Comment

Here is a fact about life in Australia in 2020: the material and geographical manifestations of Aboriginal cultures developed over more than 65,000 years are being rapidly destroyed by mining companies, urban settlement, road and infrastructure development, and vandalism. This destruction is authorised by state and federal governments.

The deep state’s spidery fingers are here, there and everywhere. Bernard Collaery would be all too familiar with their reach. As part of his defence in the secret prosecution that the Commonwealth has brought against him for allegedly revealing the bugging of Timor-Leste’s ministerial offices, his lawyers subpoenaed documents from Woodside, the oil and gas producer with a hefty stake in the Timor Sea’s Greater Sunrise gas field.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s hands were blue as he stood behind his lectern, physically distanced from Scott Morrison in the prime minister’s courtyard on Tuesday. The pair were holding an outdoor news conference on an icy Canberra morning, and nothing the country’s two most senior politicians had to announce could thaw the wintry malaise that’s set in across much of Australia. The chilling realisation is that they, like the rest of the nation, are at the mercy of a virus that is threatening to get out of control.

When I came out of prison, I noticed there was a concerted censoring of my voice every single time I wanted to speak out about my experiences within the criminal punishment system. This came at me in many ways – aggressively, subtly and, at times, very publicly. Most obviously, and I dare say predictably, the system didn’t like me publicly raising its violence and brutality. Like every abusive relationship, it thrives on silence.

It’s as though the entire conservative cause in our weird nation has been deracinated. The allegations against Dyson Heydon leave much havoc in their wake. His political sponsors, Little Winston Howard and the Mad Monk, look gormless, while he has blotted the escutcheons of luminous institutions from the High Court to the University of Sydney, where he is an emeritus professor.

When news broke this week that an independent inquiry at the High Court of Australia found former justice Dyson Heydon had sexually harassed six associates during his decade on the bench, my non-law friends and colleagues were incredulous. To them, the allegations of a judge repeatedly breaking the law read as hypocritical. Within legal circles though, friends and colleagues are exchanging theories about who will be exposed next. And we are all wondering whether anything will change this time.

The shorthand title was the trade union royal commission – and the highest-profile targets were a former Labor prime minister, Julia Gillard, and the then Labor leader, Bill Shorten. And everybody knew it. Undaunted by the howls of foul play from the opposition and the criticism of commentators, then Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott had high praise for the man he hand-picked for the job six years ago, former High Court judge Dyson Heydon.

Hurry. Rush. Lawsons’ online auction of Michael Yabsley’s load of bric-a-brac and tat closes at 7pm on Saturday. The former Nasty Party New South Wales Prisons minister is clearing out his Wombat Hollow playground in the wake of his lifestyle change and move from the Southern Highlands to Darlinghurst.

There’s nothing like the prospect of voters about to mark their ballot papers to focus the minds of politicians. And as parliament resumed this week, the spectre of the Eden-Monaro byelection hung over the place, jolting it out of its brief coronavirus togetherness. Make no mistake: even though the byelection in three weeks’ time will not weaken the government’s numbers on the floor of the house if it loses, there is a strong view that a Liberal win will reinforce Scott Morrison’s druthers to go to a general election early. And you don’t have to look very far to find the reasons why.

As Black, Brown, Indigenous people and allies in the United States and across the world collectively rise up to end systemic racism and violent police practices, it was necessary for us here in Australia to also rise.