Home is where the rot is The ABC’s Nemesis debuted this week, subjecting the nine years of Coalition government to the same dissection and appraisal every other Australian government has faced since Keating’s. It’s striking, watching the first episode to be reminded of the “fiscal fire brigade“/”Australia can’t keep putting the mortgage on the credit card” rhetoric that characterised the lead-up to the disastrous first budget brought down by Tony Abbott’s government.
The program doesn’t draw a direct line to the irony that this was happening at the same time as the early implementation of Operation Sovereign Borders, the first step in the consolidation of power that would turn the Department of Immigration into the Department of Home Affairs and the Department of Home Affairs into a basket case.
Because, as this morning’s Nine papers reminded us, when it comes to that super ministry, it seems there’s always more waste, always more embarrassment just around the corner.
Nick McKenzie and Michael Bachelard report Home Affairs assistant secretary Derek Elias’ claim — revealed ahead of “what is expected to be a damning report on offshore processing by former spy chief Dennis Richardson” — that the department may have immolated millions on “services that were never delivered and on questionable tasks — such as training the Nauruan president’s guard dog and $6 million for golf umbrellas”.
We’ll chuck that on the Joker’s money pile that is the department and its predecessor’s approach to taxpayer money — billions upon billions spent on incarcerating some of the world’s most desperate people, mismanaging contracts and paying out compensation.
A modest proposal All-conquering singer-songwriter Taylor Swift’s sheer unavoidable ubiquity possibly made this kind of thing inevitable, even before she had the temerity to start going out with a high-profile American football player. Fox News has detected an elite conspiracy theory in the coupling of Swift and Kansas City Chiefs tight end (yep, apparently that’s a real position in NFL) Travis Kelce. The Chiefs are headed to the Super Bowl and Fox knows a (sigh) psyop when it sees one.
“Around four years ago, the Pentagon’s psychological operations unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset,” Jesse Watters told his audience on January 9. “It’s real. The Pentagon psyop unit pitched NATO on turning Taylor Swift into an asset for combating misinformation online.”
He backed his theory that Swift could be “a front for a covert political agenda” with a clip from the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence conference in 2019, where she is mentioned as an example of a powerful influencer.
Further, it’s been reported that US President Joe Biden “desperately wants” Swift’s endorsement, which would be the most obvious item on the wish list of any candidate interested in the youth vote or a dark conspiracy — depending on who you ask. Long story short, the Super Bowl is probably rigged, so that Swift’s already extremely famous boyfriend raises his profile and delivers more voters for Biden. Oh also, Kelce did an ad for Pfizer, so that obviously factors in somewhere.
“But Charlie,” I hear you ask. “Please tell me there’s someone in Australia’s federal Parliament who is spending time on this?” Dear reader, I give you Senator Ralph Babet (via Alternative Media Watchers), who sat down with the freedom movement’s favourite live streamer Real Rukshan, to raise some eyebrows about how convenient it all is.
Kelce is “actually called Mr Pfizer” on account of his promotional work, Rukshan says (a nickname given to Kelce by fellow NFL player Aaron Rodgers, who famously refused to get vaccinated).
“Is he really? Well, how is that for a psyop?” Babet responds. “It’s all interlinked,” they both conclude.
Photo op “Door knocking in Prospect,” Tasmanian Attorney-General Guy Barnett posted to Facebook alongside a broadly smiling “oh I didn’t see you there” style photo of Barnett outside someone’s door.
But it turns out there was more than one camera capturing the moment. As picked up by WIN News Tasmania reporter Tilly Hannan and shared by news director Alex Johnston, the door cam of the house in question recorded the impromptu photo shoot, which was promptly put on TikTok:
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