Bob Katter Jr is a riddle wrapped in an enigma topped with a cowboy hat. A man renowned for the social conservatism which led him to claim there were no gay people in his electorate, and yet who also criticises the Rudd/Gillard industrial relations reforms as not going nearly far enough in favour of workers. A man who lists as paragons ‘Red Ted’ Theodore and Ben Chifley but who served in the cabinet of Joh Bjelke-Petersen. The best way to understand a man is to listen to what he has to say, so I’m reading An Incredible Race of People to see if this enigma can be unravelled.
I braved the early morning to shoot sunrise and the hot air balloons from the Arboretum.
Enlighten always provides some opportunities for photographers, some more creative than others.
Once a professor of economics, Andrew Leigh is now the MP for Fenner and one of the leading intellectual lights of the Labor Party. Having reached the shadow cabinet without the backroom benefits of factional alignment, he brings a vision beyond simple pugilistic politics to parliament. Andrew is also a prolific author, so I picked up his Battlers & Billionaires to see what insights could be gleamed from the unaligned man.
The ABC is under intense scrutiny from News Corp’s battery of scribes to avoid any hint of a leftward lean. Prime Minister Turnbull’s office felt it necessary to directly intervene against Emma Alberici’s analysis of tax paid by corporations. It seems his office thought that too much emphasis was placed on company revenues rather than profits, creating the impression that these companies were tax dodging freeloaders, rather than legitimately tax minimising freeloaders. So in the wake of such scrutiny on ABC partisanship, I was intrigued to see this week’s edition of their flagship discussion program, Q&A. Q&A brings together a panel of guests from across the political and media spectrum to face questions from a general public audience, and in concept is an excellent idea to encourage political accountability and debate within the country. In practice, it felt like I’d stepped into a Sargon of Akkad live stream.
Last week, Elon Musk’s SpaceX successfully launched their new Falcon Heavy, a more powerful rocket than anything flown since the Apollo era Saturn V. Media has been abuzz with excitement at the renewal of our spacefaring ambitions. But rather than the typical scientific experiments and satellites aiming to further our understanding of the world, SpaceX hauled up a car from their sister company Tesla and memetic references to popular sci-fi. Is there a place for science in the new private vision of space?
A couple of shots from Adelaide which I missed because they were taken using my phone rather than proper camera. I should probably unload my phone more often.
Hefty cloud cover meant I didn’t get a chance to shoot the total eclipse, but they parted for long enough to give me some partial shots.
The pricing mechanism inherent in markets allows each consumer’s choices to influence the success of a product or company. Conservatives and liberals both assert that product boycotts and consumer activism are effective ways to have our voices heard. Liberals boycott companies associated with Trump’s business empire, while conservatives employ the same tactics in support of their own aims. But just how democratic are markets?
I used the Queanbeyan Australia Day fireworks to test out my settings for future, more elaborate events.
