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Nicole Kidman smokes Hollywood, our first female astronaut, Adele disappears

All the news that's fit to mint.

Jenna ClarkeEditorial Director
9 min read
1:55PMNovember 24, 2022.
Updated 1:28AMNovember 25, 2022
The Oz
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All the news that's fit to mint.

What's happening in (The) Oz:

👩🏻‍🚀 Australia's first female astronaut

🏆 Australia's first Hollywood Icon™️

🤯 The Industrial Revolution was smoother than Albo's new industrial relations laws

🪄 Adele, living the dream, disappears in Vegas 

📺 Leigh Sales has announced her come back tour

✍🏻 It's time to vote for words of the year

🧑🏻‍⚖️ New protections for Indigenous heritage sites

🗳 Politicians to lower the driving age and end single sex education

🤦🏻‍♂️ Visionary, talented bosses being let go must be in fashion

Congratulations we made it.

It's Friday. 

So let's start with some good news.

First, it's almost Love Actually season and this year we'll not only get a re-run, we're also getting an (almost) 20th anniversary special.

A highlight is Hugh Grant saying "Love actually is dead." 

Kidding.

It's the glorious writer and director Richard Curtis with this drop kick to my cold heart:

"The way to think about life is that everyday has the potential just to be gorgeous."

Talent that is out of this world

Space is getting its first Australian female astronaut.

Dr Meganne Christian has been selected to join the European Space Agency's astronaut school.

It's like academic Love Island where the air is in the atmosphere instead of their heads.

Dr Christian is one of 11 "reservist astronauts" selected for the class of 2022 along with five pros and the first parastronaut - British medic and Paralympian John McFall.

She will represent the UK but we're going to Russell Crowe her and claim her as our own.

Dr Christian moved to Australia when she was 5 and started her schooling in Wollongong. She then attended UNSW where she completed degrees in engineering and industrial chemistry before smashing out a PhD in hydrogen storage. 

Dr Christian will keep her day job at the Italian National Research Agency as she'll be a sub on the space bench, but will receive full astronaut training.

She's also into scuba diving, knitting and extreme climbing. 

Can we put her on the $5?

Hollywood - the other final frontier - is getting it's first Australian icon

Nicole Kidman will be presented the highest Hollywood honour.

No, not her own reality TV show. She will receive the American Film Industry's Life Achievement Award.

The BMX Bandit star will be the 49th recipient at a gala event in LA in June next year.

She is the first Australian actor to receive the prize.

“Nicole Kidman has enchanted audiences for decades with the daring of her artistry and the glamour of a screen icon,” AFI chair Kathleen Kennedy said. “She is a force both brave in her choices and bold in each performance. AFI is honoured to present her with the 49th AFI Life Achievement Award.”

Kidman thanked the AFI on Thursday, as well as her supporters. 

"Thank you to all who have been a part of this journey," Kidman said.

I have my fingers, toes and intestines crossed Tom Cruise films a congratulatory message for her.

Even just one of his deep fakes would suffice.

Can this IR Bill just be renamed the UGH Bill?

The first week of the final sitting fortnight of Federal Parliament in 2022 is almost done and the government's changes to the way industrial relations are conducted are jammed like paper in a photocopier.

The noises are just as grating as politicians were out in force both defending and slamming the contentious Bill on Thursday.

Labor MP Josh Burns denied the government is "at war" with business groups over industrial relations reform, saying the ALP is just trying to make good on an election promise. 

"I don't think that [war] is an accurate description," Burns said.

"Obviously businesses are going to raise concerns and they're entitled to do so, but what we're going to do and what we're focused on is getting the wages of Australian workers moving again. It's exactly what we were elected to do, it's what Labor governments do, and for too long we have had stagnant wages in this country." 

The reforms were important for all workers but "particularly women", Burns said. He accused the opposition of "fear mongering".

Even the Teals are over it and are quoting The Castle.

Independent MP Zali Steggall's discussions over multi employer bargaining - a major part of the new legislation causing all the drama - are doing her head in as the government just keeps saying "it's the vibe" without outlining how the new laws will work in reality. 

"My discussions with the government have been a bit frustrating, because they keep saying, 'Look, it's not the vibe of the thing. We don't intend for it to capture those businesses,' but the reality is the legislation does capture those businesses," Steggall said.

"The vibe of the thing doesn't really work for me. I want to see protections so that small businesses are safe from that situation, because I don't think anyone will win. Wages won't grow, employees won't win, employers won't win." 

Small Business Minister Julie Collins was not winning.

She blamed a typo for a false calculation on the financial cost the changes will have on small and medium sized businesses.

In a Regulation Impact Statement prepared by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, it was estimated that engaging in bargaining and paying for a consultant could cost medium-sized businesses around $74,000.

The opposition reckon it'll be closer to $80,000.

It's the second time this week the Department have made an error in its research. It was forced to explain why a link to a "spiritual healer" was incorrectly included in official documents.

Something discovered by opposition employment spokesperson Michaelia Cash.

READ MORE: How a 'modern day spiritual healer' got caught up in the industrial relations debate

She is now calling on Independent Senator David Pocock to use his power in the Senate to slow down the progress of Bill.

Pocock has said he wants the element of multi employer bargaining spun out of the enormous Bill. Something backed by Jacqui Lambie.

Pocock is copping pressure from all sides as he is the tiebreaker vote between the government, opposition and the cross bench. 

Cash, meanwhile, just wants everyone to cool their jets.

"If you are dinkum about your concerns for the impact on, in particular, small business in this country, Mr Albanese needs to be told fairly and squarely, 'Just pause. Pause.'," Cash said.

