No doubt about it, Guy Rundle told Phillip Adams.
However, that is a bit different from saying that there was direct CIA involvement.
In his Crikey account Rundle points out that in Kerr’s correspondence with the Palace he refers to the refusal of supply as a “deferral”, because supply until the end of November existed. There was no urgency to sack so early, except, as we shall see, supply was not the only story being played out. Continue reading Did Kerr sack Whitlam for the Americans?
For political reasons, I think no-one will be using the words, but Victoria has opted for virus elimination rather than suppression, slamming the state shut for six weeks. Premier Dan Andrews says the current setting are not working, they might work if they were continued for six months, but they might not.
Victoria has declared a State of disaster, which allows greater police powers, about which more tomorrow, which will last for the next six weeks. Continue reading Victoria goes for virus elimination
And she has every right to be.
Two of the cases — both 19-year-old women — tested positive after a recent trip to Victoria and did not go into quarantine. Continue reading Premier Palaszczuk is ‘absolutely furious’
Is this man scary?
Actually he was not wearing a mask when he briefed the media that 9 out of 10 Victorians were not getting tested immediately when they showed symptoms. Further, 53 per cent of people did not self-isolate while awaiting results: Continue reading Why do Victorians avoid the virus test?
That’s from the Kirkus review of Mary Trump’s book on Uncle Donald in her book Too Much And Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man:
Her mission in the book to be published on 28 July by Simon & Schuster is to take down Donald Trump. Continue reading Trump: The world’s most dangerous man?
The ABC election page has Eden-Monaro too close to call with Labor’s Kristy McBain leading the Liberal Fiona Kotvojs by 50.9 to 49.1 after preferences.
Paddy Manning at The Monthly set up the scene in Southern discomfort: Tomorrow’s result in Eden-Monaro is on a knife edge.
The base-line is that Eden-Monaro has long been a ‘bellweather’ seat, which means that it lines up with the existing government. However, Mike Kelly broke this trend in the last three elections, with a personal following reckoned at about 3%.
So Labor was justified in claiming underdog status, while the Libs point to governments not taking a seat off the opposition in by-elections over the last 100 years. Continue reading Weekly salon 4/7
Some of these items started in a draft Weekly salon. They got too big, so I’ve made a separate post, and installed Chairman Xi as a featured image.
Despite that, the Home Affairs Minister is free to weigh into Australia’s most important diplomatic relationship from time to time and does so with all the subtlety of a Bjelke-Petersen-era Queensland copper at a student demo.
It might make Mr Dutton feel braver and more righteous than the next talking head. It doesn’t help Australia or anyone else.
Mr Dutton’s Friday sprays on a morning infotainment show symbolise the disintegration of rational Australian foreign policy
It was 24 June 2010. I was the dentist chair watching Kevin Rudd giving his tearful exit speech, played on the TV in the ceiling. Rudd recounted the achievements of his term. Quite a long list, it was.
Peter Brent tries to make sense of what happened after that in Regrets? We’ve had a few.
To leave aside for a moment whether shunting Rudd was a good idea, and how all that worked out, Brent thinks the reason for our quick turnover of PMs is the Senate and our propensity to elect third party senators.
Currently the Coalition needs three out of five from One Nation’s two, Centre Alliance’s two and Jacqui Lambie’s one.
A lot of the time One Nation lines up, after some histrionics, with the Coalition. Which then leaves it up to Jacqui Lambie. I find that just a bit terrifying. Continue reading Rudd shunted 10 years ago: reflections and reappraisals
Sundry news about COVID 19.
World-wide, the 7-day average of new daily cases is now above 140,000 and rising, with a spike above 150,000. See WHO warns pandemic is ‘accelerating’ with record spike in new infections.
That article also reports that sampling of wastewater in the northern cities of Milan and Turin shows the virus was in Italy last December, at least two months before the country’s devastating outbreak. There is no concrete evidence that the outbreak came from those early infections, although one would hardly think it faded away. Perhaps the infected people were not identified as having a ‘novel’ virus. Continue reading COVID virus news 20/6
During the whole coronavirus period it has seemed to me that Australia has a world class expert on the topic behind every tree. One who stood out to me was Professor Raina MacIntyre, Head of the Biosecurity Program at the Kirby Institute and NHMRC Principal Research Fellow, UNSW. She seemed to tell it like it is, had an appropriate sense of the precautionary principle, and was not on any panel advising politicians. It is well-known that experts advising politicians often end up tayloring their advice to what the pollies want to do.
In Australia the common advice from the authorities is for the plebs to restrict wearing masks to those who have the virus.
To cut to the chase, MacIntyre says she wears a mask whenever she steps outside her home, and wears one inside when anyone comes to visit. Continue reading Covid 19: the importance of face masks
When Queensland behind interstate barriers opened to intrastate tourism, we see that tourism operators were ‘ecstatic’ about easing restrictions if you scroll down this article:
“Over the last 24 hours, the phones have been ringing off the hook with travellers from the south-east corner confirming their accommodation and looking forward to their journeys, ” Mr Olsen said.
It raises the question as to how much scope there is in the intra-state tourist market, and secondly whether business is suffering too much through trying to wipe out the coronavirus. Continue reading Covid, tourism and the value of a human life
That was PM Scott Morrison’s advice to people wanting to attend the Black Lives Matter rallies being organised all around Australia.
Marcia Langton’s advice was “Go!” but with hand sanitiser, masks and observing 1.5 metres distancing.
Morrison was following medical advice from CMO Prof Brendan Murphy, who said the virus loves big gatherings, and it is possible for a single infected person to infect 30 or 40 or 50 other people at such an event. Murphy’s advice was taken up by the premiers of Victoria, NSW and Queensland. Continue reading Weekly salon 6/6
