Tag Archives: Corbyn_Jeremy

Weekly salon 7/7

1. NAIDOC Week 2019

It’s NAIDOC Week 2019 this week, with the theme VOICE. TREATY. TRUTH.

NITV has a timeline for the development of NAIDOC and there is more at Wikipedia. Seems that a Day of Mourning was initiated on 27 January 1937 as a protest against 150 years of callous treatment and the seizure of land through British colonisation. It was initiated by a letter written by William Cooper on behalf of the Australian Aborigines Progressive Association, an umbrella group for a number of Aboriginal justice movements. The practice developed of having a day of mourning every year on the Sunday before Australia Day. Continue reading Weekly salon 7/7

Saturday salon 8/7

1. Bullying bosses behaving badly, and it’s not cricket

The New Daily sport editor James Willoughby’s article Cricket tour of South Africa cancelled over pay dispute is typical of the coverage. The players want everyone to be treated fairly, and want the grass roots to be looked after. Seems Cricket Australia wants the same, but with a different way of carving the pie. The chasm is so wide people are talking about an Ashes tour being junked, and worry about the future of the game.

Yet most of the reporting and commentary misses the main point – Cricket Australia refuses to attend mediation or offer any genuine flexibility in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) negotiations. They simply will not deal with the Australian Cricketers Association. Continue reading Saturday salon 8/7

Saturday salon 1/7

1. Cardinal Pell to face the music

Cardinal Pell is to come back to Australia to face “historical sexual assault offences“. There have been and will be many words written about Pell, but I liked Sean Kenny at The Monthly. Kenny is worth reading on the current political follies, but he says the Pell case reminds us that there are more important changes happening in society.

Charging someone so senior in the Catholic church would have been unthinkable not so long ago. Sexual abuse of minors is finally being taken seriously. Continue reading Saturday salon 1/7

Saturday salon 22/4

1. Theresa May’s brave gambit

She didn’t need to, so why did she, especially after promising absolutely definitely that she wouldn’t?

Given a lead of about 20% in the polls, she possibly sees a chance of decimating Labour and governing virtually as a one-party state for the next five years.

However, Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight warns that the British polls are basically not worth a cracker. Their abysmal performance translates into a margin of error of 13 to 15%. Continue reading Saturday salon 22/4

Saturday salon 17/10: late edition

1. Turnbull’s ascension

Abbott’s fall and Turnbull’s ascension was the first news we got from home, via a text from our son.

I must admit I didn’t see it coming. I’d written Turnbull off as unacceptable to the Liberal Party. Now suddenly he’s there and Shorten looks like a dead man walking.

Mark has a piece in the Guardian. Continue reading Saturday salon 17/10: late edition

Saturday salon 25/7

1. Leaders summit

On Wednesday, prior to COAG on Thursday, our political leaders held a summit or retreat to dicuss taxation and the future of the federation. By all accounts they enjoyed the talkfest – Jay Weatherall said it was “very positive” and that “in my sense and my operation in COAG over the last five years, this is probably the most constructive I have ever seen”.

Despite that there is no evidence they actually decided anything except lowering the threshold at which the GST applies to offshore online purchases. Continue reading Saturday salon 25/7