By Noel Towell and Kishor Napier-Raman
OK, so we’re as thrilled as anyone that Collingwood cult hero Dane Swan is now an AFL hall-of-famer, but that wasn’t our favourite bit of Tuesday night’s black-tie induction affair, held for some reason at Melbourne Park’s Centrepiece venue.
Oh no, by far the best bit was a quieter part of the proceedings when the names of former league players who had passed away in the previous 12 months, including 1971 Hawthorn premiership player Michael Porter, were beamed up onto the big screen.
Hawthorn premiership player Michael Porter is very much alive.Credit: The Age
Trouble was, Porter is alive, kicking, and in good enough nick to be able to call his old skipper at the Hawks David Parkin, who was in the room at Melbourne Park.
He assured Parkin that reports of his demise, as they say in the classics, were very much exaggerated, although he took the whole thing in good humour, we’re told.
A league spokesman said: “Once this innocent mistake was realised we moved quickly to ring and apologise to everyone affected, including Michael, and thank him for his understanding.”
NUCLEAR REDACTOR
It’s been obvious for some time that Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s plan to deliver a nuclear-powered future for Australia will apparently require the Coalition to abandon economic liberalism in favour of the very visible hand of big government.
On Wednesday, Dutton gave us a few more details, revealing the sites for seven proposed nuclear reactors in regional Australia. No costings, but the CSIRO’s analysis suggests taxpayers will be on the hook for north of $60 billion.
Libertarian laureate Adam Smith must be spinning like a uranium-enriching centrifuge in his grave.
But you can see just how confusing this is by taking a look at two op-eds written by Minerals Council of Australia boss Tania Constable on either side of Dutton’s announcement.
We’re not that surprised that the council, historically no friend to Labor governments, reckons small modular reactors are a good idea, but in her first op-ed, published on Wednesday morning in The Australian, Constable’s message was for the Albanese government to get out of the way and let big business build those reactors.
“Let the market and its participants work out what is the best avenue for bolstering our energy system, reducing emissions and putting downward pressure on energy prices,” she wrote.
It’s not clear if the US-owned broadsheet is widely read in the next world, but if it is, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan would look fondly on that effort.
However, Dutton’s announcement indicated that the market would not only be left to its own devices, but left right out of the action and that only Big Government could build the reactors Australia needs.
In a subsequent opinion piece in The Daily Telegraph, scrambled together hours after the opposition leader faced the media, Constable made no mention of the market deciding, simply urging the Albanese government to lift the ban on nuclear energy. It’s OK, Tania, we’re confused too.
INDIAN MUTINY
On Monday, an eye-catching episode of the ABC’s Four Corners revealed alleged foreign interference by agents of the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the man our own PM, Anthony Albanese, calls “The Boss”.
The Australian government declared itself “deeply concerned” about the ABC’s claims. The show wasn’t well received by Labor backbencher and chair of the Parliamentary Friends of India group Andrew Charlton, who was tempted away from his $16 million Bellevue Hill mansion in Sydney to run for the South Asian migrant-heavy seat of Parramatta in the previous election.
Andrew Charlton throws the book at the ABC.Credit: John Shakespeare
“We need to see balanced media coverage of the Australia-India relationship,” Charlton said in a media release on Tuesday.
The MP didn’t explain what exactly he found imbalanced about the ABC’s reporting, nor did he take up our offer to elaborate. Although he did use the press release to plug his own recent book on the subject, Australia’s Pivot to India, even handily attaching a pic of the cover. As if the owner of a $40 million property portfolio needs to worry about book sales!
Charlton’s tome reads like the kind of effort you thrash together to justify getting parachuted into a seat that covers the heartland of Sydney’s India diaspora, with the more troubling aspects of Modi’s Hindu nationalistic agenda barely getting a mention.
Case in point – during India’s recent election, at which he was victorious despite unexpectedly losing his parliamentary majority, Modi labelled India’s 200 million-strong Muslim minority as “infiltrators” who “have too many children.”
Charlton had nothing to say on any of that, or about how Avani Dias, the ABC journalist behind the Four Corners episode, was effectively pushed out of India for reporting critically on the Modi government.
The MP did make an Instagram reel congratulating Modi on his re-election and praising his “strong leadership”. And when Australia’s public broadcaster revealed alleged espionage by agents of a friendly foreign power, the member for Parramatta picked a side – it wasn’t the ABC’s.
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