The quiet American Who is the mystery man at the heart of the recent lockdown in the Northern Territory? The trajectory of his journey — the US to Sydney to Canberra to Darwin — was suggestive. Why did he swing by Canberra? There’s nothing to indicate he left the airport during his six-hour layover in the nation’s capital, but perhaps the CCTV footage the NT has requested would reveal him sitting next to a man in a trench coat reading a newspaper, staring straight ahead but talking? Why the reluctance to disclose his vaccination status? Was he willing to provide only his name and serial number? Was his trip to Katherine just a quick break before heading to Pine Gap?
Alas, it’s been confirmed that of the two things he could’ve been, spy or defence contractor, he was the less exciting one, with Defence confirming he worked for an “unnamed contractor”. “It could be BAE, Raytheon, Lockheed, take your pick,” a tipster on the ground told us.
Of course the much more immediate concern is vaccination rates in the NT’s Indigenous communities. “The information coming out of western New South Wales, combined with the low and slow rollout here, has got people very scared,” our tipster said.
This is what a feminist looks like Canadian premier and Himbo of the world stage Justin Trudeau has a message for his country: who’s going to lead Canada’s emergence from the COVID nightmare? The girl reading this. “We need to counter the she-cession and turn it into a she-covery,” he told a press conference yesterday, before noting: “The fact is, the conservatives don’t talk about that.” We’re quite sure they don’t.
Still, we’re sure many Canadians are happy to sit through the a bit of Trudeau’s performative hunky-woke hybrid in the lead-up to the election, given their skyrocketing vaccine rates.
20/20 hindsight If you want any indication of just how unprepared Australia was for what has occurred in Afghanistan in recent days, look at our Australian defence chief Angus Campbell just two months ago, June 1, 2021, via The Australian: “[Campbell] told the Senate that violence between the Taliban and Afghan government forces would likely continue but he did not believe the former Islamist extremist rulers of Afghanistan would overrun the entire country once NATO and its allies leave.”
She’s Ardern Us Ah, what it is to be an international byword for how not to handle the Delta variant. New Zealand is now blanketed in a snap level-four lockdown — no takeaways, no deliveries — after a 10-case cluster. Prime Minster Jacinda Ardern was asked what her response was to people questioning the need for such harsh restrictions. She (quite literally) pointed to us: “Australia.”
As ever Jacinta is truthful and grounded in reality – a seemingly rare quality to find in politicians these days. I’d say let’s import her but she lacks business bucks and Hopkin’s anti-vaxxing and anti-lockdowns views and wouldn’t qualify for a visa.
I well remember that scratching, spitting, clawing bit of fluff Julie Bishop who when she was elected that the Australian government would find it difficult to get along with her. Just as the Madam Arssbestos Bishop had trouble with Julia Gillard beating her to what she thought was her destiny, first female PM, just as Julie Gillard beat her in the courts for asbestos victims.
When Jacinda was elected…
To correct a point: Justin Trudeau is Prime Minister – not Premier.