Paul Keating, foreign interference, ScoMo’s exit and car parks.
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Saturday Mar 2
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This week we considered Scott Morrison's departing words, traced the work of a journalist who offered positive coverage to a police officer, and followed the unfolding culture war over NSW Police and Sydney's Mardi Gras celebrations.

The team also checked in on how newsrooms are faring, and debunked the Qantas and Woodside spin machines.

Plus do you think Australia needs more car parks?

We hope you're having a wonderful weekend!
Gina Rushton Gina Rushton,
Editor
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It’s time we stopped treating Paul Keating like a messiah
BENJAMIN CLARK

Keating is still pushing the same barrows he was in the 1990s, including brazenly unequal tax policy. He is not a prophet; he is a fossil.

Paul Keating (Image: AAP/Lukas Coch)
 
People are using error-prone AI chatbots to help them migrate to Australia
CAM WILSON

Chatbots that promise to give custom migration advice to their hundreds of users are providing incomplete or sometimes wrong information.

A custom OpenAI chatbot 'Aussie Immigration Advisor' and a conversation with it (Image: OpenAI)
 
Advance’s tactics in Dunkley herald a new, nastier brand of politics
GUY RUNDLE

The far-right campaigners' huge spend in the Dunkley by-election implies US-style electoral warfare is being trialled by the disintegrating right.

Advance's Dunkley campaign advertising; Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (Image: AAP/Richard Wainwright)
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American Taylor Swift fans are flummoxed by the MCG’s lack of parking. But Australia still has way too much of it
BENJAMIN CLARK

We may not be quite as 'car-brained' as the US but we're hardly in a position to gloat.

Taylor Swift performing at the MCG (Image: AAP/Joel Carrett)
 
Professor Hage’s sacking in Germany could have a serious impact on Australian universities
WANNING SUN

Constraints on academic freedom in Australian universities have manifested themselves in myriad ways. But Ghassan Hage's sacking has wider implications.

Professor Ghassan Hage (Image: YouTube)
 
The Spying MP: If we’re talking about MPs and foreign powers, the list is VERY long
BERNARD KEANE

Who is the MP said to have been compromised by a foreign power? Crikey doesn't know, but we do know that many MPs have had extensive dealings with foreign governments.

ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess (Image: AAP/Mick Tsikas)
 
Mardi Gras, police and yet another culture war get the Sydney media excited
BERNARD KEANE

Sydney's LGBTQIA+ community should decide who participates in Mardi Gras, but the murder of a Sydney couple has led to a culture war by a desperate media.

Members of NSW Police march at Mardi Gras 2023 (Image: AP/Mark Baker)
 
A News Corp journo promised NT killer cop ‘an article in your defence’. Here’s what she actually wrote
DAANYAL SAEED and CAM WILSON

The text came just two days after Zachary Rolfe fatally shot an Indigenous teenager.

Zachary Rolfe (Image: AAP/Rudi Maxwell)
 
Scott Morrison maintains his God delusion to the last
BERNARD KEANE

It's all about human dignity, says Scott Morrison as he leaves Parliament. If only he'd ever had a chance to practise that.

Scott Morrison at a church service in 2022 (Image: AAP/Mick Tsikas)
 
Australia handing nearly a billion dollars to banned Israeli arms firm
BERNARD KEANE

Elbit Systems is an Israeli company that arms the IDF, sold weapons to the Myanmar junta, and used to make illegal munitions. Now we're handing it nearly $1 billion.

Still from a promotional video for Elbit System's Israeli MOD & Elbit medium robotic combat vehicle (Image: YouTube/Elbit Systems)
 
The tax office’s thirst to watch over you is part of Australia’s expanding surveillance regime 
SAMANTHA FLOREANI

A desire for additional surveillance powers isn't enough to justify them.

(Image: Private Media/Zennie)
 
Qantas subsidiary pilots and engineers claim recruitment and local safety concerns
MICHAEL SAINSBURY

Aviation engineers say there's a dwindling pool of potential recruits due to a fast ageing employee pool and decades of neglect in training.

A QantasLink A220 aircraft (Image: AAP/Bianca De Marchi)
 
ABC gives ABC glowing review, Vice soldiers on, and Herald Sun gets with the times
DAANYAL SAEED

This week we look back at a year of complaints at the ABC and note the slow march of death for youth media.

ABC managing director David Anderson, Herald Sun editor Sam Weir, and the Vice logo (Images: AAP)
 
Woodside doubles its climate crimes in two years — and doubles its spin
BERNARD KEANE

Woodside has doubled the amount of carbon emissions it is responsible for pumping into the atmosphere in just two years.

Independent Senator David Pocock and campaigners during a protest outside Parliament House against Woodside’s proposed Burrup Hub gas project (Image: AAP/Mick Tsikas)