It was one medium alone that dragged the controversy over the Adler shotgun up into first place this week, as commercial radio and quite a few regional ABC stations went a bit troppo over the issue. There was plenty of discussion about the nature of the gun and why anyone might need one, but the majority focused on the stoush between the current and former PMs about what deal, if any, was offered to Senator David Leyonhjelm, who also certainly managed to lift his head above the oh-so-crowded crossbencher scrum of 2016.
Bang on two weeks until we find out the results of the US Presidential election, although most of the media has called it already, leading to a few cautionary pieces with titles like “Hang on, he might still win.” The media is close to universal now about Trump deserving to lose, but what is clear is that, in the very likely event of Clinton winning, she will come in to a deadlocked system with perhaps the least goodwill of any new president in history. The Senate and House elections are the ones that really matter now.
There has been a huge amount of vision and daily updates on the battle for Mosul, in this heavily televised and smartphoned war, but most of us may be feeling we don’t know much more than we did a week ago. The fog of war seems to be almost as thick even when the battle is being recorded in minute detail.
The stoush between the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General and the ultimate resignation of Justin Gleeson may have been a very much ‘inside the beltway’ story, but it nevertheless was another significant distraction for a government trying to talk about union corruption, and facing more significant long term questions about the independence of senior public office holders. Some media focused on the Minister in question, others on a broader systemic problem.
A fair way back in fifth was the latest salvo in whose to blame for the housing affordability problem in Sydney and Melbourne, with the Treasurer blaming the states and land supply, something that is far from a new claim, and some found a little simplistic.
The underdog won, we are all shocked! Or at least some portion of the one in twenty of us who watch it are … but don’t tell the online mastheads that, it’s massive news, really…
Hooray, somebody won Australian Survivor. That means it’s concluded.
A weight is off me.