Feelings, Fears And The Federal Election: Community Across the Country Share Their Voice
Voices from across the country give insight on the issues significant in their community as mob go to the voting poll. Kirra, who is living in Naarm, Melbourne shares that conversations within her community has a focus on national issues, "Youth incarceration is a big one, I also think deaths in custody is unfortunately, a very big topic all the time for Victorian mob".
Keenan, resides in the Boothby electorate of South Australia, where issues of drug use in community and proposals of nuclear plans without consultation with First Nations Peoples are in the forefront of peoples minds, "were just kind of looking at, whose going to be better off for mob for the next four years".
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West Australian
2 hours ago
- West Australian
Offer denied for ex-Liberal leader to avert bankruptcy
An 11th-hour offer from a defamed MP to partially defer an ousted state Liberal leader's $2.3 million legal bill in exchange for guaranteed preselection has fallen over. Victorian Liberal Moira Deeming wrote to former opposition leader John Pesutto, his successor Brad Battin and Victorian Liberal president Philip Davis on Sunday with a series of demands to spare Mr Pesutto bankruptcy. Mr Pesutto was ordered to pay $2.3 million in legal costs to Mrs Deeming after the Federal Court found he defamed her by implying she was associated with neo-Nazis who gatecrashed a Melbourne rally she attended in 2023. A bankruptcy notice was served to Mr Pesutto on Friday, leaving him 21 days to pay the debt, sign up to a payment arrangement or face bankruptcy. Bankruptcy would force his exit from Victorian parliament, setting up an expensive by-election in his marginal state seat of Hawthorn in Melbourne's east. In her letter to the trio, seen by AAP, Mrs Deeming said she was "dismayed" the state party was considering an approach from Mr Pesutto to meet his financial obligations to her. "It is because of the extraordinary support that I have received from rank-and-file members that I make this offer with the intention that the funds they have raised to fight the Labor Party remain solely directed to that important objective," she wrote. Her demands included Mr Pesutto paying the roughly $760,000 he has raised and deferring the remainder of his debt until March 30, 2027. A special resolution would have had to be passed to endorse preselection for her upper house seat so she could "enjoy the right to serve my community without any internal distractions which is something denied me to date". She also requested the party, through Mr Battin, pen an unreserved written and public apology to her and appoint of an independent person from outside the state to review internal dispute resolution mechanisms. The offer was non-negotiable and expired at 5pm on Tuesday after the parties were unable to agree. "I have suffered through a gruelling two and half years where almost every offer I made to negotiate a settlement was rejected," she wrote. "This is my final attempt to spare the Liberal Party further harm and to afford Mr Pesutto, and his family, the dignity that was denied to me, my husband and my children." One senior Liberal told AAP it was "outrageous" to attempt to use the pair's long-running dispute to secure preselection. Liberal preselection is traditionally completed through a vote of rank-and-file members, with the process for the next state election in November 2026 expected to begin from September. AAP has also been told the money raised by Mr Pesutto was conditional on the party lending him the rest, about $1.5 million, which he has vowed to pay back with interest. The party's administrative committee is expected to meet to discuss Mr Pesutto's request on June 19. Mrs Deeming and Mr Pesutto were contacted for comment.
Perth Now
2 hours ago
- Perth Now
Offer denied for ex-Liberal leader to avert bankruptcy
An 11th-hour offer from a defamed MP to partially defer an ousted state Liberal leader's $2.3 million legal bill in exchange for guaranteed preselection has fallen over. Victorian Liberal Moira Deeming wrote to former opposition leader John Pesutto, his successor Brad Battin and Victorian Liberal president Philip Davis on Sunday with a series of demands to spare Mr Pesutto bankruptcy. Mr Pesutto was ordered to pay $2.3 million in legal costs to Mrs Deeming after the Federal Court found he defamed her by implying she was associated with neo-Nazis who gatecrashed a Melbourne rally she attended in 2023. A bankruptcy notice was served to Mr Pesutto on Friday, leaving him 21 days to pay the debt, sign up to a payment arrangement or face bankruptcy. Bankruptcy would force his exit from Victorian parliament, setting up an expensive by-election in his marginal state seat of Hawthorn in Melbourne's east. In her letter to the trio, seen by AAP, Mrs Deeming said she was "dismayed" the state party was considering an approach from Mr Pesutto to meet his financial obligations to her. "It is because of the extraordinary support that I have received from rank-and-file members that I make this offer with the intention that the funds they have raised to fight the Labor Party remain solely directed to that important objective," she wrote. Her demands included Mr Pesutto paying the roughly $760,000 he has raised and deferring the remainder of his debt until March 30, 2027. A special resolution would have had to be passed to endorse preselection for her upper house seat so she could "enjoy the right to serve my community without any internal distractions which is something denied me to date". She also requested the party, through Mr Battin, pen an unreserved written and public apology to her and appoint of an independent person from outside the state to review internal dispute resolution mechanisms. The offer was non-negotiable and expired at 5pm on Tuesday after the parties were unable to agree. "I have suffered through a gruelling two and half years where almost every offer I made to negotiate a settlement was rejected," she wrote. "This is my final attempt to spare the Liberal Party further harm and to afford Mr Pesutto, and his family, the dignity that was denied to me, my husband and my children." One senior Liberal told AAP it was "outrageous" to attempt to use the pair's long-running dispute to secure preselection. Liberal preselection is traditionally completed through a vote of rank-and-file members, with the process for the next state election in November 2026 expected to begin from September. AAP has also been told the money raised by Mr Pesutto was conditional on the party lending him the rest, about $1.5 million, which he has vowed to pay back with interest. The party's administrative committee is expected to meet to discuss Mr Pesutto's request on June 19. Mrs Deeming and Mr Pesutto were contacted for comment.
