Baston of hope … Labor’s foot-shooting … You’re fired! :D … ScoMo’s new glow

The battle of who could care less Over in Western Australia, the heat is on in replacing departing National Vince Catania in the seat of North West Central, with the Liberal Party confirming yesterday that Gascoyne pastoralist Will Baston is their candidate in the byelection.

Baston is the nephew of Ken Baston, a former minister in the Colin Barnett government, and will come up against the Nationals candidate and woman whose name sounds like a joke that you haven’t quite worked out yet, Merome Beard. It could prove to be a monumental shift in WA’s power balance. If you think we’re taking the piss — thanks to McGowan mania, Labor currently has 23 seats more than it needs for a lower house majority and is still deciding whether it can be bothered running a candidate at all — we’re not (at least, not entirely).

The shift could be on the opposition side. Managing twice as many seats as the decimated Libs means that the National Party is the official opposition in WA. Upping their MLA count to three doesn’t just have the advantage of finally qualifying the Libs for most carpool lanes — it brings them level with the Nats and could lead to a (modestly attended) power struggle in the West.

The honeymoon is over The grace period afforded every new government has to end at some point, but it really feels like Labor has gone out of its way this week to bring it to a screeching halt. Firstly, the flurry of baffling decisions regarding the federal COVID response: as cases once again peak, Health Minister Mark Butler confirmed the end of paid pandemic leave, and then that the government would no longer provide free rapid antigen tests for concession-card holders. This doesn’t just fly in the face of medical advice, but goes against the rhetoric that Labor ran with during much of the election:

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s justification — “My government has not made this decision, this is a decision that was inherited” — has a distinctly, shall we say, Morrisonian ring to it. Perhaps more catastrophically long-term is the confected and gratuitous fight Labor is picking with the Greens over climate change action, with Albanese resurrecting a moribund argument over 2009’s carbon pollution reduction scheme defeat in the Senate (thanks in part to the Greens’ opposition). But saying the party was responsible for the past decade of inaction isn’t just tiresome Canberra-bubble politics or bizarrely ahistorical — erasing the Gillard government’s carbon price — it’s also, as Rachel Withers points out, a complete sodding liberty while Albanese is off hugging it out and vomiting aphorisms with Pacific Island leaders.

You’re sacked 😛 From sackings over Facebook comments to, say, a “break” from your main duties after corralling certain sections of your clients into a Twitter list called “Lobotomised Shitheads”, the last decade and a bit has introduced a whole new category of employment issues from social media and the attendant etiquette. So it was this week, with a successful unfair dismissal application coming about, in part, because of an absence of emojis.

This week the Fair Work Commission found that Sens Catering Group unfairly dismissed Kristen Gordon — according to the uncontested evidence, a long line of disagreements ended in dismissal after what her supervisor (Ms Wang) decided was an insufficiently chummy text:

The Applicant submitted that she was informed by the manager, who was with Ms Wang at the time, that she was told by Ms Wang to ‘FIRE HER RIGHT NOW!! Hire another supervisor I don’t care about the cost, do it now!’ The Applicant stated that when the Applicant asked why Ms Wang was so upset about the messages the Applicant had sent, Ms Wang stated repeatedly that the Applicant ‘didn’t add any smiley faces! There are no emotions!’ The Applicant submitted that apparently because of this Ms Wang took what the Applicant was saying as ‘unfriendly’.

Facing the facts We couldn’t help but note how much happier and healthier Scott Morrison is looking since he vacated the top job. You may recall, in our survey of what the PM’s office does to your face, that Morrison really wore the strain — possibly more than any other recent PM. So we were pleased to note a bit of colour in his cheeks and a return of his cheekbones in a selfie today with fellow former world leader, Malaysia’s ex-PM Mahathir Mohamad — also looking remarkably spritely for all his 97 years.