(Image: AAP/Private Media)

The mask slips Some political divides are subtle and others can be summed up pungently in a couple of images, such as the following:

What is the plan here? Because surely this is a plan, a conscious and deliberate strategy that’s been communicated to MPs. It surely cannot be a coincidence that nearly every member of one party wears a mask and nearly every member of another does not. It lands as particularly brazen in a crowded space while Canberra, like the rest of the nation, is seeing skyrocketing COVID-19 numbers, and gives a queasy indication that the Coalition will look to make a freedom issue out of any attempts by the new government to curb those numbers.

Spotting greenwashing We here in the bunker are always interested in corporations’ less-than-entirely- sincere moves towards one kind of justice or another, so our eyes were particularly caught by a handy report in Quartz breaking down greenwashing, the frequently successful attempts of corporations to mislead consumers about their environmental credentials. It’s a long and detailed report, worth reading in full, but here are a few examples of what it says to look out for:

  • Packing and ads that use images of nature (particularly polar bears, given their symbolic portent around melting icecaps) or even excessive use of the colour green is frequently pushed by companies like Chevron to give a misleading sense of their priorities
  • The focus and emphasis on one green product from a company whose carbon footprint dwarfs any good it does
  • Reliance on dubious “offsets” that achieve nothing
  • This will be familiar to Australian readers: companies that have policies on climate action but belong to trade associations that do everything they can to oppose action
  • Unscientific and vague goal setting, as well as dodgied up statistics about what has been achieved.

PHON-ing the flames In another dispiriting sign of how the tone of the 47th Parliament may play out: Senator Pauline Hanson stormed out of the Senate in response to Senate President Sue Lines’ acknowledgment of country on Wednesday. Remember when the Greens moved a flag a few weeks ago and people asked whether Lidia Thorpe should be expelled from Parliament for disrespecting the legitimacy and conventions of the institution? We’ll see if anything similar follows Hanson’s decision.

Dick moves There are only two things people know, if they know anything at all, about House Speaker Milton Dick. One is that once he got tossed out of Parliament for decorating his desk with little Muppets (a reference to then PM Scott Morrison’s description of his own side as a “Muppet show”) and, second, that he is a truly formidable unit, an absolute giant of a man.

The younger brother of Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick is a close confidant of Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, a former Queensland Labor state secretary, and a long-time powerbroker in the ALP. He is also, according to a typically theatrically and, shall we say, sprawling endorsement from Bob Katter, Queensland royalty — Katter followed the Dick dynasty all the way back to 1880, only to perform a classic Katter neck-snapping shift in tone mid sentence:

Gas bagging Only in natural-gas rich Australia, and especially Victoria, would we see an announcement like Wednesday’s missive from Viva Energy — an import terminal for gas to be built at Geelong, where Viva also has a refinery. Viva is controlled by global energy and commodity trader Vitol, which will now be able to buy Viva’s gas in global markets, or even from Australia, and deliver it to the new Viva Energy Gas Terminal in the Port of Geelong.

Unlike Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, the Victorian gas is for domestic use, as is the gas from the Cooper Basin in South Australia and Queensland (which supplies Sydney, parts of NSW and Adelaide). And yet this winter we’ve had shortages of gas, hence skyrocketing prices.

But Australia remains in the top two biggest gas exporters in the world, and apart from WA which reserves 15% for domestic use, there is not enough gas available to supply the rest of Australia and keep prices low. Anyone want to bet that the new Viva gas terminal might, through Vitol, start handling gas shipments from Queensland, the NT or WA that are snapped up in the spot market whenever there is a surplus?