What a Downer … Deves reaches for the Sky … by George, a false sense of security

Jonesing There has been, and will continue to be, no shortage of post-mortems on the Scott Morrison government. One person chiming in is former science minister, prolific author and national treasure Barry Jones, but we somehow doubt he’ll get much of a response given where he sent his take.

Earlier this month Jones sent a letter laced with a dry but palpable glee to Georgina Downer, former Mayo candidate and head of the Robert Menzies Institute. Promising he doesn’t “want to twist the knife (well, perhaps just a bit)”, he offers an outline of what he says could be “a fascinating seminar on ‘Who killed Menzies’ Liberal Party?”:

It was striking … that seats held by former Liberal prime ministers moved dramatically to the teals or the ALP — Kooyong, Higgins, Wentworth, Warringah, Reid (which incorporated much of McMahon’s seat of Lowe) and Wannon is now marginal.

Do you think this worth exploring? I do.

…. Interesting too, the Liberal leaders who became disillusioned with their former party: Menzies  himself, Gorton (although he came back after remarriage), Fraser, Hewson, Turnbull. Worth considering? I think so.

Jones goes on to list the achievements of the Menzies government and contrast them with Morrison (Menzies building institutions that Morrison trashed; Menzies resigning with his colleagues’ respect, as opposed to Morrison having anonymous colleagues calling him a “fuckwit” on his way out the door) before concluding: “The idea that wheeling out John Howard [would] improve the vote in 2022 was ludicrous. Your father was right in 2007. Anyway, think about it.” 

It would make an interesting seminar, but we suspect the Menzies institute won’t be holding it any time soon.

Deves-tating It was always a vain hope that, having failed so miserably in her bid to take Warringah back for the Liberals, anti-trans activist Katherine Deves would fade into well-earned obscurity. If the past five years have taught us anything, it’s that using the indulgence of high-profile politicians and media figures to constantly, loudly lose every argument you take part in is absolutely no impediment to the shameless culture warrior. So Deves, who deleted her truly hateful social media during the campaign (to no avail, as it turns out) has relaunched her Twitter and Facebook accounts. It’s exactly as you’d expect, packed with her crusade against trans women in sport and approving retweets of JK Rowling.

And, as ever, Sky News have been more than happy to put a megaphone in front of her. She’s been on Sky at least four times since the election, and it’s posted about that 15 times on its Facebook page.

On Brandis Former attorney-general George Brandis has been appointed professor in the practice of national security at the Australian National University’s national security college. He joins former cabinet colleague Julie Bishop, ANU chancellor since 2019. We wonder which facet of glorious record on matters of national security while in government secured him the job? Apart from the bungling of the Man Haron Monis saga, he played a big part in giving us the ongoing prosecution of Witness K/Bernard Collaery. He launched an ASIO raid on the former ASIS officer who had revealed the Australian Secret Intelligence Service’s illegal bugging of the Timor-Leste cabinet and demanding the pair be prosecuted.

Beneath contempt It’s one of the first things you learn in journalism school: don’t fuck with judges.
Just like defamation, Australia’s contempt of court rules are strict. If your story somehow alters what a jury might think of an alleged perpetrator, you could face hefty fines or even land in jail. It’s why journalists litter their stories with the word “alleged”, like a school kid who has just learnt a new swear word. So how is it that a veteran journo like Lisa Wilkinson managed to break such a sacrosanct rule by sharing details of her interview with Brittany Higgins in her speech to the Logies?

ACT Supreme Court Chief Justice Lucy McCallum has decided to delay the trial of the man accused of raping Higgins, saying the landscape has changed since Wilkinson’s speech. It’s left many in the media to ask: for the love of God, why? The Daily Telegraph couldn’t help turn Wilkinson into a punch line: “Hands up if you’ve caused court chaos”:

Chaos is one thing but injustice is another. A delay could have serious impacts on the trial, and even see it fall over entirely. But let’s not forget the real victims here: the poor book publishers who will now be forced to wait even longer to release their tell-all books about the saga.