#public holiday melbourne

[soft-serve-soymilk]

The problem with having puppers is that you start scolding everything out of habit:

Aus post who is keeping my package in customs for 387903 million years? No :(

C-ptsd induced emotional flashbacks with the classic flinch response? No 😓

youtube who paused my song RIGHT before the best part to ask ‘time to take a break ^^?’ even though I never set such a thing and I bet it’s choosing to be annoying on purpose bc I deleted it last week to prevent distractions and it has since been reinstated: Nooo 😡

[pinkybuttons]

i’m in melbourne. this is scary why is everyone wearing black

[fazcinatingblog]

Oh great, April 1st, when the footy humourists tell me Alex Fasolo has retired and I'm like WHAT NO HE CAN'T and then I realise what day it is and breathe a sigh of relief that Alex Fasolo still plays football and

[driftwooddestiel]

oh shoot its like THE grand final today

[mariacallous]

On Boxing Day pro-Palestine demonstrators met customers at the Zara sale in the Westfield shopping centre, in Stratford, east London. They were not there to wish them the compliments of the season.

‘Bombs are dropping while you’re shopping,’ they chanted, as police stood by to make sure the protests did not turn violent. ‘Zara is enabling genocide,’ their placards read.

Quite what they wanted bargain hunters to do about the Israeli forces bombing the Gaza Strip, they never said. Lobby their MPs? Politicians are on their Christmas holidays. Join the Palestinian armed struggle?  It was unclear whether the shopping centre had a Hamas recruitment office.

But on one point the demonstrators were certain: no one should be buying from Zara. Even though the fashion chain has not encouraged Israel’s war against Hamas, earned income from it, or supported Israel in any material way, it was nevertheless “exploiting a genocide and commodifying Palestine's pain for profit”.

Zara, in short, has become the object of a paranoid fantasy: a QAnon conspiracy theory for the postcolonial left.

The Zara conspiracy is an entirely modern phenomenon. It has no original author. Antisemitic Russians sat down and wrote the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the early 20th century. There was an actual “Q” behind the QAnon conspiracy: a far-right activist who first appeared on 4chan message boards in 2017 to claim that a cabal of child abusers was conspiring against Donald Trump.

The Zara conspiracy was mass produced by social media users: an example of the madness of crowds rather than their supposed wisdom. The cause of the descent into hysteria was bizarre.

In early December Zara launched an advertising campaign featuring the model Kristen McMenamy wearing its latest collection in a sculptor’s studio. It clearly was a studio, by the way, and not a war zone in southern Israel or Gaza. McMenamy carried a mannequin wrapped in white fabric. The cry went up that the Spanish company was exploiting the suffering of Palestinians and that the mannequin was meant to represent a victim of Israeli aggression wrapped in a shroud.

The accusation was insane. No one in the photo shoot resembled a soldier or a casualty of war. Anyone who thought for 30 seconds before resorting to social media would have known that global brands plan their advertising campaigns months in advance.

Zara said the campaign presented “a series of images of unfinished sculptures in a sculptor’s studio and was created with the sole purpose of showcasing craft-made garments in an artistic context”. The idea for the studio setting was conceived in July. The photo shoot was in September, weeks before the Hamas assault on Israel on 7 October.

No one cared. Melanie Elturk, the CEO of fashion brand Haute Hijab, said of the campaign, ‘this is sick. What kind of sick, twisted, and sadistic images am I looking at?’ #BoycottZara trended on Twitter, as users said that Zara was ‘utterly shameful and disgraceful”’.

To justify their condemnations, activists developed ever-weirder theories. A piece of cardboard in the photoshoot was meant to be a map of Israel/Palestine turned upside down. Because a Zara executive had once invited an extreme right-wing Israeli politician to a meeting, the whole company was damned.

Astonishingly, or maybe not so astonishingly to anyone who follows online manias, the fake accusations worked. Zara stores in Glasgow, Toronto. Hanover, Melbourne and Amsterdam were targeted.

