Gothic Archer Liberal MP for Bass Bridget Archer caused her party all manner of annoyance over the past year — distancing herself from the Morrison government’s chaotic final months, crossing the floor to vote against their religious discrimination bill and notably scrapping any mention of the party from her election material. A cynic might have noted that Archer, roughly 500 votes away from losing her seat, had made a calculation that jumping from the sinking ship before it exploded (there was a lot wrong with the ship…) couldn’t do her any harm.
That said, we have to give her some credit for continuing to push the moderate line now that she’s secured another three years: she plans to cross the floor and vote with Labor on its new climate bill. But her disclosures overnight do paint an interesting counterpoint to all this — she owns a bunch of shares in mining companies with her partner:
Is the vote for an emissions reduction target while investing in fossil fuel companies yet another sign of her selfless commitment to her principles, or… perhaps a sign that Labor’s targets don’t go far enough?
A question of Truss Our friends at The New European detect “something like a monkey paw curling one of its fingers“. Having wished so fervently for the end of Boris Johnson’s shambolic time as UK prime minister, they now have to deal with the reality of that wish coming true: his potential replacements. They have little love for Rishi Sunak, but they are particularly worried about the prospect of a government led by Liz Truss (the overwhelming favourite with bookies at this point) and have put together a list of “39 good reasons Liz Truss will be a terrible prime minister”.
There’s plenty of good stuff in there, but our favourite has to be the clip they unearthed from the 2014 Conservative Party conference where she boasts of her imminent trip to Beijing to open “pork markets” and then smiles eerily into the silence that follows, like a skit Tim and Eric discarded for being too off-putting, before the audience realises that Truss is waiting for the applause she assumed would greet this revelation:
Keating up appearances That former prime minister Paul Keating was called on by The Sydney Morning Herald for some click-ready commentary on Greens Leader Adam Bandt’s criticism of the Labor Party isn’t that surprising. Indeed, Keating is such a gift to journalists it’s surprising they don’t call on him more often to weigh in on the political debate of the day. Who could fail to rejoice at his turn of phrase? He called Bandt a “bounder”, a gorgeously archaic term that recalls his fondness for words like “blaggard” in his time in office.
Still, this one was stretching it a touch. Keating was apparently furious at Bandt calling the ALP a “neoliberal” party. Of all the things for Keating to be mad about… whatever you wish to say about Keating’s time in office, as treasurer and PM, it favoured privatisation, deregulation of finance and banking, a greater emphasis on enterprise bargaining with individual employers, and removing tariffs.
Jonesing “Do you know what perjury is?” Mark Bankston must have dreamed of moments like this. Bankston is a lawyer for the parents of one of the children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, who are currently suing disgraced broadcaster, conspiracy theorist and professional-level scumbag Alex Jones. Via an error by Jones’ lawyers, Bankston was provided with every text Jones has sent for the past two years, and was thus able to point to Jones’ demonstrable lies under oath during the trial.
Nothing can make up for what these parents have gone through — the senseless murder of their children compounded by years of harassment and slander initiated, encouraged and profited from by Jones — but we hope this latest moment of well-earned public humiliation for Jones gave them at least a moment of true satisfaction.
