Tag: australia

Billion Dollar Balcony Part 2: A Failure to Protect

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Australia’s intelligence agencies had the data, the powers and the warnings. What they lacked was the capacity, or the incentive, to act. Part 2 examines how lawful firearms, foreign travel to militant regions and prior extremist scrutiny failed to trigger intervention before fifteen people were killed at Bondi. Surveillance was abundant. Prevention was absent.

The seeing stones. Australia and its New CIA-Made Friend.

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“Pure undistorted truth burns up the world.”Nikolai Berdyaev(Also, apparently, Palantir’s unofficial mission statement.) I. Enter the Magical Spy Orb, Stage Right In Tolkien’s Middle-earth, the palantír was a sort of medieval CCTV camera with attitude. A seeing stone that showed you just enough truth to … Continue reading The seeing stones. Australia and its New CIA-Made Friend.

Editorial cartoon of Sussan Ley conducting beside a collapsing grand piano labelled “Coalition.” Sheet music titled “Murdoch Media” flies into the air and morphs into social media icons including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, symbolising the decline of the old media orchestra.

Whither the Coalition?

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Once “the natural party of government, the Liberal–National Coalition has become a federation of feuding tribes. Factional decay, Murdoch’s fading megaphone and an attention economy allergic to policy have left it stranded between yesterday’s media and tomorrow’s electorate.

Junkyard Dutton ducks for cover under Gina’s nuclear umbrella, but he’s still up shit creek.

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Junkyard Dutton slinks away from Dunkley in a blue funk, after his humiliating rout as the brains behind the Advance-Liberal (Ad Lib) coalition’s “Rapists, paedophiles and murderers”, fear n’ smear campaign.   No-one can count a club of billionaires’ dark money, but a Qantas Chairman’s Lounge of plutocrats, … Continue reading Junkyard Dutton ducks for cover under Gina’s nuclear umbrella, but he’s still up shit creek.