What on earth could Zara do? PR specialists normally say that the worst type of apology is the non-apology apology, when a public figure or institution shows no remorse, but instead says that they are sorry that people are offended. Yet Zara had not sought to trivialize or profit from the war so what else could it do but offer a non-apology apology? The company duly said it was sorry that people were upset.

“Unfortunately, some customers felt offended by these images, which have now been removed, and saw in them something far from what was intended when they were created,” it said on 13 December, and pulled the advertising campaign

That was two-weeks ago and yet still the protests in Zara stores continue. On 23 December activists targeted Zara on Oxford Street chanting , 'Zara, Zara, you can't hide, stop supporting genocide', even though Zara was not, in fact,  supporting genocide. On Boxing Day, they were at the Stratford shopping centre.

Zara has apologised for an offence it did not commit. There is no way that any serious person can believe the charges against it. And yet believe them the protestors do. Or at the very least they pretend to believe for the sake of keeping in with their allies.

Maybe nothing will come of the protests. One could have argued in 2017, after all, that QAnon was essentially simple-minded people living out their fantasies online. Certainly, every sane American knew that there was no clique of paedophiles running the Democrat party, but where was the harm in the conspiracy theory?

Then QAnon supporters stormed the US capitol in January 2021. Will the same story play out from the Gaza protests? As far as I can tell, no one on the left is challenging the paranoia. I have yet to see the fact-checkers of the BBC and Channel 4 warning about the fake news on the left with anything like the gusto with which they treat its counterparts on the right.

To be fair, the scale of disinformation around the Gaza war is off the charts, and it is impossible to chase down every lie. But when fake news goes from online fantasies to real world protests, from 4chan to the Capitol, from Twitter to the Westfield shopping centre, it’s worth taking notice.

Sensible supporters of a Palestinian state ought to be the most concerned. No one apart from fascists, Islamists and far leftists believes that Israel should not defend itself. And yet the scale of its military action in Gaza is outraging world opinion. Mainstream politicians, who might one day put pressure on Israel, remain very wary about reflecting the anger on the streets.

They look at the insane conspiracy theories on the western left and see them as no different from the insane conspiracy theories that motivate Hamas, and they back away.

The Palestinians need many things: an end to the Netanyahu government, and an end to Hamas. But they could also use allies in the West who do not discredit their cause with dark, gibbering fantasies.

[beardedmrbean]

Cruise staff seemingly dressed up as white supremacist Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members during a Christmas-themed event, horrifying passengers as they marched by the swimming pool.

P&O Cruises Australia issued an apology after footage surfaced online of a group of eight staff walking through the pool deck of the ship wearing their white cleaning uniforms and pointy hats

“Is this appropriate for 2024?” a passenger captioned the clip after uploading it to Facebook.

The cruise company says the housekeeping crew had no idea what they looked like when they chose to dress up as “upside down snow cones” for the event during a Pacific Explorer voyage from Melbourne to Hobart in December.

“We regret if a recent incident on a Pacific Explorer cruise offended any guests,” a P&O Cruises Australia spokesperson told news.com.au.

“Several crew members dressed up as snow cones for a Christmas family event, not understanding how their costumes could be misconstrued.”

The spokesperson explained the crew was only in public view for a short time before management acted quickly and had them remove the costumes.

“The crew members were horrified and extremely apologetic when they learned of the distress their outfits could cause.”

Kl Klux Klan, commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, was a racist group who notoriously hunted down black people to hang them from trees, and left burning crosses in the front yards of the homes of black families.

Lynne Scrivens, communications director of P&O Cruises Australia, explained the housekeeping crew are from all over the world and “never heard of the organization” when management pulled them aside to immediately remove their outfits.

“No one can seriously think that was their intention,” she told 2GB host Ben Fordham on Wednesday.

“They are limited with what resources they have on ships,” she said, adding they make do with what they have when it comes to costumes.

