(Image: Tom Red/Private Media)

Calling out hate? Treasurer Josh Frydenberg took Holocaust Remembrance Day to note a disturbing recrudescence of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial in Australia and abroad. Anyone who reads Crikey will know we have no quarrel with that assessment — we have been following the rise of the far right and the attendant rise in anti-Semitism for years. You only have to cast your mind back to this past weekend to see Nazi groups meeting in Australia. And Frydenberg, whose mother fled the horrors of the Holocaust, is well-positioned to talk about this for the government.

But we couldn’t help note the irony that one of the people Frydenberg told this to was Sky News Australia’s Rowan Dean. One of his refrains for the day was that Australians were obliged to “take on hate wherever we see it”.

Interestingly, during his chummy chat with Dean, Frydenberg didn’t feel the need to bring up the time Dean told then race discrimination commissioner Tim Soutphommasane to “hop on a plane and go back to Laos”, or his show’s exultant embrace of Milo Yiannopoulos.

Nor did he bring up the uncritical platforming of Blair Cottrell, who has advocated for a picture of Adolf Hitler in all classrooms. Or Dean’s colleague Andrew Bolt’s belief that Jewish communities are forming “colonies” in Australia. Or the network’s ongoing laundering of Lauren “great replacement” Southern.

Wherever we see it? We couldn’t agree more.

Tanya appointed Chifley The dance that Tanya Plibersek has begun (perhaps dating back to late last year when Plibersek’s name was showing up in the news quite a bit) with The Australian is one in which all participants know the moves.

While Labor leader Anthony Albanese continues to look vulnerable, Plibersek can get sympathetic coverage like she received today — described as a potential party leader on the front page and given space to lay out her post-COVID vision.

That this vision explicitly evokes Ben Chifley — who, among other things, sought to nationalise Australia’s banking sector and airlines, a concept which would generally give News Corp editors a nosebleed no doctor could cure but passes without comment here — is all part of the dance. After all, it can’t kick the shit out of Plibersek until it succeeds in helping her become leader, something Albanese knows all too well.

Not the time A question to the editors of Pilbara News: is the story of a young mother being sent down for dealing meth really the place for a cheeky little pun?

Aston marred ’em? Yesterday’s court defamation ruling against The Australian Financial Review gossip columnist Joe Aston caused us to wonder: would it cause his employer to crack down on his exquisitely crafted vitriol?

Today’s AFR put our minds at ease — it’s practically a special edition dedicated to Joe.

There are five individual news stories concerning the case — ranging from the “victims” of Blue Sky, the company at the heart of the complaint, to the fact that the case represents yet another victory for high-profile defamation plaintiffs in Australia (and much more). If that wasnt enough, two opinion pieces and the editorial are dedicated to the chilling effect the decision has on free speech.

So if you enjoyed the imagery of, say, “The Murdochs’ entire Australian apparatus … guzzles Gerry’s warm Coomboona bull sperm by the pailful so its publishers can shake down the rabid old fool for the very last $40 million print advertising account they’re ever going to see“, fear not.

According to the Fin, the only thing Aston is guilty of is being a goddamn hero.