Comment

Over recent years, politicians and bureaucrats have been lining up with their hands out for international aid and development money, and much of it will never see the light of day again.

On Monday, a year to the day since the failed referendum on the Voice, the Northern Territory announced it would again use spit hoods on children. Soon, the Territory parliament will lower the age of criminal responsibility to 10. Both measures will overwhelmingly affect Indigenous children. In both cases, this is deliberate.

T. S. Eliot wrote that humankind cannot bear too much reality. We follow the elusive bird as it flits from tree to tree, leading us to imagined new worlds, alternate pasts and futures not foretold. We chase the sound of phantom echoes, music unheard. We gaze into drained pools filled with water from sunlight.

Own goals were the order of the week for Australia, both on the soccer pitch and in federal politics. For the Socceroos the one-all draw with Japan in the World Cup qualifier was more of a victory than a disaster. The same cannot be said of Anthony Albanese’s purchase of a $4.3 million clifftop mansion at the height of a housing affordability crisis.

Language is a truly fascinating phenomenon – it is fluid and constantly evolving. We are barely aware that, as we are shaping its evolution, language is shaping us – individually and collectively. This is what makes it such a potent political tool.

The Voice was meant to be the start of a healing process. One year later, we are meant to celebrate the symbol of that power that inflicted those same wounds in the first place. The irony is impossible to ignore.

Reform of the university sector must include the government and other – business and philanthropic – funding of research. The cuts to funding of both the teaching and research activities of universities is having very significant negative longer-term consequences on our society.

In a full mimicry of Donald Trump, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s reality is how he claims it to be, in complete disregard for the facts. So it is with his stance on nuclear energy. He simply asserts his nuclear power will deliver cheaper electricity to Australian households, and that nuclear is the only pathway to net zero by 2050.

Dutton’s refusal to back Albanese’s comprehensive condolence motion, acknowledging the pain of the Jewish community and extending sympathy to the Palestinian and Muslim communities, was a calculated and divisive play.

The problem with the Productivity Commission’s latest report on early childhood education is that a fundamental misjudgement has been made, and then compounded with layers and layers of analysis.