Everyone is in love again! Even National Cabinet and Brad Pitt

All the news that's fit to mint.

All the news that's fit to mint.

Happening in (The) Oz today:

🗄 National Cabinet is back

📚 A book clapping back at Dark Emu is now in schools

🧙🏻‍♂️ The NSW energy minister is pretty much a wizard now

♻️ The Libs and Greens could agree on something

👯‍♀️ Jacqui Lambie has a friend

👩🏼‍❤️‍💋‍👨🏻 Gwyneth and Brad still love each other

Good morning!

Welcome to Friday. We made it.

@pritchardtoby25

Getting a bit much #fyp #foryoupage #onlyinmycalvins #bed #life #dollyparton #9to5 #gay #lgbt #lgbtq

♬ original sound - pritchardtoby

I have trust issues when it comes to bands or groups.

I put it down to living through both the Spice Girls break up and Robbie Williams leaving Take That in close succession, so when we heard National Cabinet was getting back together, I admit I was skeptical.

However, the Prime Minister has done it. He's gotten the Covid band back together. 

Our government will be one that brings the country together. Tonight I'm meeting with state premiers and chief ministers ahead of National Cabinet tomorrow. Working together, we will build a better future for all Australians. pic.twitter.com/ENPdsootlW

— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) June 16, 2022

Let's see how long the love-ins and Ellen selfies last 'eh.

There are some pretty big issues to resolve. Probably starting with the fact the entire eastern seaboard could be plunged into cold darkness thanks to an electricity supply issue. Not to mention the health systems around the country falling apart and WA, despite pulling in a $5bn Budget surplus, still getting a pretty sweet slab of the GST cake.

Good luck Albo, remember you're the Geri - you've got the ultimate power.

Kean is keen

Speaking of power, late Thursday night, as NSW wakes up to be told to turn off any unnecessary appliances in the house, the Treasurer and energy minister Matt Kean has been given emergency powers to direct coal companies to provide fuel to electricity generators.

Strange Senate fellows

These are strange times, so frankly nothing should surprise us, however, a weird political ménage à trois could happen when parliament kicks off in July.

The PM made a song and dance about his government's 43% emissions reduction target by 2030 on Thursday and how he wants to enshrine it into law. But it could be defeated as the Liberal-Nationals coalition, the Greens and the new teal independents get together to defeat the bill.

The Greens aren't happy with Albanese's medium-term ­emissions-reduction policy and leader Adam Bandt and teal independents are calling for higher targets to combat climate change.

"Mr Albanese’s promise to end the climate wars will come under fire if he fails to secure the support of the Greens in the Senate after senior Coalition figures ruled out backing Labor’s target," The Australian - the School Captain to our Belle of the Ball - reported on Friday.

After conceding “we don’t need the legislation” anyway, Albo said he hoped the parliament would back Labor’s “clear ­mandate … and seize this opportunity to head Australia in the right direction”.

Tammy for Tassie is a go 

Tassie has got a brand new senator - a woman called Tammy Tyrell.

You have no idea how surreal this feels… pic.twitter.com/cWtsnFVyo4

— Tammy Tyrrell (@TammyTyrrell_) June 16, 2022

She is one of the new cross benchers who will sit with Jacqui Lambie in the upper house.

The Jacqui Lambie Network issued this brilliantly tongue-in-cheek statement after the AEC confirmed Tyrrell's win on Thursday.

Thank you, Tasmania. We won’t let you down. pic.twitter.com/JN9tZNXJwq

— Jacqui Lambie Network (@LambieNetwork) June 16, 2022

Tyrrell's election victory has ended the 28-year political career of Liberal senator Eric Abetz.

The outgoing veteran fired shots at his party after he was dumped to the unwinnable third position on the Liberal party ticket at the election.

“It is also appropriate to observe that the last time I had the honour of leading the Liberal Senate ticket I easily outpolled the Labor Senate ticket leader with below the line votes,” Abetz said in a statement.

“At this election the same Labor Senate ticket leader easily outpolled the Liberal Senate ticket leader with personal below the line votes.”

News for the book club group chat

A book critiquing Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu will be included on the high school syllabus in Victoria.

Farmers or hunter-gatherers: The Dark Emu debate was added by Victoria’s curriculum authority on a resource list for the state’s Australian history teachers to use in class.

"In the latest challenge to Professor Pascoe’s work, a book by anthropologist Peter Sutton and archaeologist Keryn Walshe – which says Dark Emu relies on colonial accounts as sources – has been endorsed by the state’s curriculum chiefs," The Australian reported.

Professor Pascoe says before European conquest, Indigenous Australians engaged in sophisticated agricultural and farming techniques. He contends that precolonial Aboriginal people sometimes lived in houses and villages and employed technology to harvest food.

Dark Emu Black Seeds: agriculture or accident?, published in 2014, is also on the resource list.

Dark Emu is still an Australian best seller

Professor Sutton, an anthropologist since 1969, said students should have the opportunity to review both pieces of work, not Dark Emu alone.

“(Dark Emu should) either be excluded on the basis that it’s been disproved by the heavy weight of Aboriginal evidence in our expert opinion or you present both that book and its answer and you get the students to compare the pair... I often say to people ‘Don‘t read our book first. Go and buy a copy of Dark Emu, have a good read, then read ours,’ ” Professor Sutton said.

Gwyn and Brad 4 eva

There is nothing more delicious than ex partners having healthy, evolved and calm relationships with each other after the storm of a break up has passed.

Which is exactly what Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow spoke about when they had a natter during a podcast for Paltrow's wellbeing brand, Goop.

The two were engaged in the late 1990s, when Paltrow was in her early 20s where they spoke about having, like, 12 kids as they gushed about each other publicly. They never made it down the aisle. 

These two.

He went on to marry Jennifer Aniston in 2000 and then Angelina Jolie for two years in 2014.

Paltrow ended up marrying Coldplay's Chris Martin in 2003. They had two kids and "consciously uncoupled" in 2014.

She married Glee writer Brad Falchuk in 2018. 

However, through it all, Paltrow and Pitt - like Kate Moss and Johnny Depp - have remained tight.

I mean, get a load of this heart wrenching wholesome transcript:

Pitt: Oh man, everything works out, doesn’t it?

Paltrow: Yes, it does. I finally found the Brad I was supposed to marry. It just took me 20 years.

Pitt: And it’s lovely to have you as a friend now.

Paltrow: It is.

Pitt: And I do love you.

Paltrow: I love you so much.

Meanwhile, the cheeky CEO, has just released a new sex toy - the Viva La Vulva. 

The $140 vibrator is selling out quickly on the Goop website.

The name is curious, Viva La Vida is the name of Coldplay's most successful song, Viva la Vida, which peaked at the top spot of the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming the band's first US number-one single back in 2008.