Meme death Opposition spokesman for climate change and energy Chris Bowen has taken aim at Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s apparent push for the “youth vote” — the pitch, incidentally, is tax cuts, which is… kind of their pitch to everyone?
“Who’s going to tell him that young people want action on climate, integrity in government?” Bowen asks, attached to a picture of Frydenberg photoshopped into the “How do you do, fellow kids?” meme.
Unfortunately for Bowen, at this point, the use of the “How do you do, fellow kids?” meme is itself an extremely “How do you do, fellow kids” move.
Open Dore Alex Dore, former Young Liberal president, is likely to be springboarded into the seat of Hughes as part of a backroom deal which has reportedly infuriated senior Liberals for bypassing of the local membership. “This ‘deal’ appears to be a curious and orchestrated strategy to deny grassroots members a say in selection of candidates for both the Senate and lower house seats,” is how Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells put it.
You may remember Dore for his extremely Young Liberal “Liberals for Merit” campaign, emailing party members to oppose gender quotas early last year, arguing:
If the quota motions are successful, there will be no mainstream political party in Australia left to stand against the dehumanising instruments of collectivism. Who will remain to fight against identity politics when even the party of the individual has abandoned it?
You may also remember him as the nephew of Chris Dore, The Australian‘s editor-in-chief. We only bring that up because the Oz never seems to.
Olympic level hacking With all the palaver around Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s WeChat account being bought up by a Chinese company (Morrison has never been particularly good at hanging on to these things, huh?) it’s interesting to note the recent report into the app that athletes, journalists and other attendees of the 2022 Beijing games must put on their phone.
Cyber security watchdog Citizen Lab has released a report arguing the COVID monitoring MY2022 app has a “simple but devastating flaw” in its encryption which could allow health information, voice messages and other data to leak:
“China has a history of undermining encryption technology to perform political censorship and surveillance,” the report argues “As such, it is reasonable to ask whether the encryption in this app was intentionally sabotaged for surveillance purposes or whether the defect was born of developer negligence.”
Protests move online Invasion Day protests will be taking a different approach this January 26, heading online to avoid COVID, writes Crikey’s Josefine Ganko. What does an online protest look like, and what does it mean for the ongoing movement to change the date of Australia Day?
While protests are planned in some cities including Sydney, many commemorations are either smaller gatherings, dawn services or entirely online. Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance (WAR) cancelled their planned protest in Melbourne. In a statement on Facebook, WAR said: “It would be careless to hold an event in the height of a pandemic and a virus that has taken hold of so many in our community”.
Meriki Onus, organiser for WAR, told Crikey online protests allowed for “reflections from the community” and act as a “resource to discuss both history and the current climate”.
“Regardless of the pandemic, the 26th January will always be Invasion Day, and it’s an opportunity for us to talk about what’s important for us, what alternatives are available and where we want to go in the future,” Onus said.
On the merits of an online protest when compared to the real thing, Onus said “it has its limitations, but it’s a way to stay connected and keep the important messages out there.”
Irritating Pearls and Irritations We’ve been informed we gave the Oz a bit too much credit yesterday in attributing Paul Keating’s lacerations of Britain’s Foreign Secretary Liz Truss to their reporting. John Menadue got in contact to point out that Keating’s spray was originally published on his public policy blog Pearls and Irritations, with which Crikey sometimes shares copy. The piece has been amended to reflect this. Our apologies.
