Slumbering Green

I live in Sydney and I don’t like to brag, but on 15 December – when QR code use in NSW was scrapped – I presciently tweeted the following: I don’t think we’ll have lockdowns again but QR code and mask use probably will stay .. Today it was announced that, in New South Wales, QR code use would return. It was also announced that, in Victoria, indoor mask use might be expanded. Mask use is already mandatory in Victorian shops and on public transport there (it’s mandatory on public transport in NSW). Meanwhile, the Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that, in South Africa, where the Omicron variant of Covid-19 first appeared, infections are declining after a short, sharp spike for about a month. It looks promising. Every day Australians are watching the news avidly as the main drama is playing out in our communities at large. We know how addicted to drama people are – news stories are written to encapsulate conflict in order to draw our eyes, and the number of OTT services serving up movie...

On 8 December at 10.30am (or thereabouts, I can’t be arsed checking the numbers again) I tweeted: I'd be surprised if Berejiklian runs for federal seat of Warringah ... she'd want to avoid the controversy if the ICAC report (not expected for some time) is worse than PM Morrison suspects it might b. To prove that I’m generous with my praise at 9.20am the next day (yesterday) I posted this little sally: Brave of PM to publicly invite Gladys B as a refusal might indicate (in some ppl’s eyes) that she thinks he’s a lame duck. Shows courage of his convictions. I don’t mind, you can flame me. Feel free. Take your best shot. I think Gladys B was a brilliant premier and I know that Morrison is genuine – even though most people I know think he’s something like a snake oil salesman – because he thinks the same. It’s not every day that a politician changes an entire community. And because New South Wales immunised itself in advance of the rest of the country when Michael Rowland on the br...

Like everyone I’ve been watching the news reports about the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s investigation of former New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian. She must now be feeling like someone with a car right on her rear bumper bar – this happened to me just the other day and I pulled over to let the guy pass me and go on his way (but in Berejiklian’s case she’s the target and so won’t be able to get away). Not in the short term anyway. Longer-term she’ll emerge from this debacle prosperous in some other walk of life and in five years’ time when people report on her activities the community’ll need reminding of why she quit office. What she’ll definitely be remembered for will be her generosity. Berejiklian’s urge to help other people is what made her such a great premier but it’s what led her to indulge Daryl Maguire as well. Berejiklian identified transport as a big issue for Sydneysiders so embarked in an extensive program of spending on roads and rail. She saw that...

Controversy is the business model of News Corp and recent events have shown it to be led by individuals who are masters at keeping the heat turned up to just under boiling point. ‘Media Watch’ on 18 October concentrated entirely on News Corporation in an attempt to try to understand the latest switch – Rupert Murdoch’s reported stance with regard to the issue of climate change – which has helped the ruling Liberal-National coalition adjust its own position as well as keeping managers actively involved in the public sphere.  This is their natural element and, rather than being fazed by controversy, they welcome it because it results in more clicks on stories and therefore more advertising dollars. As the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Paul Barry noted, furthermore, major advertisers like the NRMA and Coles have started to adjust their policies – and publicly air them – so it’s become incumbent on media executives to conform. As I pointed out in January, what’s more, global m...

In a way it was the ideal timing for Gladys Berejiklian to leave office: just before Freedom Day, at a time when the people of New South Wales prepare for opening up, for haircuts, for weddings, for convivial gatherings in pubs where relieved hosts are stocking up on supplies. Dominic Perrottet was right to thank the people of the state he leads. It’s been their dedication to equity and an ingrained aversion to death and suffering that has brought us to this happy place, just a few short days away from liberty. On LinkedIn I left unanswered a comment on a post a woman’d made about her time as Berejiklian’s speechwriter. Berejiklian was also in the habit of thanking people for doing the right thing. The LinkedIn comment came from an American who so deplored the lockdowns that he said our state was reviled Stateside, but when I went back to the page to find what he’d written later, days after I’d first read his words, they’d been deleted. I regretted his feelings of remorse because I wan...

Sydney residents will understand immediately where I’m coming from. Labor has form when it comes to denigrating the contributions made by people born overseas, or of their children. For me this current debate – which centres on the party’s moves to push aside a candidate from a CALD (culturally and linguistically diverse) background in favour of Senator Christina Kenneally – has strong echoes of 2019.  Kenneally had been in danger of slipping down the ladder of places in the list of Senate candidates , so wanted to move to the lower house of Federal Parliament in order to stay there. The casualty was Tu Le, who’d already put herself forward for Fowler.  But on 25 March 2019 the ABC ran a story that contained this:  NSW Labor leader Michael Daley has announced that he will be standing aside as the state's Opposition Leader until the upcoming federal election is over, calling it "the right and proper thing to do". A little before that date he made a gaffe that cemented his...

Labor’s shifting of the chairs on the deck of its powerful cruise liner goes some of the way but perhaps more needs to be done to make the party for victory at the next federal poll. The political landscape has changed since the first half of the year , when it seemed that nothing Labor did could cut through. Covid has scotched that deathless purgatory and the party is now setting its sights on government.  A few niggling obstacles remained to be cleared away when I wrote that post. One which had been removed, and which I refer to in the story linked above, is the decision to reverse a policy on franking credits. This is where people who get income from shares are paid the equivalent of what the company those shares are linked to paid in corporate tax. For context, a relevant media story appeared on 2 January: Labor has been reevaluating its prospects since then and has now dumped two other signature tax policies – the one that would’ve seen the ability to deduct expenses relating ...