- The Guardian
- Issue #2190
Uncertain
One thing is certain, there’s a lot of uncertainty about. It’s a problem for our pro-US ‘alliance’ ALP government. On the one hand they never want to criticise the US. On the other hand, everybody can see that the ‘alliance’ doesn’t help this country and that the US doesn’t care what happens to other nations.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles are taking refuge in uncertainty. She says we live in “uncertain times” and he says it’s a “time of global uncertainty.” What both of them mean is that Israel and the US are stuck in a war of choice that they don’t know how to get out of. Nobody knows how the war will end, but in the meantime ‘uncertainty’ provides Wong and Marles with a way to say that things are stuffed without having to admit that the US is a hot mess.
Actors (bad)
About $3 billion dollars worth of home loans have been obtained fraudulently and have been used by organised crime. You might think that this sounds like a lot of money and a systemic problem. You’d be right, but then again, you’re not a Westpac executive who has blamed it on “some bad actors.” No, they’re not talking about the cast of Home and Away, just shrugging off a longstanding problem that has something to do with banks ignoring Royal Commission recommendations.
Administrative error
We know what this means – someone writes the wrong date on a form, you get two copies of a letter from the government when you should get one, that kind of thing. For former Foreign Minister and (thankfully now former) Australian National University Chancellor Julie Bishop, ‘administrative error’ explains how she had two university appointed staff to help her do her chancellor job who also worked for her private business on the university’s money. Whoops.
However
Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore says she has “long supported the principles of peaceful assembly, protest and freedom of speech.” That’s terrific. What a nice Lord Mayor!
“However,” Moore adds “these rights must always be balanced with a responsibility to ensure public safety and respect for all members of our diverse community.”
Oh. Like the ‘but’ in ‘I’m not racist but [racist thing]’ statements, Clover Moore’s ‘however’ shows she doesn’t really believe anything that comes before the word ‘however.’ Specifically, if you want to even talk about the “globalise the intifada” slogan, you can’t do it in the freedom-of-speech-loving Sydney Council’s buildings.
Ethical conflict
We’re not sure what this means, but it sounds serious. For former Nine papers editor Michael Gawenda, it means that Melbourne journalist Jeff Sparrow shouldn’t teach on a journalism course and oppose an ongoing genocide. Sparrow had signed an open letter calling for the PM to demand an end to Israel’s illegal occupation and apartheid regime. For Gawenda, this is an “ethical conflict.” Pick a lane, Jeff!
Splurge
Any large and sudden spending you don’t like is a splurge. What makes the word weaselly is what you don’t apply it to. Australian Financial Review columnist and right think tank director Michael Stutchbury has had a go at the NDIS. It’s wasteful, it’s unproductive – not enough people with disabilities are getting into the workforce to justify spending money on them.
We agree that the NDIS could be run more efficiently – in fact it should be nationalised, thereby cutting out all the ticket clippers who come between public funds and people with disabilities, but that’s not what Michael is upset about, it’s more the whole ‘spending money on people with disabilities’ that bothers him. What Stutchbury doesn’t call a “splurge” is the AUKUS program, which has spent billions on getting Australia exactly no submarines.
