Ratio of the day There are many things one could accuse Tim “Freedom Boy” Wilson of, but lacking the fortitude to keep posting no matter what isn’t one of them. Continuing his anti-compulsory-super campaign — which we concede might not be the non-starter many on the left assume — Wilson is accruing a fabulous ratioing for his assertion that it was “Wonderful to be at the local bowls club and be told: ‘I’m a Labor man, but you’re right about super — it should be home first, super second.’ If only Labor stopped protecting their faceless fund manager mates & got in touch with their Aussies they’d back.” (sic)
Wilson, apparently unperturbed by the fact that absolutely no one believes he was actually approached by a rusted-on Labor voter spouting his own catchphrases back at him, is merrily responding to commenters with links to his website.
But then he’s the kind of politician who shares stories which describe him as “the antithesis of what anyone with a skerrick of blood in their veins feels life is all about: the rent-a-blazer with a nine-dollar smile”. No such thing as bad press, we suppose?
Start the clock Wilson taking up a single-issue scare campaign is just one of the many signs that an election may be brewing on the horizon like a dull, dispiriting storm. It joins The Australian beginning its campaign against Labor leader Anthony Albanese, and Labor surveying the various crises Australia is sleepwalking towards and promising to not change too much or spend any money if the people would just be good enough to elect it for a bit.
But the biggest is surely the recent pitch to Queensland from both party leaders. In late January it was Scott Morrison (appropriately enough, he didn’t announce any policies on the trip) and a coterie of Coalition frontbenchers.
And now Albanese has whacked an Akubra on his bonce and headed north with none other than a man so good at winning elections Labor ousted him at the first sign of trouble, Kevin Rudd, along with member for Griffith Terri Butler. Here they are, remembering happier days and looking like people playing Australian politicians on an American sketch show.
Done with the Hun Last year, when Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert was released after 804 days in an Iranian prison, we looked at the challenges she would face in attaining anything approaching normalcy in the face of, among other things, relentless media interest. But we didn’t think we’d be proven right so quickly or grotesquely.
This weekend the Herald Sun gave us a front page spread on the breakup of her marriage and the reasons behind it. There is simply no justification for this — unless you think public interest journalism just means things the public might be interested in rather than things it’s in the public’s interest to know.
We’re not married to this poll Despite allegations of pork-barrelling and revelations of a secret affair with Daryl Maguire, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is more popular than ever. At the height of the controversy in October she still won the approval of 68% of voters. But we suspect we know who makes up the majority of the remaining 32%: brides, grooms, and everyone in the event planning industry.
Wedding-themed Facebook groups are littered with criticism of the premier, slamming her for allowing sport and high school formals but keeping rules on guest numbers, dancing and masks at weddings tight.
In greater Sydney wedding guests are capped at 300, and in a simulacra of the tiny town in Footloose, a maximum of 20 people from the wedding party can dance.
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