Crikey, that Clive Palmer story looks strangely similar to the one we had in January
One man’s rip-off is another’s homage, and The Age plays fast and loose with a headline figure — to the tune of 1000 per cent.
We call this a rip-off. They probably say it’s postmodern homage. Sally Whyte, Crikey, yesterday:
Just days before Queensland Nickel went into voluntary administration, Clive Palmer made a last-ditch attempt to put himself at the front of the queue of creditors to the company.
And Sarah Elks and Paul Garvey, The Australian, January 21:
Four days before Clive Palmer’s Queensland Nickel Industries collapsed into voluntary administration, two of his companies staked a claim on all of the refinery’s assets in an apparent attempt to squeeze out redundant workers and other creditors.
A pinkwash blackout. Rick Morton, The Australian, Wednesday:
Telstra has quietly retreated from a public campaign pushing for same-sex marriage.
Prompts a telling admission from the pro camp about institutional capture. NSW Labor MP Trish Doyle, Facebook, also Wednesday:
Corporations don’t support these things because their overriding concern is profit, not the wellbeing of our society. As this episode demonstrates, most big businesses will pretend to care about social justice causes for so long as they think it will improve their bottom line. It’s time we stopped buying in to the fiction of benevolent capitalism and accepted that progressive political action has to be directed at institutional power, not drawn from it.
Punditry. Peter van Onselen, The Weekend Australian, Saturday:
The realities of what the post-election parliament might look like came into sharper focus this week with … Newspoll showing the Coalition … behind the Labor Party for the first time since Malcolm Turnbull assumed the prime ministership … The likelihood is that we are in for a tight electoral contest. We even may be about to witness the second hung parliament within three years.
And playing catch-up. James Massola, Fairfax Media, yesterday:
With the federal government’s two-party-preferred vote … tightening … the unthinkable might happen. It’s less than three years since the end of the 43rd parliament … but another hung parliament could happen.
Climate change will kill us off. Daisy Dumas, The Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday:
An aggressive species of marine bacteria responsible for many more deaths than sharks worldwide each year has been found in Sydney Harbour, with experts predicting outbreaks … along the city’s waterfront … with global warming.
Except thanks to climate change we won’t have been born. ABC News website, Saturday:
Alan Barreca … is one of three economists who studied … data between 1931 and 2010 and found a strong link between weather and birthrates … He said … “We project that the number of births will fall by about 107,000 per year in the United States by the end of the 21st century.”
What’s a thousandfold error between friends? Headline, The Age, yesterday:
Pledge of $570 billion to help stop family violence.
And the story opening:
Half a billion dollars will be spent to reduce family violence in Victoria over the next two years.
And where would we be without The Sydney Morning Herald’s hard-hitting stories? Website, yesterday:
Thirteen things you should never put in the dishwasher.