The Greater Difficulty

There was trouble in the camp. Consultation. A turn around. Slow. Out there, the world transformed. He was left behind, stranded on a suburban block. It would appear that way. There were times when the villages had risen and disappeared in the valley below, we feel down centuries, but much of it was just a jumble. The nation went quiet. No one paid much attention to the politicians anymore. They didn't believe a word of them. 

Spiralling prices. Doomsday stories. A massive overreach. A grand opening. A fire in the sky. Jacinta Price gave an impressive performance at the National Press Club. A thousand warriors disappeared. He could reach out and summon the devils or the gods. Which do you feed? It was impossible to take it all in. That childhood desire, "to understand everything", was swamped now. 

There had been an earthquake in Morocco; and he couldn't help but remember his visits there, back in the 1970s, when it had been such an extraordinary place, and, of course, well marked on the hippy trail. The train to Marrakesh. The American woman who left, complaining she wasn't getting enough sex, although as far as he was concerned he was getting more than he could cope with. The bazaars. The endless jostling. The nice rides. The trains through the night. The movement of carriages. 

They were in a relatively affluent area of the country; and everyone settled into their minimal lives, made the most of things, were happy, contented with each other, their young families, their building of structures. Petrol was over $2 a litre, double what it had been only a few short years before. Time fled before them all. Restless, they moved in the dark. Annoyed at the slow rate of recovery. Fractionally moved, overawed, crawling through the crawl space, peering out, in hiding, moving across the waters to be gone. 

As insubstantial as smoke, he thought, of meagre achievements, as he watched in awe, or respect, at the achievements of others. He spent too much time alone, this ancient oblivion seeker who had let his own self destructive tendencies destroy his life, a thousand opportunities wiped from the record. 

Then it came again; and all were welcome, and the festivities began, on hilltops, in distant quiet forests, high born and low, in the villages and inside the castle walls, the swishing corridors, the intrigues. 

None of it mattered, in a sense, as time swept them all by; the mortals. 

And in another sense, these things stood forever. 

And so it was, and so it will always be. He moved upon the water and was gone. A glint in the morning sun. He tried to build a home and was abandoned inside himself. And so it stood the test of time. 

And the country? The country was screwed. 

The damage is done.

The hills, and out to sea, was covered in smoke haze from the burn offs, allegedly ahead of a hot summer and a bad fire season; although the corporate climate change narrative had distorted all coverage, driven by the UN and multibillion dollar contracts of the oligarchs. It was no wonder no one believed; after millions of Australian children had been vaccinated with an unsafe and ineffective "vaccine" which the authorities must have already known was a dangerous, damaging path to follow. But they did it anyway; in the name of corporate greed. And now were left exposed. The shanks on a rock. The corrupt officials desperately covering their tracks, and plotting their retirements. There to ponder their disgrace, or hoard their millions. 

And hope they had passed before the full consequences of their actions slammed home.

Take Morrison.

***

AUSTRALIAN MAINSTREAM MEDIA

ABC

"Alienated" and "voiceless"  are the words Elly Desmarchelier uses to describe how some people with a disability feel about voting.

Key points:

• First Peoples Disability Network's Damian Griffis says there are difficulties accessing information on Voice to Parliament

• The organisation has produced Easy Read guide for the Uluru statement from the heart

• Australian Electoral Commission's Nye Coffey says the Yes and No pamphlet is their primary tool for communication

But as the referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament approaches, disability rights advocates such as Ms Desmarchelier are working to address these sentiments.

She hosted a "virtual town hall meeting" on Wednesday designed to address the community and provide a better understanding of the referendum in an accessible format.

First Peoples Disability Network (FPDN) chief executive Damian Griffis, who spoke at the forum, said difficulties around accessing information on how to register to vote, how to vote, and what people were voting for could lead many people with disabilities to opt out of voting altogether.

***

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has told the National Press Club the Voice to Parliament proposal is "flawed in its foundations".

