tried to integrate health policy into broader policy perspectives.
The Australian military’s primary focus – at least according to Assistant Defence Minister and ex-Army officer Andrew Hastie – will always be the “application of lethal violence” and that the fighting forces always needed mission clarity.
Arguably a mission statement with the primary focus of ‘lethal violence’ is a recipe for potential war crimes as has allegedly happened with some Australian troops in recent years.
The BBC scrapped all regular programming to cover Prince Phillip’s death. The complaints roared in from viewers, listeners and online followers who complained that it was all too much and they wanted their regular programs back.
An indication of the fervour of media monarchists the BBC was immediately attacked for making it too easy to complain.
There are so many things so many have missed during lockdowns that it is difficult to make a list – or even start to develop one in ranked order – even though there has been plenty of time to think about the problem.
For many two of them would be art galleries and museums. Some might deem that a First World problem and the Morrison Government wouldn’t rank it highly given that the arts – and those who like them – are high on their enemies list.
The Victorian Government is allegedly enthusiastic about parks and has recently announced it plans to spend $15 million to create 13 new pocket parks and five off leash dog parks across Melbourne’s suburbs.
It is all part of a bigger $154 million suburban parks program about which Environment and Climate Change Minister, Lily D’Ambrosio, has said: “The pandemic has brought into sharp focus the importance of open space close to home and these new parks will deliver just that – building on our reputation as one of the world’s most liveable cities.”
There are two Morrisons who have confronted sexism in their ranks. One, David, showed leadership. The other, Scott, showed the antithesis of leadership.
It is eight years since the Chief of Army Lieutenant General David Morrison addressed a sexist misconduct scandal involving more than 100 Australian Defence Force troops.
When Federation occurred in 1901 trade unions and conservative politicians were agreed on one thing – keeping Australia white.
Today trade unions are in the forefront of fights against racism and support for Indigenous causes while the descendants of those old white pollies are raising scares about refugees, Muslims and any other Others they can think of to scare voters.