Little did I know when I appeared in front of a Senate committee last week that I would be at the centre of a national controversy about loyalty tests. I appeared at the Inquiry into Issues Facing Diaspora Communities to present research I had done earlier this year about the representation of culturally and linguistically diverse people in Australian politics. Despite our cultural diversity, Australia does far worse when it comes to representation than other Westminster democracies like the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand. Instead of being asked about my statement or submission in detail, Tasmanian Liberal Senator Eric… [Read more]
What I’m Reading
On reading Ali Smith’s Summer When a continent burned and another melted I’m reading Ali Smith’s Summer and I want to not believe her. I want to deny and scoff at that part where the English character Sacha is outraged by the deniers and dismissers of the Australian bushfires. Not even when they see pictures of Australia burning do they admit it. Not even when half a billion dead creatures—meaning 500000000 individual living things dead—is only the death toll from one area. What does Ali Smith’s Sacha know? She’s only a Greta-aged girl on the other side of the world. It… [Read more]
What I’m Reading
The first time Victoria goes into lockdown, our house is taken over by a person-like creature that is halfway hatched from what seems to be a chicken egg. It has a peach-and-cream skin tone and bright blue eyes. It yells things like ‘whey-hey-hey!’ and ‘niiiiiiiiiice work!’ over the pokies-esque sound of virtual coin-eggs accruing in a virtual money bag. As part of learning from home, my six-year-old child, who is in Prep, has been given an account for the online literacy program ABC Reading Eggs. I’m reading the website homepage: Learning to read can be easy and fun! … Children… [Read more]
Vale Ania Walwicz: ‘There Are No Rules’
Ania Walwicz was a no bullshit sort of a person. She would never harp on things. She’d just say her one or two sentences on a matter, in a slightly inquisitive, curious way, finish it off with a ‘good-o’, and then change the subject with a ‘so…’ She’d move on from a conversation long before I was ready to. I like to analyse, dissect until an answer reveals itself. Ania would plant questions in my mind, send me home with theories, ideas and perspectives to churn over. We have lost a great creative mind. I always felt like there was… [Read more]
Melbourne In The Week Commencing October 5, 2020
We are tweeting this week is harder than most. The clocks are off-key. Can someone pass the time please? We are tweeting this week is harder than most but no one knows why and it’s all out of kilter. They have our football and I don’t like football but it pains me and I’m winded. I’m superglued to the floor. The kids are playing Fortnite and the teachers are emailing and I wanna write excuses like the dog ate my homework but no excuses just the truth. No. We can’t any longer. And we’re fucking up their minds and I… [Read more]
What I’m Reading
The New Yorker They arrive in whacking great bundles. Each time, I think I should have remembered this from the last time I subscribed. A weekly magazine, coming from the other side of the world in a time of crippled supply lines and bigger priorities. Of course they won’t arrive in an orderly procession on a Tuesday, or a Friday, or whatever. I only read magazines over breakfast, and no, there is no good reason for this. But it means they lie about the kitchen in various stages of digestion, from unmarked, to folded-over, to coffee-stained and crumpled. If one… [Read more]
Drinking in the Sun: Media Before Murdoch
I can’t recall exactly when journalism betrayed me, but I’ll never forget how it seduced me. I was 17 years old—wearing my dad’s sports jacket, school shoes, a red paisley tie and a blue striped shirt that still have creases from the box—and standing in the Flinders Street foyer of the Herald & Weekly Times building. I wasn’t alone. I was one of 18 fresh-faced recruits to the Herald and Sun News-Pictorial; six copy kids and six first-year cadets fresh out of high school and six third-year cadets with university degrees. We stood about the checkerboard floor like mismatched chess… [Read more]
What I’m Reading
‘Isabelle is medically well and there are no concerns regarding her plans to conceive.’ ‘Isabelle is yet to experience any significant pain or bleeding.’ ‘I am still very optimistic for Isabelle’s chances of having a healthy pregnancy given that she and her partner have one live-born child.’ ‘Just a quick note to update you that Isy’s NIPT returned a high-risk result for T21.’ ‘It’s certainly pleasing to see her again so soon after her previous miscarriage.’ ‘She had an ultrasound that demonstrated the miscarriage was complete.’ ‘Suction curettage for missed abortion.’ ‘I’ll see mum and baby at the six-week postnatal… [Read more]
Murdoch Divides, Democracy Suffers
Extreme polarisation of voters is one cause of the crisis in democracy gripping many Western nations, especially the United States and Britain and to a lesser extent the countries of western Europe. So far, Australia seems not to have succumbed to the same extent. Leaders of the two main parties appear to be working constructively together on the pandemic. There is no evidence that they see each other as illegitimate, as has happened between Republicans and Democrats in the US. Yet some important ingredients for polarisation are present: unconstrained social media and—as in the US and Britain—the dominating presence of… [Read more]
What I’m Reading
I wish I could say straight-up what I’ve been reading. I keep a record of titles completed. But I hesitate because, these last few months, I’m not sure how much of my habit of looking at words meets the threshold for ‘reading’. For the most part, it hasn’t summoned from me the quality of attention to make the reading material stick. Reasons? It’s been 12 weeks since I began going over the early proofs of my new novel, line by line, making adjustments. It’s been six weeks since I started again on the next-to-final proofs, and a fortnight or so… [Read more]
