FEBRUARY 16, 2019

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The Morrison government’s first sitting week of the year has packed in a month’s worth of mania. From the bloodied doors to the AWU’s courtroom saga, it’s hard to know where to look.

We recommend switching your gaze to those stories that are taking longer than a week or two to unfold. Bernard Keane took on the Closing The Gap report and how devastatingly similar it is to previous years.

Chris Woods looked at the medivac bill win in a 20-year arc of asylum seeker policy.

And Kara Schlegl wrote about waiting for Australian commercial TV to deliver something, anything worthy of the “prestige” title.

Have a great weekend,

Bhakthi Puvanenthiran
Managing Editor

Home Affairs is in crisis and only a royal commission can fix it

BERNARD KEANE 3 minute read

Behind the Department of Home Affairs' shadowy facade is a shambolic bureaucracy which refuses to learn from its past scandals.

A closer look at Scott Morrison’s CV

6 minute read

Morrison's pre-parliament career casts doubt over his strategic campaigning abilities, his management skills and an apparent tendency towards a lack of transparency.

Medivac bill passes the House

Bringing morality to a politics fight

GUY RUNDLE 4 minute read

This medivac bill is forcing a conversation about the purpose and logic of indefinite detention. But will the talk lead to real change?

Sorry, but the medivac bill is less important than you think

BERNARD KEANE 4 minute read

While left and right obsess about asylum seekers, the issue is near irrelevant to most voters. A radical change in circumstances will be needed for it to play a major role in the election.

The medivac bill is a minor win, but it teases a more compassionate Australia

CHRIS WOODS 4 minute read

Australian asylum policy has been a 20-year fight to the bottom. Is there finally a turning point in sight?

Crisis watch: the various scandals threatening the Greens

CHARLIE LEWIS 3 minute read

The crises that have enveloped both state and federal Greens in the last 12 months could give the major parties a run for their money.

This parliament doesn’t need an election, it needs an exorcism

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The government’s hysterical reaction to the tweaking of the medivac procedures for ill asylum seekers was the initial nadir yesterday. That featured blatant lying by senior ministers, the dismissal of crucial details (like the fact that it won’t apply to new asylum seekers as 'Canberra bubble nuance') by the man notionally leading the country, the theatrical reopening of the Christmas Island detention centre in a sort of prime ministerial video invitation to people smugglers to start up again, and the circulation of ridiculous talking points like 'the beast is stirring' to gullible journalists. — Bernard Keane

This parliament has reached a new low in the standards of its politics. But, these days, finding a new low is the norm.

Sex, power and finding success in the music industry

KATIE CUNNINGHAM 4 minute read

Music is a hierarchical industry built on relationships. The allegations made against Ryan Adams should be familiar to everyone.

Where is Australia’s ‘prestige’ television?

KARA SCHLEGL 7 minute read

The commercial networks have been in a death spiral for some time, and it looks like we're condemned to reheated panel shows and rebooted reality from here on out.

What if you threw a scare campaign and no one showed up?

BERNARD KEANE 4 minute read

The campaign against Labor's dividend credit reform could still bite, but it's yet to have an impact on the right voters.

The defamation case that could tear apart the internet as we know it

MICHAEL BRADLEY 4 minute read

It's very unlikely former Don Dale detainee Dylan Voller will win this one, but we should all be watching closely.

The Ramsay Centre’s curriculum erases Jewish works

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The Ramsay Centre is a private college, established in a public university and piggybacking on its infrastructure. The FAQ talks with pride about how it will be ring-fenced from existing staff — because it knows the NTEU would black it — as if it were doing existing staff a favour. The document trash talks its own humanities department by saying that the department focuses solely on the gender, race, etc aspects of the Western heritage.

It doesn’t. You can still study Shakespeare and the Ancient World in the Wollongong humanities. You just won’t get a highly prescriptive and unquestioned line about how excellent it all is thumped into you. — Guy Rundle

There are a lot of unanswered questions about the Ramsay Centre’s curriculum. Chief among them: why does it expunge Jewish heritage in the formation of Western culture?

The Australian man in the middle of the Jeff Bezos extortion attempt

EMILY WATKINS 4 minute read

Dylan Howard, a former Seven and Geelong Advertiser journalist, has come to international attention in the wake of the National Enquirer's attempt to extort Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

Is there a future for arts journalism?

EMILY WATKINS 6 minute read

As column space shrinks, art journals close and writer fees go down, many are wondering what we will lose if arts journalism disappears.

Sniffer dogs at stage left: the NSW government’s war on festivals

KISHOR NAPIER-RAMAN 4 minute read

Festivals are being priced out of existence by a government bent on avoiding bad PR. Crikey looks at the chaos in the festival industry.

‘With hope in your heart’: Hakeem Al-Araibi returns home

CHARLIE LEWIS 4 minute read

Hakeem did not walk into Melbourne's international terminal alone yesterday, and it wasn't just Craig Foster by his side.

11 years after the Apology, Victoria has no compensation for Stolen Generations

ALISTER MCKEICH 3 minute read

Australia's 'most progressive state' has a lot to answer for.