There’s a Hole
Yesterday, Senator Hollie Hughes shared a video of a man defacing Coalition election signage in Bennelong. ‘This is absolutely disgusting,’ she tweeted, ‘Australian democracy is strong and robust, but actions like this undermine it.’ In the video, the man moves gracefully down a fence line of signs, lackadaisically spray painting dicks over the bald head of Simon Kennedy, fully aware that he is being filmed, coolly indifferent. He moves like someone who has unburdened themselves of a nagging annoyance, li
It’s Time for a Voices of Journalism Movement
The mainstream media’s coverage of the 2022 Federal election has been a disgrace to the profession of journalism and a stain on our democracy. From the opening day freakout about Albanese’s ‘gaffe’, to the Thursday-morning tantrum six weeks later when the Opposition leader suggested the media pack could go listen to Jim Chalmers talk about budget costings rather than follow him to Queensland, the media have behaved with all the grace and subtlety of rival gangs of goombahs arriving at a new pizza place to discuss security arrangements.
When Representation Falters
The upcoming federal election on May 21 is a critical moment for young Muslims to reflect on whether our political representatives have thoroughly engaged with the needs of our community and if any plans have been developed to address those needs.
Fury and Nothing
It is hard to believe this election is coming not just at a time when global politics and the economy are in turmoil but when Australia has just emerged from the biggest social upheaval in peacetime. It might seem especially odd since Australia’s response to Covid was so utterly political. ‘Political’ does not just mean partisan political, although it did often descend to that, but political in the sense that there was a cast-iron certainty that of course government could stop Covid—it was just a matter of political will. The pandemic measures may have been proposed by public health officials […]
Essays
Necessity Has No Law
In the past six to eight years in the West, and to varying extents throughout the whole world, a massive social and cultural movement has come to the fore. Its participants have adopted no single name for it, though the term ‘social justice’ is common.
Fiction
Zu, or Part Thereof
On this Greek island of white walls and sky-blue houses, they lay in bed, facing the sea through a window large enough to contain the sea from end to end. ‘Do you still remember the saying?’ said she. ‘What saying?’ said he. ‘The saying that goes, zhongren jiezhu wo du qing, zhongren jiezui wo du xing,’ said she. ‘Oh, that one.’ ‘Wasn’t it something constantly on your lips when you were an ambitious university student?’
Memoir
Piscine Epiphanies
I got a little pissed last evening. The label said ‘Vote Responsibly’, a fundraiser. The frozen fish and chips were cooking in the oven, yes, I know the contradiction there. Dancing to Nina Simone, in a way that disturbed the cat, unused to a show of less inhibition. Still, I sang along as best I could, a little hop here and there. I realised I don’t know any fish. A deep hypocrisy overcame me.
Poetry
Frieze Frame
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