Pristine Territory This morning brought the welcome news that there has been a 29% reduction in plastic pollution on Australia’s coast. Maybe so, but according to a tipster in east Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, the rubbish washing up on the beaches is like nothing the appalled locals have ever seen before. This image, sent by a Crikey reader, was taken yesterday at the main beach in the Indigenous township of Yirrkala, which houses Buka-Larrnggay Mulka, arguably the finest Indigenous art gallery in the world. Locals believe the rubbish, which can be seen at normally pristine beaches, comes from Indonesia.
The issue of plastic waste clogging the Northern Territory’s significant and pristine areas has been known for a while, but images like this demonstrate that, whatever good news we get, there is an extremely long way to go.
Dominating There are times, as much as it pains us, when we in the bunker simply have to throw up our hands and admit a politician has made an extremely good joke. So it was when US President Joe Biden replied to Elon Musk’s contention that he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy by wishing him “lots of luck on his trip to the moon”. And so it was when New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet marked the commencement of the State of Origin yesterday with a pitch perfect parody of his predecessor’s effort a year earlier:
If you’ve forgotten the original, it may be the greatest example in history of a politician attempting to appear normal and relatable and instead coming off like an alien who has crash landed on Earth and is doing a hastily improvised impression of human behaviour:
Corporate compassion Roughly 100% of corporate comms on progressive topics falls somewhere on the spectrum between “craven and cynical” and “well-intentioned but utterly tone deaf”. We’re going to place this example a bit closer to the latter end. Recently relegated from the English Premier League, Norwich FC have reminded their fans that homophobic language from the terraces is never acceptable. A noble sentiment. And what better way to illustrate that than with a image depicting as many clumsily censored slurs as (presumably) the world’s strangest brainstorming session could think up:
Apart from the less than completely clear use of censorship — am I the only one who reads “TW?!K” and “B!M B?Y” as “Twerk” and “Bimbay”? — we can’t help but wonder who this side of the Beatles first LP has used “Sea Queen” as a slur, let alone so much that it warrants two appearances on Norwich “unacceptable language” board?
Scandals round the world We in the bunker love a good “what’s the go here?”-type scandal, and there’s a doozy unfolding in South Africa. President Cyril Ramaphosa is under increasing pressure over the mystery of an unreported 2020 robbery at his game farm in Limpopo, which apparently relieved Ramaphosa of US$4 million.
The allegation is that, rather than report the theft (and thus explain why he had millions in cash lying around), Ramaphosa instructed the Presidential Protection Unit to go off the books — track down the thieves, get the money back and keep it all under wraps. And that (again, allegedly) is just what they did, via kidnappings, interrogations and pay-offs, ultimately paying out 150,000 rand (about $13,600) to six suspects to keep their traps shut.
A further wrinkle comes from the fact that it was former South African spy boss Arthur Fraser who laid the criminal complaint all this emanates from. Fraser isn’t the most neutral witness against Ramaphosa, who removed him from the State Security Agency (SSA) after evidence emerged that Fraser and the SSA had become deeply politicised, and that he was working to entrench the power of former president Jacob Zuma. If nothing else, it’s a lesson that if there’s one firing you don’t want to bungle it’s the apparently ruthless and politically astute head of an intelligence agency.
