The Burnside of life … McKenzie the wordsmith … carbon state capture

Always look on the Burnside of life Jesus Christ. Surely a man as familiar with international law as Julian Burnside QC is aware that there is simply no legal requirement for anyone to post. Mere days after getting a solid ratio’ing for complaining about a restaurant cancellation while civilians were being slaughtered in Ukraine and thousands lost their houses in Queensland and NSW, he’s decided that people are still interested in his views on suboptimal customer services:

“The Adelaide Festival is the best in Australia, BUT the service is appalling,” he felt the need to inform us, shocked that the events of the past two years could have had any impact on his wait times for a wine at a festival. And no, it wasn’t a fever dream: Julian Burnside once ran as a candidate for the Greens.

(Note: Tips realised in a panic this morning that we had failed to take a screen grab of the above when we first saw it last night. As it turns out, we needn’t have worried, giving Burnside has not seen any reason to delete it at time of writing.)

Pollie waffle Look, say what you want about the seemingly limitless talent for scandal, the frequently unpunished corruption, the wrecking crew mentality as a substitute for actually representing the sectional interest that elects them, but the Nationals are quite simply the best retail politicians in the country. Who but a National (in this case Bridget McKenzie) could have summed up the issues facing flood-ravaged Lismore better than this?

It’s great to be back in Lismore. One of the things Steve, the mayor, said to me when I was here on Sunday, when we were discussing about next steps, what are, what is the Commonwealth’s role? What is the local government’s role? What is the state government’s role? And there was debate around, you know, are we going to rebuild in this fabulous community? And the mayor said to me, Lismore loves Lismore. And so I’ve taken that back to Canberra and to the meetings that I’ve been in since Sunday about how do we ensure that Lismore that loves Lismore, and wants to stay and rebuild a sustainable future here in Lismore, is able to do that.

Well, absolutely.

State capture and storage This was lost in the other drama emanating from Western Australia yesterday, but it’s worth a mention, particularly in light of this evening’s discussion about state capture with former WA senator Scott Ludlam.

State Mines and Petroleum Minister Bill Johnston announced the imminent drafting of the Greenhouse Gas Storage and Transport Bill, which purportedly allows for carbon capture and storage, that highly ineffective pollution abatement strategy so beloved by big resource companies.

Which is why it’s not shocking, though it really should be, to see that it’s a joint media release with Minister for Environment and Climate Action Reece Whitby and … the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association.

When laws that have yet to be written are announced jointly with lobbyists for the industry those laws are supposedly regulating, it certainly looks like state capture.