(Image: Yves Herman/PA Wire)

Before it was cool Look, sometimes we just to have give ourselves a bit of credit. We couldn’t help but notice that a lot of people have been following our lead. The idea of out and out calling the Prime Minister a liar (outside Twitter users with a picture of Bob Hawke as their avi and string of numbers in their username) was a dicey, slightly uncomfortable novelty back in May when we compiled our list of — then 28, now over 40 and counting — demonstrable lies and falsehoods Scott Morrison had managed in his time at the helm. Now, suddenly everyone’s doing it.

First, French President Emmanuel Macron said he doesn’t “think”, he “knows” Morrison lied to him. Then Malcolm Turnbull, in that “oh, of course, you should have asked me about this before” tone he often takes since his time in office, told journalists at COP26 that Morrison had “lied to me on many occasions … Scott has always had a reputation for telling lies”.

Indicating the opposition is finally ready to start doing some opposing, Chris Bowen told Insiders, “We know Scott Morrison is a liar. He lies in Parliament about briefings for Anthony Albanese on COVID. He lies about whether he’s called EVs weekend wrecking…” And yesterday, Sarah Martin over in The Guardian correctly diagnosed the deflection about “labor lies” on electric vehicles as “lying about his lie with another lie”.

Anyway, you’re welcome, everyone.

Walkley right back to me The Walkley Foundation got in contact over our concern for their wellbeing earlier this week — after an email they sent round appeared to cut off dead after a heading about “the future of journalism” — to say they were just fine thank you:

We’re fine Charlie, thanks for asking after us. But you shouldn’t be too concerned because while some parts of the media are facing financial pressures, the Walkley Foundation is not facing any such existential threats. Perhaps you should be checking in on your email server, which appears to have cut off the rest of the message where it mentions the MEAA report into the future of journalism. It’s well worth a read, if you haven’t done so already. We will soon be re-launching our newsletter with more information on professional development opportunities for journalists, as well as our regular events and awards coverage.

Cyberdyne systems Adding to the strange and regrettable subgenre of “ads where our state security apparatus tries to appear down to earth and relatable” is the following effort from the Australian Cyber Security Centre, landing somewhere between a Transformazing ad and an bit of promotional material for early Black Mirror. A young woman in a bathrobe and a sheet mask, looks smilingly at her phone, and then the image glitches out, and fades to the slogan: “Beat Cyber Crime in Your Down Time”:

And this manages to be possibly the least creepy in a long line of attempts of our intelligence agencies to convince us they’re just like us. There was the “we’re going to arrest this person, no actually we want to hire them (unless they want to be a whistleblower)!” ad, as well as ASIO’s hee-larious first tweet about tracking Australian citizens, which followed the template set by the Australian Signals Directorate’s a few years earlier.

Hunting for Flinders What’s the go in the Flinders electorate? We’ve been hearing persistent rumours that Health Minister Greg Hunt has decided, like many of us after the last two years, that he needs a rest and won’t be contesting the next election. We asked his office, and with a swiftness that implied they get this question a lot and were getting a touch sick of it, they called our attention to a September interview with Clinton Maynard in which Hunt insist he was “preselected and running” in the next election.

With an election potentially coming within months, it is certainly getting late in the game to make any change, particularly in a seat that’s not 100% nailed down.