Key points:

• Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price fronted the National Press Club today to list the reasons why she doesn't support a Voice to Parliament

• The senator says First Nations Australians are not currently affected by colonisation

• She says there are lies within the Voice proposal

In four weeks, Australians will head to the polls to vote on whether to enshrine an Indigenous Voice to the constitution. 

On Thursday, the co-leader of the No campaign, in a wide-ranging address to the Press Club, detailed why she will be voting No in the upcoming referendum. 

Senator Nampijinpa Price, among other comments, denied First Nations Australians were currently being negatively impacted by colonisation and shared her own experiences of racism. 

"[The Voice] is built on lies and an aggressive attempt to fracture our nation's founding document and divide the country built upon it," she said.

"That division has now seen the no campaign branded as being base racism."

She said Indigenous Australians already have a voice as she is one of 11 Indigenous voices — politicians — currently in parliament. 

"I will not accept the lie, the rationalisation of many Indigenous voices of the Yes campaign, who suggest our democratically elected voices are redundant because we belong to political parties," she said. 

"We are being asked by a few elites to enshrine it [the Voice] within our constitution, without knowing its functions or powers." 

SMH

The Opposition’s Indigenous Australians spokeswoman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price says colonisation has been good for Indigenous Australians, as she failed to support the Coalition policy of local and regional Voices in a fierce, provocative speech met with cheers by her frontbench colleagues.

In a National Press Club address that challenged widely held views of Indigenous and intergenerational disadvantage, Price claimed political leaders had been unwilling to apply common-sense approaches to Indigenous policy issues for fear of being branded racists.

CRIKEY

Why does it matter that the earnings gap between the richest and the poorest is surmountable? And that the poorest earn a living wage? Because democracy depends upon the fairness of the economy. 

The best example is in America. Over the past 50 years, American CEOs have gone from making 21 times what the typical worker earns to 351 times what the typical worker earns. Put another way, since 1978 CEO compensation, which has expanded by 1,322%, has outpaced the growth of the S&P stock market. 

When wages become this lopsided, middle-class hope of material goods and social status withers on the vine.

NEWS

The “hottest September weather in six years” is set to sweep through Sydney, just days after Adelaide saw its warmest day in six months, as a “record challenging” bubble of heat squats over Australia’s south and east.

Parts of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia could exceed 35C little more than two weeks out from winter.

Next week, Adelaide is looking at temperatures of up to 16 degrees above average.

It comes as parts of the Australian Alps saw their warmest September day on record.

“A high in the Tasman Sea is now in a ‘blocking’ pattern for the next five days essentially squishing any cold fronts, pushing them well south of the mainland,” Sky News Weather meteorologist Alison Osborne told news.com.au.

Winds circling the high pressure system are dragging warm air down from northern and Central Australia towards the south and east.

SKY

Sky News host Andrew Bolt has hailed Shadow Indigenous Affairs Minister Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s “stunning” speech in the National Press Club, saying it could mark a “turning point” for race relations in Australia.

The shadow minister fronted the press gallery just one week after Indigenous leader Professor Marcia Langton.

Mr Bolt criticised Professor Langton’s “old race politics of the left”, comparing her comments with Ms Price’s call for a new era.

“Price, of course, countered the lies of the Yes campaign,” he said.

“It's false to say Aborigines don’t already have a voice. Look, for instance, at the 11 people in federal parliament who identify as Aboriginal.

“No, it’s false to say this Voice would just give advice – in fact, the word advice is nowhere in the words we'll be voting on.”

GUARDIAN

Australia’s top military leader has warned that democracies will be vulnerable to “truth decay” as artificial intelligence tools eventually leave citizens struggling to sift fact from fiction.

Gen Angus Campbell, the chief of the Australian defence force, accused Russia of wielding disinformation as “a weapon of statecraft” in the United States and the United Kingdom. Such campaigns could increasingly be used to fracture “the trust that binds us”.

Campbell also warned of increasing disruption sparked by the climate crisis, saying if the world failed to take stronger collective action “we may all be humbled by a planet made angry by our collective neglect”.

Addressing an Australian Strategic Policy Institute conference on Thursday evening, Campbell said rapid advances in technology were occurring at the same time as increasing great power competition.