They were so distressed … they really are so hardworking and try their hardest to deliver guests amazing holidays.”

Scrivens said no guests made a formal complaint about the costumes at the time, however, she described the incident as “very unfortunate.”

“[We] accept and take full responsibility for it.”

Terri, from Melbourne, who was on an eight-day trip with her husband, filmed the incident and uploaded it to cruise forums on Facebook.

She described it as “offensive KKK costumes” – however she doesn’t believe it was intentional.

“They had been promoting it in the ship’s newsletter – it was going to be a tug-of-war battle between the crew – and we were there to watch what we thought was going to be an awesome event,” Terri, who wished not to reveal her surname, told news.com.au

“And then the crew came out. I looked at my husband and said ‘It’s housekeeping OMG’ and my husband was like ‘OMG get the camera, get the camera out, no one will believe us’ because it was just so out there.

“We were like, ‘Are we seeing this correctly’, it was so bizarre – you can hear it on the video it just went quiet,” Terri said.

She said the lady sitting in front of her had a face like “what the hell” which was “basically the vibe of the whole ship.”

Terri requested a “please explain” from the cruise liner but claims she didn’t receive a response, adding it is “not tolerated in this current environment and education is desperately needed.”

“I spoke with one of the crew and they told me they were asked to take their hats off straight away which they did without hesitation. I just thought this has got to be an innocent mistake.

“I was shocked. But in saying that this is the third P&O cruise we have taken, We love it, but this has left a bit of a sour taste.”

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 21 April 1856, stonemasons in Melbourne, Australia, went on strike demanding a maximum eight-hour working day – down from 10 hours per day Monday-Friday with eight hours on Saturday. They marched from their construction site, the Old Quadrangle building at the University of Melbourne, brandishing a banner demanding “8 hours work, 8 hours recreation, 8 hours rest”. The workers were extremely well organised, and were soon successful in achieving their goal, with no loss of pay, for workers engaged in public works in the city. They celebrated on Monday 12 May, the Whit Monday holiday, with a parade of nearly 700 people from 19 trades. In 1903, workers in Ballarat, Victoria, erected an 8 hour day monument, commemorating the movement. More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9337/Melbourne-8-hour-day-strike Pictured: The Melbourne eight-hour banner, 1856 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=612378520935367&set=a.602588028581083&type=3

[justforbooks]

Bill Viola

Video artist who melded the material and the spiritual and applied modern technology to Renaissance subjects

In 1957, on a family holiday, Bill Viola fell in a lake. He was six years old. Sixty years later, Viola, who has died aged 73, recalled the event. “I didn’t hold on to my float when I went into the water, and I went right to the bottom,” he said. “I experienced weightlessness and a profound visual sense that I never forgot. It was like a dream and blue and light, and I thought I was in heaven as it was the most beautiful thing I had seen.” And then … “my uncle pulled me out.”

It seemed an unpromising start to an artistic career. However, in 1977 Viola began a series of five works called The Reflecting Pool. Four years out of university, this was his first multipart artwork, its constituent films occupying their maker for three years. In the title piece, a shirtless man – Viola – emerges from a wood, walks toward a pond, makes as if to jump into it and freezes in mid-air. The pool registers his entry nonetheless, its surface rippling as though disturbed; the flying man fades slowly away; and, after seven long minutes, Viola emerges, dripping, from the water and walks back into the woods. The Reflecting Pool drew on the near-drowning of his six-year-old self. It was also classic Viola, its most notable features – slowness, water, a numinous spirituality – recurring in his work of the next half century.

It was the subaqueous blue glow of the screen of a Sony Portapak video camera, donated to his high school in Flushing, New York, that first attracted Viola to the medium. He was raised in the neighbouring lower-middle-class suburb of Queens. It was not, recalled Viola, a cultured household, but his mother, Wynne (nee Lee) “had some ability and sort of taught me how to draw, so when I was three years old I could do pretty good motorboats”. A year before his near death by drowning, a kindergarten finger-painting of a tornado won public praise from his teacher. It was then, Viola said, that he decided to be an artist.

