Van Badham

2 months ago | theguardian.com | Van Badham

Who here remembers that Peter Dutton was once health minister? Don’t worry if you don’t. Events of the week suggest that he doesn’t seem to, either. It’s a historical detail relevant to note in the wake of Labor’s landmark half-billion-dollar commitment to women’s healthcare, announced on 7 February. In this policy arena, as in others, historical accuracy in the stories political movements like to share about themselves can be somewhat slippery.

2 months ago | msn.com | Van Badham

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2 months ago | msn.com | Van Badham

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2 months ago | theguardian.com | Van Badham

If you really want to make a name for yourself, publish comment insisting you’ve been silenced. It happened again last week in a nationwide publication. Under a byline, accompanied by a headshot and the covers of two of his books, an Australian author counted himself among those writers deemed “pale, stale and male” by the publishing industry, who “seem to have become cancelled because of our age”. It’s a trope repeated so many times, it would be generous to describe it as cliche.

2 months ago | nytimes.com | Van Badham

Oh, California. We Australians have been watching your burning nightmare unfold with the sad realization that you are now living in ours. It's always fire season somewhere in Australia. Bushfires, as we call them, haunt our collective imagination. Tales of the terror they instill have featured in Indigenous storytelling for thousands of years and weave through our modern literature, films and television.