The Week in the West: Baa baa backflip for Chaney
Plus: Woodside upsets both the weather and weather forecasters
US election mania kicked into gear this week over Joe Biden's corpse-like debate appearance against Donald Trump. The New York Times ($) realised what any casual observer could have told you long ago — Biden is a confused old man who desperately needs a rest.
In coming months, the pantomime of US politics will increasingly dominate attention from Wyndham to Denmark, as Western Australians boo and cheer along with the rest of the world.
I witnessed a more direct injection of American political madness into WA earlier in the week, when Clive Palmer's Freedom Conferences tour featuring Tucker Carlson stopped at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre.
Tucker has long been a fixture of my badly MAGA-pilled social media feeds, but could I handle 4.5 hours of the Freedom Conferences?
Read my report to find out.
Gerard Mazza
Meanwhile, elsewhere...
Woodside colonises BoM
Rick Morton in The Saturday Paper ($) reveals the Bureau of Meteorology's aviation division has been tasked with forecasting for Woodside's Burrup Hub shipping operations, which have nothing to do with aviation. Woodside paid just $30,000 for the service in 2020; the current cost is unknown. "We didn’t think the bureau should have anything to do with fossil fuel companies, quite frankly," one meteorologist said. I suspect Woodside's gas operations have already created more work for meteorologists by making the weather psycho. For those forecasters, it must sting to be made to aid the company in shipping more fossil fuels offshore.
Chaney's change of mind
WA's only Teal MP (for now — watch this space) Kate Chaney performed a high-profile backflip this week, reversing her support for a live sheep export ban. “In the last few days, I’ve heard so many stories from constituents .... about the very real impacts a ban would have on their livelihoods, mental health, families and communities," Chaney said in a video posted to social media. It came after we learnt in March that farmers were getting organised and raising funds to target key seats on the issue, including Chaney's. You'd think her Curtin electorate, where plenty of farmers would own an extra property or two, would be fairly divided on this one. I can imagine some intergenerational debates playing out at Mosman Park dinner tables (perhaps over a lamb rack).
More stories
- The Corruption and Crime Commission said WA Police's investigations into the unlawful arrest of a 14-year-old Aboriginal girl were "inadequate", according to the ABC.
- WA Labor Senator Fatima Payman told 6 News her floor-crossing to vote for recognition of a Palestine state would not be a "once-off gesture".
- All of Channel Seven's YouTube channels were hacked to share a livestreamed video of a deepfake Elon Musk hawking crypto, according to the ABC. At Crikey ($), Bernard Keane reckons it's not much less credible than Seven's usual fare.
