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Canberra Today 14°/16° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

MACKLIN: The whales can breathe a little easier

THE whales that provide Canberra’s coastal holidaymakers with a delightful passing parade each year can breathe a little easier after this past week’s excellent decision from the International Court of Justice.

Morning walkers along the Tuross Boulevard sometimes spend half the day entranced by their antics close to shore. In fact, as the sea warms up, they seem to be arriving a little earlier each year.

I don’t think Japan’s preferred minke species have been much in evidence; most seem to be humpbacks and southern rights; but they’re all very welcome.

IT’S not all good news, however. The warming currents, we’re told, are also bringing the great whites and other dangerous sharks closer to our favoured beaches. The week’s death of Christine Armstrong at Tathra beach was a shocking reminder of the dangers lurking. And who knows what other unexpected perils climate change will bring.

LIBERAL heavyweight Arthur Sinodinos seemed all at sea under questioning at the ICAC hearing. Time and again he couldn’t recall or was blissfully ignorant of the skulduggery taking place on his watch as the boss of Australian Water Holdings. He couldn’t even remember that AWH had donated $72,000 to the NSW Liberals… and he was the Party treasurer!

And we all thought Arthur’s shiny dome contained a mind like a steel trap. Sad really, the way these high flyers seem to be afflicted with “executive amnesia” when they reach the nation’s courtrooms.

STILL on matters oceanic, the search for the black box in whatever remains of MH370 in the wave-tossed seas west of Perth, has delivered a surprising foreign policy dividend.

The close co-operation between Australian and Chinese authorities in the search has led to China’s PLA actually asking to operate under Australian command a big naval exercise.

Defence boffins tell us it’s the first time the Chinese armed forces have ever accepted Western command in a military operation. Rim of the Pacific will comprise the navies of more than 20 nations in the seas around Hawaii where the Chinese flotilla will come under the firm direction of the RAN in rescue exercises.

Happily, it signals the Chinese leadership has forgiven PM Tony Abbott his extraordinary diplomatic solecism in declaring Japan Australia’s “best friend” in Asia.

THE WA Senate election might have caused Tony Abbott some grief… but not nearly as much as Labor Leader Bill Shorten.

In fact the odds are shortening (as it were) that he’ll be replaced well before the next election, much to the relief of the 60 per cent of Labor members who voted for Anthony Albanese.

AUNTY’S best friend and plucky guardian, managing director Mark Scott, stood up to her (and his) critics in a hard hitting speech that raised the prospect of a Murdoch newspaper monopoly “in every capital city except Perth”. The dogs have been barking that the “SMH” and “The Age” might well close down their print editions which would leave Rupert master of the field.

But wait a minute… did Mr Scott overlook THE capital city? Or does he know something about “The Canberra Times” that we don’t?

AS for standing up, why oh why is the ABC’s charming Virginia Haussegger now required to introduce our nightly news vertically before her desk? And why is she holding sheets of paper? Is the teleprompter on the blink? More alarmingly, could this really be the end of that delicious tradition of news readers sitting modestly behind their desks… secretly disrobed?

robertmacklin.com

 

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Robert Macklin

Robert Macklin

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