Comment

In recent months, I have sat in court as an observer as Canberra lawyer Bernard Collaery has faced charges over disclosing information about the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS). On Thursday, Collaery’s case was back before the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory. It is a good time, then, to consider this case and the national security state’s assault on Australia’s democratic culture more generally.

No one could accuse Pauline Hanson of being a fair-weather critic of the Family Court. For the past 20 years, she has agitated for an inquiry into family law. This week, finally, she got her wish. In her parliamentary career, Hanson has never attempted to hide her views about this system: she considers it stacked against men.

Schmo Morrison was in full marketing-man mode as he batted away accusations against forgetful Comrade Gladys Liu. Membership of a strange Chinese state propaganda machine; squillions of dollars raised at great fundraising feasts; agitation to amend the foreign investment regime so Chinese business can snap up swaths of agricultural land – nothing to see here, move on, says Schmo.

The duchessing of Scott Morrison in Washington begins today with one of the most colourful ceremonies Donald Trump can muster. The United States Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps, resplendent in their 18th-century uniforms and playing antique instruments, will perform in the prime minister’s honour on the South Lawn of the White House. This will be followed by the rare privilege of a white-tie official state dinner … But the hoopla in America for this Morrison visit will do nothing to help him manage the strained relationship with Beijing.

There are no accidents in the rhetoric of protection: it intends to seal off white Western society from the remainder of the world’s population both biologically and geographically. The white female body was, and often still is, regarded as in need of protection, not for the sake of the women but because they function as stand-ins for white society itself. Of course, this alleged protection does not apply to non-white women.

This is what happens when your chief climate policy is prayer. Rainforests burn in the spring. Bushfires rage in two states before it is even summer. Rivers are silted with dead fish. Drought wrecks the inland.

It was a star-encrusted night on Tuesday as the New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties held its annual knees-up at Sky Phoenix in Sydney. This was not just a few lefties munching on dim sum around a lazy Susan in a Chinese restaurant. Rather, it was a grand affair bursting with judges, lawyers, politicians, scientists, captains of industry, academics, public administrators, journalists and other worthies.

The Morrison government is running away from a national integrity commission at breakneck speed. Its reluctance is made all the starker by its unrestrained willingness to seize on the embarrassment caused to its Labor opponents by Australia’s toughest anti-corruption body, the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption.

As the government of Papua New Guinea has vowed to remove all refugees from Manus Island, most of us who have been detained there for almost seven years are being transported to Port Moresby. It is a big change for us: disturbing and disruptive in many ways. I am in the Granville Motel. It has been fully booked for the Manus refugees. We have to use our boat ID numbers here too for all our needs. Our identity continues to be stripped away from us in PNG.

Scott Morrison says his government’s commitment to press freedom is absolute. On Thursday, after the federal police raided the Canberra home of Australian Signals Directorate employee Cameron Gill, the prime minister was defiant. “We are absolutely committed to press freedom,” he said, “and we are also absolutely committed to every Australian being subject to the rule of law.” But a government committed to freedom of the press doesn’t raid the homes of journalists.