Violence vidiocy

Chinese diplomat Wang Xining. Picture: Gary Ramage

As the Morrison government comes under fire for its treatment of women, a video designed to teach teenagers about consent and respectful relationships has raised a few eyebrows. The resources were announced by Education Minister Alan Tudge last month following the national outcry sparked by the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins at Parliament House. While the intention behind the Respect Matters program may be good, the clips are confusing at best and condescending at worst. One video shows a teenage girl offering her partner some of her milkshake, before smearing it over his face, in a crude metaphor for forced sex. Another clip shows a woman being pressured to swim in shark-infested waters as a way of talking about being pressured into sex. Rape prevention advocates unsurprisingly lashed the videos on Monday, declaring they made a mockery of the situation, failed to meet national education standards and would not help to stop sexual violence. Considering the importance of this national conversation, Strewth thinks it’s back to the drawing board on this one.

Moonstruck menu

China’s second-most senior diplomat in Australia, Wang Xining, may have snubbed an invitation to appear on the ABC’s Q+A program last week, but Beijing’s deputy head of mission will attend the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday for the launch of the 2020 China Story Yearbook. According to the NPC website, the panel will “survey the multiple crises of the year of the Metal Rat”, including China’s relations with the US, the end of the “One Country, Two Systems” in Hong Kong and the rise of pandemic-related anti-Chinese racism. Xining will be joined by China correspondent for the Australian Financial Review Michael Smith and the book’s co-editor, ANU professor Jane Golley. Smith lived and reported from Shanghai until September when the Morrison government evacuated the last Aussie journalists from the country amid security concerns. While Strewth is looking forward to what we’re sure will be a robust Q&A session, the menu is equally appealing. NPC executive chef Daren Tetley has been developing fare fitting for the occasion and, unlike Xining’s last appearance when attendees were served beef, barley and lobster in a thinly veiled reference to Beijing’s hefty trade tariffs on Australian products, Wednesday’s guests can expect more of a Chinese flavour. On the menu? Prawn crackers, Hong Shao Rou (red braised ginger pork belly with pickled chillies) and fried rice. Strewth’s spies say Xining is a huge fan of moon cakes and in a case of food diplomacy, Tetley will also try to recreate the popular Chinese custard tart. Hopefully Xining is over the moon with the menu.

Starstruck state

It wasn’t a bad day at the office for NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Monday when instead of bureaucrats and health professional, she was flanked by stars from the silver screen at a press conference at Sydney’s Fox Studios. She was joined by Australian hearthrob Chris Hemsworth when she announced that the long-awaited prequel to George Miller’s Academy Award-winning film Mad Max: Fury Road would begin production in NSW in June. The movie is set to bring $350m to the local economy while creating 850 jobs, making it the biggest film made in NSW. Hemsworth, who will star in the prequel alongside The Queen’s Gambit star Anya Taylor-Joy, described it as a “dream come true”. Berejiklian said securing the production of Furiosa in NSW was an important win for the state and the Australian film industry:

“NSW will be home to this major production providing a boost to the economy across the state, with filming to take place in a locations including western Sydney and regional NSW.”

Dancing genes

You could be forgiven for thinking you had stepped on to the set of Love Actually when Australia-New Zealand’s travel bubble opened on Monday. The start of quarantine-free travel was a relief for friends and families across the ditch, who have been separated for months because of the pandemic, but those being reunited at Melbourne Airport were treated to much more than a warm embrace from a loved one — greeted instead with interpretative dancers clad in black and brandishing large white bubbles above their heads. It’s the second dance performance to mark a special occasion in a week after a Sydney-based dance group courted controversy over a twerking routine at the commission of HMAS Supply. After the twerkers and the bubble troupe, it would appear we are in a new golden age for dancing. Let’s hope Josh Frydenberg has some dance moves planned for the budget release.

Party of one

When the media contact list for Scott Morrison’s new-look ministry was circulated among journalists on Monday, Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar’sstaff details cut a lonely figure. The blank space where his staff’s details should be would suggest heis still on the hunt for a media adviser after former staffer Andrew Hudgson quit after it was revealed he called Tasmanian Greens leader Cassy O’Connor a “methhead c..t.” Watch this space.

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