Mark McGowan Valentine's Day
(Image: AAP/Mick Tsikas/Private Media)

Love is in the post There are few things that bring out the weird in politicians and public institutions like Valentine’s Day. Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan, continuing whatever witchcraft has entranced his state, got a seemingly universally positive response to the following:

When we say universally positive, we’re talking more than pictures of him with love hearts around his face (although, there were plenty of those) — one person put together a fawning card that read “I love you like WA loves Mark McGowan”, while another got a detailed portrait/tired hip hop joke tattooed on his thigh. McGowan really doesn’t have to try anymore, huh?

Meanwhile, Anthony Albanese (the Labor leader Mark McGowan dreams of being during his most terrifying sleep paralysis) continued his crimes against posting, his own message warped through Victoria’s snap lockdown (was it even intentionally Valentine’s themed? It’s hard to tell):

Meanwhile Victorian Police continued the classic “Cops on Twitter” combination of abstract joviality and concrete menace:

And finally, the Australian Bureau of Statistics decided, for reasons best known to its social media manager, get all horny on main, reminding us that 33% of its office is well up for it:

Making headlines We have previously noted Tim Wilson’s posting mania in promoting his anti-compulsory super campaign. It seems any attention, however negative, is good enough for our Tim to engage with and slap a link to his website on.

So we can’t help but wonder if the following — surely the weirdest and clunkiest headline this side of “I have no experience of ghosts but house is always haunt as moving proves” — might have been his idea?

Kennett, Jeff! We’re always happy to keep an eye on the doings of former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett, Crikey‘s grandad who hates us. Unsurprisingly, he had some less than positive thoughts about Victoria’s snap lockdown:

What a sad day. Beautiful. But nowhere to go. Florists with stock they can’t sell. Functions cancelled. Restaurants having to throw out volumes of fresh food because their doors have been locked. A whole state closed. There has got to be a better way of handling future outbreaks.

Ah yes, ways of handling outbreaks. A subject Kennett knows well, for example, in his dealings with the Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital. The Hospital had stood for over 90 years, treating victims of polio, typhoid, the Spanish flu, scarlet fever and, later, HIV/AIDS. Despite years of protests to save the site, the Kennett government closed it in 1996.