Pinned
How reckless exaggeration helps to strip our language of its power and meaning and why bloviating populists end up benefitting.
Mark Kenny @markgkenny.bsky.social
12.6K posts
Mark Kenny @markgkenny.bsky.social
@markgkenny
Director, Australian Studies Inst. (ANU) Host 🎧 “Democracy Sausage” pod; Columnist & broadcast commentator. (formerly ABC, SMH & Age) Atheist.
- So @abc730 we fell over ourselves to buy 100 unproven F35 aircraft against a theoretical threat (& probably another $100B on dud subs) but quibbled on buying mRNA vaccines (for a fraction of these sums) against a known & present mortal danger. Funny idea of national security.
- That was an extraordinary new low. The PM, in Parl, attacking a lawfully constituted anti-corruption body declaring @GladysB was “done over” by “the most shameful attacks on the former NSW premier”. He called ICAC’s process “an absolute disgrace” & said powers were “abused”.
- I am so disheartened. I feel I don’t know my country. Or rather that suddenly, I do.
- “Australia always stands up to bullies” says PM. (But we throw people in jail when they reveal our own bullying - just ask Timor Leste)
- Inclined to vote No? Read this. I dare you…
- Christ there’s some dismally shallow gov stenography going on this morning. The gov is deporting Djokovic as a threat to health and good order when it’s own parliamentary majority (no less) is made up of MPs who have advocated even stronger anti vax views. Yet no expulsions?
- It is a telling sign of a fourth estate in decline that a plain spoken - even colourful - critic of a major gov policy shift is almost universally attacked for being too contrary, too newsworthy. When did it become journalists’ jobs to sell the policy & police the public debate?
- First he walked out on the Apology (and claimed to regret it). Now he’s walked out on the future. #VoiceToParliament
- A bill to protect the religious right to discriminate. Enough spin. Let’s call it what it is.
- This is the most astonishing election result I’ve seen in decades watching auspol. A sharp repudiation of Morrison/Dutton rightward shift on climate, Voice, China, arts, and gender. It changes the referendum calculus suggesting the bipartisanship requirement may yet be overcome.
- Have hyper-partisanship and populist dog whistling met a new foe? Active government. @ANUausi @canberratimes @InsidersABC
- When your party’s in trouble, send in the clowns! “Are you gonna ask me a third time?” Total embarrassment. #insiders @InsidersABC brilliant effort by @David_Speers Remember, this was the Morrison gov’s number 2.
- Even if its necessity arose from a serious stuff-up, it is nonetheless arguable that Victoria’s lockdown, doggedly sustained under excruciating internal and external pressure, is the most efficacious single public policy lever ever pulled by an Aust government. @DanielAndrewsMP
