Eat it Newbie New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet was afflicted by a fun-sized scandal yesterday, narrowly avoiding a fine for himself and an unsuspecting pub proprietor by sipping a small beer while standing at a “freedom day” press event.
For one thing, it marks the second time he’s broken the rules he himself sets within roughly a week of being in power, an impressive strike rate. For another, the rash of New South Wales politicians milling about awkwardly in pubs (none of whom, weirdly, thought to invite any women) is a standing reminder that politicians should never ever try to be relatable.
Just as with any attempt to publicly enjoy human activities, politicians eating and drinking has an eerie, uncanny quality, like they’re androids desperately trying to fool the Voight-Kampff test.
A few local classics include Scott Morrison’s furious pie eating and Bill Shorten biting his democracy sausage from the centre, like a psychopath:
Then there’s this recent effort from British PM Boris Johnson answering the question: how many hours does three seconds feel like when you spend it watching a man blankly chew while staring directly down the camera lens?
Still in the UK, we can’t leave former Labour leader Ed Milliband off this list. The phrase “Ed Milliband bacon sandwich” is the third thing that comes up when you type his name into Google. Put it this way: imagine eating a sandwich in such a fucked-up way it gets its own Wikipedia page.
And, finally, the one guy who looked extremely comfortable surrounded by fast food — former US president Donald Trump back in 2019 had his definitive portrait taken surrounded by a room full of presumably stone-cold McDonald’s. In the immortal words of Guy Rundle, it’s a picture you can smell.
A handy guide to climate change gymnastics part three With the Coalition “inching” towards a target of net zero by 2050 (or so we’re constantly told…) and News Corp “campaigning” for it (sort of), a lot of people are having to perform some real contortions on the subject of climate change action. To help you keep track, our friend and colleague Mitchell Squire has put together a handy list of climate change gymnastics. Here’s one for the man who started it all, former finance minister Mathias Cormann:
Fire and Bramston One is torn reading today’s Troy Bramston column in The Australian. It’s a “Simpsons frozen yoghurt gag” of a piece:
A high-profile writer for the Oz finally acknowledges that Morrison, contrary to the headlines and front pages dedicated to the subject, has no firm plan to do anything on climate change…
That’s good!
… But it lays equal blame at the feet of Labor, the Greens and One Nation, none of whom have been near power for eight years…
That’s bad.
… But it acknowledges the role big business has played in stymying the debate…
That’s good.
… But ignores the role his employers at News Corp have played in shrieking about the costs of climate change for over a decade…
That’s bad …
Wran so far away You may recall a little while back a slightly tetchy conversation we had with the ABC regarding its Exposed series about the 1979 fire at Sydney’s Luna Park.
A few details in our coverage of the internal report into the series rankled, it let us know, we made a note, and everyone moved on with their life. Except… not everyone, apparently. The ABC has let us know it has been approached with a freedom of information request that takes in our email exchange. While there’s nothing much in what’s been requested that we haven’t already told you about, in the interests of transparency, here’s what was said:
Something about eating a raw onion?