Quotes of the Week

"It’s hard to think of a more symbolic rendering of all that is wrong with Australian mainstream intellectual life than the decision by Ita Buttrose and her board to offer Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest the Boyer Lectures, the ABC’s premier series of broadcasts designed to explain ourselves to ourselves. I defended Ita Buttrose when she was appointed ABC chair, but this decision is indefensible." [Tim Dunlop, writing in Meanjin Quarterly, 7 August 2020]

“"Scott Morrison could have picked up the phone to two members of his much-vaunted national cabinet this week, to sort out what was truly a bizarre situation. But he didn’t, and his decision not to says a lot about his approach to the pandemic. Morrison’s reluctance to get involved in the six-day border standoff between New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory betrays a style of governance that oscillates between the passive and the reactive, always with an eye to quarantining himself from culpability.” [Journalist Paul Bongiorno writing in The Saturday Paper, 15 August 2020]