Good morning good readers, life moves pretty fast and we’re already four weeks into 2023. So far, so normal on my end, which I’m chalking up as a small victory.
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That’s enough 1980s film references for now. Here are the deeper reads that hooked me in this week. And I’ve saved the deepest for last …
1. How 26 January exposed voice campaign’s challenges
With each passing year Australia’s national day presents even more to unpack. “The noisiest day of the year,” writes political editor Katharine Murphy, “is both totemic and bitterly contested.” And this year the contest coalesced around the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum.
Murph and Canberra bureau colleague Josh Butler took the temperature on the ground at Invasion Day rallies in the nation’s capital, and found opinion divided. “Fuck your voice,” screamed one sign. “When they stand over there with them,” Nioka Coe-Craigie said, gesturing towards parliament, “they lose the right to speak on behalf of our people.”
Opposition to the voice was less enthusiastic in the crowd. As one protester, Nell, observed: “There’s no power unless you get in that door [of parliament].”
The conclusion? “While we can’t know the future, the scenes at Thursday’s rallies expose the perennial problem for Labor. Critics on the right will chide the government for going too far, while critics on the left want them to go further. With only a simple yes or no vote available in the referendum, the government is entirely alive to the possibility of being sandwiched and outflanked on both edges.”
How long will it take to read: Three minutes.
Further reading: Paul Karp’s explainer on why a voice to parliament won’t affect First Nations sovereignty.
2. ‘Don’t become the expert in the baby’
You know what they say about opinions – and when it comes to parenting, you better believe everybody has got one. But when Bridie Jabour was struggling to cope as a first-time mum, those seven sage words of advice from her mother set her on the right track.
Notable quote: “She told me when my partner’s home he’s going to do things differently. He’s going to feed the baby differently, bathe the baby differently, put the baby to sleep differently. You may look at them bathing the baby and think it’s the most ridiculous method you’ve ever seen, but walk away.”
How long will it take to read: Two minutes
Further reading: The Words to live by series has been running all through summer and isn’t finished yet. Or if you want to know more misconceptions about the “magic” of parenting, Isabelle Oderberg has you covered.
3. The massive crime scandal behind the UK’s rubbish
Seems Tony Soprano isn’t the only mob boss with an interest in the sanitation industry. In Northern Ireland, as husband-and-wife investigative reporters Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor discovered, if you’ve got a rubbish disposal problem there are crime gangs who will happily get rid of it for you – for a price.
While the gangs profit, it’s the environment that ends up paying. At one special conservation site where waste equivalent to about 20 Titanic ships was dumped, everything from asbestos to arsenic was detected during a £100m (A$175m) clean-up job.
Notable quote: “Just think about what you throw away,” says Ashby. “It’s a stunning amount. That waste has to be dealt with, and someone has to pay someone to deal with it. It’s low risk for criminals and you’re being paid to do the crime. It is an extraordinarily brilliant business.”
How long will it take to read: Three minutes
4. To the ‘Brimley line’ and beyond
Regular readers of Guardian Australia will be familiar with the “Barnaby line”, an invisible electoral boundary penned on to the map by rural editor Gabrielle Chan. But the “Brimley line”? It refers to the age at which 50-and-a-bit Wilfred Brimley played an “old” man in Ron Howard’s 1985 hit Cocoon, and a Twitter account tracks current celebrities as they reach 18,350 days old.
Van Badham has noticed a trend in the current awards season: from Ke Huy Quan to the irrepressible Jennifer Coolidge, people beyond the Brimley line are thriving. And it comes as she admits to looking in the mirror, poking at her cheeks and trying to convince herself that “some surgical rerigging would be quick, easy, painless and risk-free”.
Notable quote: “There was a time when being young was conceived as a boxed window of opportunity to find true love and sexual fulfilment, to have children, to feel physically strong and healthy, to enjoy the powerful sensation of potential. Yet improvements to wealth, health, wellbeing and technology, a liberalising society, and the changed nature of work and the built environment have stretched that capacity window well beyond the narrow frame of youthful years.”
How long will it take to read: Two minutes.
5. Pamela Anderson reclaims her story
The former Baywatch star and (by her own admission) serial wife to bad husbands is five years and counting beyond the Brimley line, and determined to tell her story her own way. Charlotte Edwardes, in her first assignment for the Guardian, coaxes one stunning admission after another from the 55-year-old actor who has gone cold turkey on men and taken a long, hard look at her life.
The result? A forthcoming Netflix documentary and a new appreciation for young Pamela’s survival. “How did I get through all that? How did I make those choices?,” Anderson says. “But I also have empathy for myself. I see that I just didn’t have the tools.”
The Tommy Lee years: You may have seen the sex tape, or the unauthorised miniseries about the sex tape. But despite Anderson’s frank disclosure of multiple red flags (including spiking her drink with ecstasy on their first date) she still concludes the Mötley Crüe drummer is the love of her life. “I know it wasn’t perfect but, you know, no one’s perfect. We made two beautiful babies and so I don’t have any regrets.”
How long will it take to read: Eight minutes.
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