Challenges and opportunities Billionaire Andrew Liveris has had a hell of a pandemic. The oil and gas executive and adviser to former US president Donald Trump has had a wonderful talent for being in the room when decisions where made, nabbing not one but two advisory roles in Australia’s COVID recovery. Could he have had something to do with the “gas-led recovery plan”? Could that make him richer? Isn’t that a potential conflict of interest? These are all questions Liveris was apparently under no obligation to answer, and we assume they haven’t come up in this morning’s chat with former senator and current ambassador to the United States, Arthur Sinodinos.
It’s titled “Partners in Progress”. Partners, certainly; progress, maybe not. It apparently “unravels the history-making changes we have seen and highlights the opportunities these present to the global Australian innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem”. And, look, we’d have to say Liveris is eminently qualified to talk about those opportunities.
National disgrace After Crikey broke the story of George Christensen going on far-right conspiracy crank Alex Jones’ show to laugh along with a little light Holocaust humour, a line in the sand was drawn. Deputy Nationals’ Leader David Littleproud took a bold stand on the MP, who was obviously suitably chastened: “Some of my comments he agreed with …” Brutal stuff.
But other Nats have been a bit firmer — Darren Chester, as ever the quiet voice of principle echoing somewhere at the back of the partyroom, tweeted a sentiment which we assume he’s constantly exasperatedly expressing to his friends and family: “I want to assure Australians there are plenty of normal people in the Nationals party room who are doing their best every day to represent the interests of regional communities.” He went on to “condemn the conspiracy theories, lack of respect & ill-informed comments of Christensen”.
Christensen, for his part, posted praise of fellow cooker Senator Alex Antic appearing on Steve Bannon’s show, and posting a video of himself as a sagging beardy braveheart (much like modern-day Mel Gibson, I guess… )
Brett Lee or Stagger Lee? At a glance, you could be forgiven for looking at the following tweet from news.com.au and asking: “Wait, Brett Lee did WHAT?” Jesus Christ, news, take a second look at these things before you tweet them out:
Easy being Green Some solid enough shithousery from the Greens yesterday, putting out a statement accusing the ALP of making “perfect the enemy of the good” and adopting “a ‘take it or leave it’ approach” to climate change policy. It’s of course a reference to the accusations — dating back to 2009 and further — that the Greens would rather snipe about unavoidable compromises than actually get anything done, particularly on the environment.
Of course, the Greens are probably the only party who can really get away with this kind of thing — as Guy Rundle told Crikey recently, it is the one party whose base still truly resembles the party: a bunch of knowledge-class news obsessives will like a little in-joke like this. We wonder, for example, how Pauline Hanson’s attempt at satire — all inside jokes relying on a detailed digestion of mainstream news — could possibly appeal to anyone who would ever vote for her?
George Christensen called for protests at Australian embassies vis-a-vis Jan 6 Capitol attacks. In doing so he is putting all embassy staff lives at risk. What do Scotty and Barnaby do? Nothing that’s what. George Christensen should be expelled from the Nats and thrown out of parliament. If anything happens to one single person from his directives, authorities must throw the book at him. Outrageous behaviour. The Coalition is so toxic it’s terrifying.
Has Arfa Sinodonors got his memory back after his stint at opening doors for AWH?
Liveris and Sinodinos are signalling, as happens often nowadays, how integrated Australian LNP politics, media and US think tanks haver become in promoting the same PR messaging e.g. ‘freedom & liberty’; nobody in Oz media seems to think these shallow and glib US memes are unusual in Australia anymore?
The Greens? A very ‘broad church’ like the original Libs that can be too easily described by media as left but had sided with the LNP over Labor’s climate policies, founder Bob Brown was member of the Young Libs, admirer of Menzies and like an acquaintance who ran in a state elections for the greens, views environment as a Malthusian population issue that requires immigration restrictions (vs. robust environmental legislation?) …. that is more extreme than any LNP voter I know?