His father, a Pan Am flight attendant turned service manager, had other ideas. Fearing that an art school education would leave his son unemployable, Viola senior insisted that he study for a liberal arts degree at Syracuse, a respected university in upstate New York. “And in saying that,” Viola would admit, “he saved me.”

As luck would have it, Syracuse, in 1970, was among the first universities to promote experimentation in new media. A fellow student had set up a studio where projects could be made using a video camera. Signing up for it, Viola was instantly converted: “Something in my brain said I’d be doing this all my life,” he remembered. He spent the following summer wiring up the university’s new cable TV system, taking a job as a janitor in its technology centre so that he could spend his nights mastering the newfangled colour video system. In 1972, he made his first artwork, Tape I, a study of his own reflection in a mirror. This, too, would be trademark Viola, bewitched by video’s ability simultaneously to see and be seen, but also by his own image. The I in the work’s title was not a Roman numeral but a personal pronoun.

Tape I and works like it were enough to catch the eye of Maria Gloria Bicocchi, whose pioneering Florence studio, ART/TAPES/22, made videos for Arte Povera artists. When Viola took a job there in 1974, he found himself working alongside such giants as Mario Merz and Jannis Kounellis. By 1977, his own reputation in the small but growing world of video art led to his being invited to show his work at La Trobe University in Melbourne, his acceptance encouraged by the offer of free Pan Am flights from his father.

The invitation had come from La Trobe’s director of culture, Kira Perov. The following year, Perov moved to New York to be with Viola, and they married in 1978. They would stay in the house in Long Beach, California, that they moved into three years later, for the rest of their married lives. In 1980-81, the couple spent 18 months in Japan, Viola simultaneously working as the first artist-in-residence at Sony Corporation’s Atsugi laboratories and studying Zen Buddhism.

This melding of the sacred and technologically profane would mark Viola’s work of the next four decades. Viola listed “eastern and western spiritual traditions including Zen Buddhism, Islamic Sufism and Christian mysticism” as influences on his art, although it was the last of these that was the most apparent. At university, he said, he had “hated” the old masters, and proximity to the greatest of them in Florence had not changed that view. It was only with the death of his mother in 1991 that he began to feel the weight of western art history, and to acknowledge it in his own work.

Having struggled with a creative block since the late 1980s, he found that the grief of his mother’s death freed him. Summoned to her side by his father, Viola filmed first the dying woman and then her body lying in an open coffin. This footage would be used in a 54-minute work called The Passing, and then again the following year in the Nantes Triptych, its three screens concurrently showing a woman giving birth, Viola’s dying mother and, in between them, a man submerged in a tank of water.

The first of Viola and Perov’s two sons had been born in 1988. Nantes Triptych was, or appeared to be, a meditation on birth, death and rebirth through baptism. If the subject was traditional, so too was Viola’s use of the triptych form. His references to the old masters would soon become more direct still. In 1995, Viola was chosen to represent the US at the Venice Biennale. One part of the work, Buried Secrets, that he showed in the American pavilion drew openly on a painting by Jacopo da Pontormo of the visitation of the Virgin Mary to her elderly cousin, Elizabeth.

Not surprisingly in these secular times, Viola’s subject matter was not universally popular. The art world was particularly divided. When his videos were shown among the permanent collection of the National Gallery in London in an exhibition called The Passions in 2003, one outraged critic dubbed Viola “a master of overblown, big-budget, crowd-pleasing, tear-jerking hocus-pocus and religiosity”.

The pairing at the Royal Academy in 2019 of his work with drawings by Michelangelo from the Royal Collection drew the barbed comment from the Guardian critic that “Viola’s art is so much of its own time that it is already dated, dead in the water”.