New laws, new anger

The federal government will legislate new protections for Indigenous heritage sites, accepting all but one of the recommendations of a report of Rio Tinto’s destruction of a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal sacred site at Juukan Gorge in remote WA.

But...

The traditional owners of Juukan Gorge, represented by the PKKP Aboriginal Corporation, are angry they had not been briefed on the contents of the report before it was launched on Thursday.

This meant it was not possible to comment on the report’s contents.

Burchell Hayes, chairman of the corporation representing the Puutu Kunti Kurrama people and the Pinikura people, said: “All of this started with the destruction of our cultural heritage, everyone keeps on telling us they are sorry about it, but actions speak louder than words”.

"It seems like a media event in Canberra is more important than giving PKKP people the respect of asking us what can be done to try and stop something like the destruction of the Juukan rock shelters happening again, or even letting us know what the government is planning," he said. 

Hayes said with outcomes like this it was up to the PKKP peoples, not governments, to look after themselves when it came to their country.

“We have tasted the devastation and we know what needs to be done.”

Adele is living her best 'What happens in Vegas...' life

Some people vanish in Vegas thank to the free pouring bartenders (mainly to the bathroom, but still) however Adele is just out here disappearing on stage.

The singer is now "in residence" in Sin City and her show includes shape shifting.

@adele.romania

adele THE magician #adele #adelevegas #viral #fypシ #fy

♬ original sound - ADELE

She kicked off her long-awaited 32 show run - Weekends With Adele - at Caesars Palace’s Colosseum last Friday.

"It looks just like I imagined it would. It’s just perfect, thank you... I’m so nervous and I’m so scared and I’m so happy. It might be a bit wobbly at times because my nerves are out of control. It’s a bloody massive week for me this week," she said on opening night.

It was a huge week as she was nominated for seven Grammys, including Song of the Year for the banging ballad 'Easy On Me'.

Aunty delivers

The ABC showed off what'll be airing on the national broadcaster next year and good news for Leigh Sales and 80s comedy fans.

Sales - who stepped down from 730 (and Twitter) this year - will be back hosting Australian Story.

And Mother & Son is being rebooted. 

The absolute classic Australian comedy from the 1980s which starred the brilliant Ruth Cracknell and Garry MacDonald - a single bloke living with his elderly mum, whom he was terrified of.

He once invited a girl over for a dinner date, kissed her hello and said: "I had to tell my mum that you're my cousin".

Mother & Son 2023 will star Matt Okine (who is also a writer on the new project) and Denise Scott.

Maggie and Arthur are back for a new generation. Told you 2023 was going to good.

Teal is no longer a colour

It's become a political movement and now, in 2022, it has been crowned this year's "Word of the Year".

The Australian National Dictionary Centre has declared what used to just be known as the colour of ducks as the word of the year as "teal" now has a "unique meaning in Australian English" according to the culture experts at ANU - which is, ironically, run by former Liberal minister Julie Bishop.

"Teal is used in Australia to describe an independent political candidate or politician who advocates for action on climate change and more integrity in parliament," the entry reads.

Teal is also shortlisted to win the publicly endorsed Macquarie Dictionary Word of the Year 2022.

Macquarie describes teal in the context of politics as a candidate that is "generally ideologically moderate but with strong on views on integrity and climate change".

Internationally Oxford are leaning into democracy and will, for the first time, allow the public to decide on the word of the year.

The shortlist is:

  • Goblin-mode
  • #IStandWith
  • Metaverse

Oxford Languages president Casper Grathwohl said the decision to open the final call to the public was partly due to living in a “post-Covid era”.

“Over the past year the world reopened, and it is in that spirit we’re opening up the selection process for the word of the year to language-lovers everywhere,” he said.

“We are all participants in the evolving story of English, and after making it through another hard year we thought word-lovers would appreciate being brought into the process with us.”

We're almost there 

Victorians go to the polls on Saturday but Premier Dan Andrews has already voted.

He must be trying to cut back on his democracy sausage consumption.

Meanwhile, on Thursday Opposition Leader Matthew Guy has promised to lower the driving age to 17 if he wins the election.

Weird flex to bring the kids into this but here we are.

Also an odd policy choice as a parliamentary inquiry in 2017, found allowing kids to get their P-plates at 17 “will result in more crashes, and an increase in fatalities and serious injuries on Victorian roads."

Something must been in the OL water supply as Labor's Chris Minns in NSW also invoked the Spirit of the Youth on the faux campaign.

Labor, if elected in March next year, will guarantee all students in NSW will have access to a co-ed public high school. It's all about of the opposition's plan to give thousands of parents in single-sex catchment zones more options as demand for co-ed surges.

So much so, Sydney's exclusive $40,000 a year all boys school - Cranbrook is fast tracking when it opens its doors to female students.

Oh so it's visionary hunting season is it?

There's a new corporate trend taking hold in boardrooms of some major global companies right now.

The man who pulled a modern day Tom Ford and revived Gucci, kept Jared Leto interesting and turned Harry Styles into a man brave enough to wear a dress has been fired.

Alessandro Michele, who reinvigorated the Italian fashion house - commercially and creatively - with his innovative designs, is "stepping down" as creative director as sales are reportedly dipping (meanwhile inflation is soaring but who needs to be logical in this instance 'eh?).

Meanwhile Raf Simons is closing his namesake label after close to 30 years.

The designer was also in charge of Christian Dior for a time too.

He is the personification of a pain in the arse perfectionist but boy, the man is a genius.

"The past is not romantic, it's the future that's romantic for me," Simons always says.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/the-oz/news/nicole-kidman-smokes-hollywood-our-first-female-astronaut-adele-disappears/news-story/3564ab2ef61ad1934e5eb570f9ac198c