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Julian Burnside is not one to rush to judgment

Greens candidate Julian Burnside on Twitter on Saturday:

Same-sex only clubs are a relic of the past. I joined the Savage Club 40 years ago as a very different person to the one I am today. I’ve argued for change from within but it’s too slow in coming, so I am resigning my membership until it welcomes all people.

Kel Watt replying to Julian Burnside on Twitter:

Resigning today?! Not 40 years ago? Not in the 80s when Hawke introduced Equal Pay & Discrimination law? Or the 90s when Lawrence & Kirner became premiers? Or a decade ago when Gillard fought sexism? But today. After exposure on TV. On the eve of the election! Seems sincere.

Julian Burnside replying to Kel Watt:

Sorry, but I was a bit busy fighting pro bono human rights cases, so I wasn’t paying attention to issues like that.

The Daily Telegraph on March 4:

Polling in Sydney’s most marginal seat shows PM Scott Morrison is a surprise weapon for Gladys Berejiklian in the NSW election.

A weapon with a silencer? Sky News anchor Charlotte Mortlock on Twitter yesterday:

Prime Minister Scott Morrison attends NSW Lib launch but not invited up to the podium to speak.

William Blackstone in 1766:

Better that 10 guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.

Christian Morrow in the Byron Shire News on Friday:

A cardinal sexually assaulting schoolchildren, can it get any worse? Of course it can. He could win his appeal against the conviction.

Actor Alyssa Milano branching out on Twitter on Saturday:

I’m trans. I’m a person of colour. I’m an immigrant. I’m a lesbian. I’m a gay man. I’m the disabled. I’m everything. … Don’t be afraid of what you don’t know or understand. No one wants to hurt you. We are all just looking for our happily ever after.

The Canberra Times on Saturday:

The Black Magic balloon.
The Black Magic balloon.

The Canberra Balloon Spectacular’s volunteer flight team has said it is embarrassed by the ACT government’s decision to ban a balloon authorities described as racist. At a pilot briefing on Saturday morning, when hot air balloons taking part in the event were grounded for the day because of rain and wind, a joint statement from the volunteers was read out. Flight director John Wallington would not confirm the contents of the statement when contacted by The Sunday Canberra Times, but a photo of the statement posted on social media called the decision farcical. Events ACT … decided last month to ban the Black Magic balloon, also known as “Golly”, calling it racist and offensive.

Perfection. CBC on Thursday:

A man threatened to sue a technology magazine for using his image in a story about why all hipsters look the same, only to find out the picture was of a completely different guy. The story in the MIT Technology Review detailed a study about the so-called hipster effect — “the counterintuitive phenomenon in which people who oppose mainstream culture all end up looking the same”. The inclusion of a version of a Getty Images photo of a bearded, flannel-wearing man, tinted with a blue and orange hue, prompted one reader to write to the magazine: “Your lack of basic journalistic ethics in both the manner in which you ‘reported’ this uncredited nonsense, and the slanderous, unnecessary use of my picture without permission demands a response, and I am, of course, pursuing legal action.” But it wasn’t actually him.

Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/cutandpaste/julian-burnside-is-not-one-to-rush-to-judgment/news-story/4d550b1220c5687c653d870e3dcfb2ce