I am generally unsympathetic to complaints from people in politics & media about criticism, but to the degree there is case for censuring trolls & for everyone to be more reasonable, Leigh Sales makes it quite well here.

abc.net.au/news/2021-09-1…
The issue that underlies the Leigh Sales piece is vehement responses made by partisans & trolls to reporting in the Covid era. I am reasonably sure that Australia has always had pretty brutal politics. We inherited the Westminster system, where parties sit 2 sword lengths apart.
At the same time, the Media should or must know that many Australians are in a trough of the Pandemic, regardless of getting or avoiding Covid. Families are in lockdown, jobs & businesses lost, children go uneducated, while politicians & media seem not to have suffered at all.
If anything, given the chasm-like disparity of experiences between Canberra politicos & media - paid in full every fortnight - and much of Australia locked down & in tenuous economic circumstances, the criticisms of our establishments have been, if anything, surprisingly mild.
None of the above is a criticism of Leigh Sales. She has been very fair, I think, in her criticisms of incumbents. It is unlikely that either Morrison, Gladys, or Andrews welcome LS at their press conferences. I do not know what her politics are (cf Laura Tingle's obvious biases)
In respect of Twitter as a platform, I obviously enjoy using it & have now met a lot of people I correspond with here. There are a lot of strange anonymous accounts (I do not understand anonymity & it seems pointless) but most people here have their own points of view & merits.
All of us could behave better here. I am sure I have written things I would reformulate now. One of many reasons I do not use a tweet deleter is I think 'poasting for posterity' means you force yourself to only say what you honestly think. Also, Twitter is a filing cabinet.
While I think some claims of 'cancel culture' are overdone, I do think the herd-like tendencies of politics force people to censor to avoid the pile-on. The Twitter 'back channel' is notorious for people too scared to say openly what they actually think esp on moral/social issues
Like many conservative people, for example, the run-up to the 2017 same sex marriage vote was full of 'back channel' dialogue with 'blue chekist' media, publicly having to get behind 'yes', privately much more sceptical of 'the party line' .... even at the ABC, dare I say.
The upshot of all this, then, is I think we would be much healthier if we accept that in a country of 26m people, there will be more tribes than a '2PP vote' suggests. Also, more importantly, everyone has more going on in their lives than any observer can ever possibly know.
TL:DR we are all Australians, there are only 26m of us on this massive island(s) continent, we agree on much more than we disagree on, and, hopefully when the Pandemic is over, whatever else we argue over, we will all look more sympathetically on those laid low these past 2 years

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More from @GrayConnolly

13 Sep
The Europeans who went big into fantasy solar/wind & 'big batteries' now suffering & now more dependent than ever on Russian gas. Well, except for France & others that kept reliable & scalable Nuclear, and others prepared to rely on Coal. Madness.

wsj.com/articles/energ…
"France gets more than two-thirds of its electricity from nuclear — giving it the lowest emissions of any major economy.....Germany, where nuclear generates 11 percent of power, while fossil fuels account for 44 percent — 24 percent of that from coal."

politico.eu/article/climat…
Coal, Gas, Nuclear ... make your pick for your national baseload power source(s). There is no fantasy fourth option, no matter how much disinformation is spun at you by the various "green energy" spivs looking for government subsidies.

afr.com/companies/ener…
Read 7 tweets
12 Sep
Welcome to the Sydney Lockdown day 80 ….

[Joseph Fowles, "Fort Street to Dawes Point", c1840s]

#Covid19NSW #SydneyLockdown Image
While NSW is galloping to 70%, am hoping that this is true for the distance to 80% ... there will be a hardcore % of vax hesitant/vax bonkers that will not be insignificant in a State of 8m people

According to the Sky chryon running on @ljayes show this morning, Gladys is coming out to front the media this morning at 11am .... in 2025 we will still have 11am press conferences as our 'public health experts' caution it is too early to reopen

#Covid19NSW #SydneyLockdown
Read 4 tweets
12 Sep
Welcome to the Sydney Lockdown day 79 ….

[Sydney Harbour Bridge and northern CBD from Luna Park]

#Covid19NSW #SydneyLockdown Image
Gladystan 11am briefing with Gladys & Dr Chant - New South Wales in the last 24 hours:
- NSW now at 45.6% fully vaccinated
- NSW now at 78.1% first dose
- NSW has 1262 new local cases

NSW remains on track for 70% fully vaccinated by mid October

#Covid19NSW #SydneyLockdown
Dr Chant emphasising that even healthy people who are unvaccinated can get Covid and die. Also on current trajectory, NSW should get to 80% first dose by Wednesday

#Covid19NSW #SydneyLockdown
Read 7 tweets
11 Sep
Welcome to the Sydney Lockdown day 78 ….

[Sydney CBD from Kirribilli - Sydney Opera House at left and the Sydney Harbour Bridge at right]

#Covid19NSW #SydneyLockdown
Gladystan 11am briefing with Brad "Chad" Hazzard - New South Wales in the last 24 hours:
- NSW now at 44.5% fully vaccinated
- NSW now at 77.3% first dose
- NSW has 1599 new local cases

NSW remains on track for 70% fully vaccinated by mid October

#Covid19NSW #SydneyLockdown
Well said "Chad" @BradHazzard - go and get vaccinated, not just for you, but for your family, for your community, for the good of the country.

I can strongly recommend AZ, the unpretentious, local, journeyman, vaccine of the working man.

#Covid19NSW #SydneyLockdown
Read 4 tweets
10 Sep
On each Sept 11, I tweet out this US PBS doco on the late FBI agent, John O'Neill, who had tracked UBL/Al Qaeda in the 1990s & predicted AQ attacks. O'Neill was ignored & then forced out. He would then die, tragically, in the World Trade Centre on Sept 11.
Also this discussion between @exjon and @tobyharnden is excellent on what was happening in Afghanistan - esp if you remember (as I do weirdly) hearing the news of Massoud's death days before

The deaths of John O'Neill and Rick Rescorla, both of whose eventful and heroic lives merit films in themselves, in the Sept 11 attacks are among the many awful tragedies of that day.
Read 6 tweets
8 Sep
Welcome to the Sydney Lockdown day 76 ….

[Mast of the original HMAS Sydney from the Great War with the Australian White Ensign hoisted, Bradleys Head, Sydney Harbour]

#Covid19NSW #SydneyLockdown Image
Gladystan 11am briefing - New South Wales in the last 24 hours:
- NSW now at 42.7% fully vaccinated
- NSW now at 75.6% first dose
- 1405 new local cases
NSW on track for 70% fully vaccinated by mid October

Gladys has some 'roadmap to freedom'

#Covid19NSW #SydneyLockdown
This is Gladys' NSW 'roadmap to freedom' for the fully vaccinated from the Monday in October after which we hit 70% fully vaccinated. It is pretty lame but compared to Victoria, it is "Gladys Gone Wild"

#Covid19NSW #SydneyLockdown

Read 4 tweets

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