Own goals “I’ve got the hide of a rhino — you need to in this job,” announced British Education Secretary Gavin Williamson in an interview with the Evening Standard, presumably trying to sound like one of the steely higher-ups in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Little did he know he was mere sentences away from fashioning a rod to test that hide out. At one point he was asked whether he’d met with Marcus Rashford, the English footballer who has campaigned relentlessly for the reduction of child food poverty, most notably in the area of free school meals, and has been a vocal critic of Williamson. He had, he replied, describing Rashford as “incredibly engaged, compassionate and charming”.
Except the person he spoke to was not Marcus Rashford. Williamson’s team later contacted the journalist to say he actually met rugby player Maro Itoje, not Rashford, and they spoke about equal access to education during the pandemic, not food poverty. Sure, they play different sports and have different — if overlapping — causes, don’t have similar names or look at all alike. But they do have one thing in common, which we’ll leave to you to work out.
D’Ath D’oh In ongoing “This is how politicians spend their days” news, Queensland Health Minister Yvette D’Ath yesterday gave the federal government both barrels over what she called “false claims” regarding her refusal to allow Afghanistan veterans back into the country. As part of this, she said she had texted Defence Minister Peter Dutton and received no response — much like Joe Hildebrand before her, slightly misjudging how dramatic it is to show your phone to the gathered press. Dutton replied that he had received no such text.
It was later revealed that D’Ath had made a classic error of the “rushed text so you can say you contacted someone you don’t actually want to talk to” and gotten a digit wrong, presumably resulting in some random wondering why the Health Minister was texting them… and calling them Peter. As an added bonus, the Queensland Treasurer and federal Minister for Employment apparently weren’t too busy to get involved either.
Boreder? I hardly know ‘er! Speaking of a misplaced character: Jesus Christ, get it together, Border Force:
War History History Wars In the lead-up to the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Education Minister Alan Tudge has been ramping up his own John Howard tribute act, attempting to reignite the history wars in the crudest possible terms. He has spent months campaigning against the proposed new curriculum — constantly coming back to the idea that Anzac Day should be presented as “the most sacred day” in Australia, not a “contested idea”, displaying an odd understanding of the word “education” for a man with the word education in his job title.
But also, for a bloke who is always banging on about history, his grasp of “things that actually happened in the past” is pretty shaky too, as illustrated by telling Triple J his nightmare scenario: if students did not learn about Australia’s “great successes”, they were “not going to protect it as a million Australians have through their military service”.
Explicitly linking Australia’s “great successes” to military service seems an odd choice. Is he referring to great successes like Australia’s involvement in Vietnam? Or Afghanistan. Or Iraq? Or would the details of those achievements lead to more of that “hatred” that he’s so worried about?
Is he referring to great successes like Australia’s involvement in Vietnam? Or Afghanistan. Or Iraq?
Wasn’t Gallipoli a huge military failure? Or is the history I learned in high school in Australia now out-of-date?
Most successful retreat in history, though.
Certainly a lot tidier than Kabul.
D Day?
This ANZAC hoo-ha is pretty sickening. Why get sentimental about the attempted invasion of another country, that had done Australia no harm?
Tudge’s suspect grasp of history was illustrated when he couldn’t even remember he had a wife and kids in Melbourne.
it is to be wondered if this Tudge chappie has ever served in the Military services or even as a volunteer fire-fighter or rescue service person…
No mention of any such activity on his farcebuch pages or APH site – and it is certain that it would be shown had he ever raised a sweat or callous in such activity.
However he did do 5 years hard graft as a management consultant so knows what it’s like at the ..err, coal face of ..err, something something…
Tudge is the worst person to be involved in the curriculum redesign. He fundamentally does not understand the study of history and seems to want to make history the class of the monomyth.
I did like how he’s clearly not read the document and made noise about Captain Cook not being explicitly mentioned, despite Cook being mentioned elsewhere.
Finally, that interview was a masterclass in how right-wing types love to make the interview process meaningless. Demanding the interviewer name individual First Nations people who might be upset with the curriculum instead of answering the damn question was just perfect.