Sydney Morning Herald
3 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Q+A's cancellation is the mercy killing of a show that no longer got us talking
It's often sad when a much-loved show comes to an end, but it's much sadder when a show trickles to termination long after the love has faded away. The ABC's cancellation of Q+A will be viewed by many as the merciful culmination of a long drift into irrelevance, but it would be unfair to let the passing go by without acknowledging that there was a time when it was bold, vital viewing, capable of generating real excitement, discussion and outrage, and of setting the political agenda. The eye-catching point of difference for Q+A when it began in 2008 was the running of selected tweets on screen while the show was in progress. It was a gimmick, but a stroke of genius for a show looking to create buzz and connect a watching community each week. It brought another dimension to TV-watching as hardcore Q+A -ers fought fiercely each week for the honour of getting on screen. Fans often commented that the show was 'so much better when no politicians were on'. I never agreed. Episodes without them produced much civil, intelligent discourse, but lacked the fire politicians generated with their presence. Some were loud and opinionated and deliberately put on a show. Others came over all sweet and reasonable. Or they just played the straight party-line bat, repeating the approved talking points. Whatever method they chose provided great grist for the mill: whether the audience was giving a standing ovation or participating in a social media feeding frenzy. When the program was at its best, it did spark proper, serious conversations. But it also was showbusiness. Everyone remembers John Howard getting a shoe thrown at him in 2010, and that incident provided exactly what people wanted from Q+A: the feeling you were witnessing something unique; that those who weren't watching had missed out. The mostly left-leaning audience loved the chance to reaffirm their loathing of Howard. Those on the right got their jollies decrying such vulgar violence. One of the show's greatest controversies was when the Abbott government boycotted it after it allowed former terror suspect Zaky Mallah to sit in the audience and ask a question. This set off furious debate over the rights and wrongs of letting Mallah on the show, but that was what Q+A was for – creating a space for people to argue over what was right and wrong. The show's best moments were always a result of the willingness to take on the risks of live television and the placing of big, combustible personalities in proximity. Some were one-off instances of unpredictable drama, such as when GetUp director Simon Sheikh fainted on air, or the interruption to the broadcast resulting from students staging an in-studio protest against panellist Christopher Pyne. Others were moving moments that became bigger stories, taking on a life of their own after the hour was up, like when Victorian man Duncan Storrar questioned politicians about tax cuts for the rich and the plight of low-income Australians like himself. To some, Storrar became a hero, but he was later targeted by media outlets digging into his past. At other times, the show shone simply by being the ring in which ferocious and sometimes hilarious verbal brawls were staged – between Yassmin Abdel-Magied and Jacqui Lambie, Bob Katter and Josh Thomas, and many others. Over the years, Q+A lost the ability to spark anger or argument, or get people talking the next day, or set the political agenda that week. One of the reasons was that it stopped aiming for enjoyment. Even on a show with pretensions to political significance, entertainment matters – you can't be significant if nobody's watching. The switch from Monday to Thursday night, later reversed, didn't help. Moving the show to later in the week robbed it of the feeling it was the kickstarter for that week's public debate. The 2019 loss of original host Tony Jones – whose calm control and flashes of wry bemusement ('I'm going to take that as a comment') endeared him to many but infuriated others who found him smug and either too opinionated or not opinionated enough – was a blow from which the show never recovered. As time passed, the novelty of the tweets wore off, and the panellists' spats started to seem tired and predictable. 'Don't watch the Bad Show' became the social media motto, as the program tried a little too hard to engineer memorable confrontations. Without popular engagement, the claim to be dictating the national conversation rang hollow, and even the attacks on the show's perceived biases or submission to vested interests started to drop off because nobody was paying attention any more.
