Leane-ing into it The Twitter feed of Victorian Minister for Local Government Shaun Leane has been full of merriment this morning over Peta Credlin’s apparent contention that Premier Daniel Andrews has been using “mind control” to remain as popular as he has during a year with so many catastrophes in the state.
Several times Leane has quote tweeted it this morning. But of course the Sky News Australia account in question is a parody, and it’s not at all clear whether he just really appreciates a bit of satirical spice getting him through a Thursday morning or whether … he hasn’t realised it’s a parody account?
I mean sure, who among us hasn’t at one point or another thought Sky News was beyond parody…
Tehan it up The year has been a nightmare for universities. Excluded (time and time again) from any government support, several unis have laid off staff and cut the pay of those who remain. So thank the gods of Western civilisation that the education minister is ensuring that unis have a robust and reliable … commitment to free speech.
Yesterday Dan Tehan launched Sally Walker’s review of whether universities had successfully implemented Robert French’s model code for free speech on campus.
To recap, the French report found that the much hyped “free speech” crisis delivered unto us by censorious and trigger-warning-happy lefty students wasn’t really much of a thing.
Nevertheless, Tehan said the government “will embolden” vice-chancellors “to make sure that their university is implementing the [French free-speech] code”.
How about you “embolden” them to pay their staff properly?
The rainbow bulldozer As we’ve noted before, for all its reputation as the dissolute lefty people’s republic of Danistan, Victoria sure does love cops and rules.
Yarra City Council — made up of five Greens, two independent socialists and two independents — is considering banning alcohol in Edinburgh Gardens in Fitzroy until February. This is based, the ABC tells us, on reports of “rowdy crowds” and “unruly behaviour”.
Apparently Victorians don’t need a single powerful conservative to have us clutching our pearls over blue language and rough housing.
Trump watch There’s nothing Donald Trump finds more contemptible than a loser. Which is what makes his endless, futile attempts to overturn the election results so satisfying. Most recently, a terse response from the Supreme Court knocking him back didn’t stretch past a sentence.
The Trump campaign has racked up a cricket score — filing and losing more than 50 lawsuits since the election.
Good feud It may be obvious, but it’s worth restating: what Andrew Bolt does, even at the most generous estimation, is not journalism. Partly, of course, this is because when he tries journalism it doesn’t go great.
His work is, in the main, letters written in public to other people in the media, stitched together for long enough that at a glance, it looks like a worldview.
So it is that a recent piece demands an apology to Cardinal George Pell — who had his conviction for child sex abuse overturned earlier this year — from various institutions and in particular from ABC journalist Louise Milligan.
Milligan took this as an opportunity to remind Bolt what the royal commission found about Pell — that he “knew about insatiable paedophile clergy & did absolutely nothing”.
Isn’t it awful when institutions cause horrific damage, Andrew?
Re Edinburgh Gardens. It seems it is a bit like St Kilda Beach. Can be a magnet for large crowds who trash the place and cause very large clean-up bills. New Years Eve I think is generally a big problem with litter strewn from end to end and it is a big park.
The ABC report also mentioned rubbish and laneways used as toilets.