Predictably, he was more popular with the public at large, a survey at a Viola retrospective at the Grand Palais in Paris showing that visitors had spent an average of two-and-a-half hours at the exhibition. Churchmen, too, were won over by Viola’s work, particularly those of the Church of England. In 1996, the artist was invited to make a video piece, The Messenger, for Durham Cathedral. In 2014, the first part of a two-part commission called Martyrs and Mary was installed at St Paul’s, the second joining it two years later. The project, thanks to ecclesiastical wrangling, had been a decade in the making. “The church works kind of slow,” remarked Viola, mildly. “But then I also work kind of slow.”

That mildness, and the religiosity of his subjects, may have led critics to underestimate the rigour of his work. Like Viola’s art or not, he was a master of it. His appreciation of the promise – and the threat – of technology was profound. Viola chafed against the primitiveness of early video, seeing each development in the medium as an opportunity to be grasped. The close-up portraits of The Passions series, for example, made use of flatscreen technology almost as it was invented.

By contrast, the binary nature of the modern world bothered him. “The age of computers is a very dangerous one because they work on ‘yes or no’, ‘1 or 0’,” Viola mourned. “There’s no maybe, perhaps or both. And I think this is affecting our consciousness.” The dissemination of video as an art form had not been like the spread of oil painting by the Van Eyck brothers 500 years before, he said, video having appeared everywhere and at once. True to these beliefs, Viola saw no contradiction in treating Renaissance subjects, and a Renaissance belief system, with the latest inventions from Sony. “The two are actually very close,” he said. “I see the digital age as the joining of the material and the spiritual into a yet-to-be-determined whole.”

In 2012, Viola was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. His work after this was increasingly made with the help of Perov, a fact that lent a new poignancy to the themes of memory and loss that often ran through it.

Viola is survived by his wife and their sons, Blake and Andrei, and by his siblings, Andrea and Robert .

🔔 Bill (William John) Viola, video artist, born 25 January 1951; died 12 July 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[samkerrworshipper]

How’s your day been so far?

i’ve been teaching gymnastics clinics all day which has been fun but it’s 40 degrees in melbourne and i’m so tired but public holiday money for the W

[kyndaris]

Onward to the Gong!

Living in New South Wales, public holidays are few and far between with only 11 official days. That being said, not all of them lead to long weekends. And after the Monarch's birthday in June, we poor Sydneysiders must need wait until Labour Day in October before partaking of another extended rest. It's outrageous, I tell you! Atrocious!

Still, in the spirit of adventure and wishing to relive our halcyon days in the sun, me and a few of my friends headed down to Wollongong to enjoy the salty sea air and swan around their city centre, which is but a stone's throw away from the major hustle and bustle that is Sydney. The only major city one really needs to visit when on the east coast of Australia.

Melbourne, who?

I jest. Melbourne is a perfectly fine city to visit or live. It's just...you know, not Sydney.

Although, it should not be noted that a day trip out to Wollongong was not what I'd initially dreamt up for the long weekend. Oh no. Rather, I'd hoped to road trip to the capital of Australia, Canberra, to catch a performance of RENT. The addition of more people to my travel plans, however, scuppered the idea.

What we got instead was a fancy day out with good food and even better company. It involved lounging at a cafe as we devoured a huge breakfast, watched as a car in front of us mount the central curb before swerving across multiple lanes and tailgating the cars in front of it, and also testing our abilities with a devious escape.

A worthy consolation prize, if I do say so myself.

Better than that, we didn't have any time to pay a visit to Shellharbour, where I would have relived the trauma of my many date fails (he was an earnest young man but not, perhaps, what I was seeking in a life partner).

Our small group of adults of mostly over-30s did stumble upon a protest to Free Palestine, however. By then, it was nearing 4 PM. Why it was so late in the afternoon remained a mystery. But the slogans were, admittedly catchy, and it was far better than the preaching we encountered earlier about how we ought to read the Bible lest we burn in Hell. Even some Mormons passing by were caught in the crosshairs.

As for the reason why, I couldn't say. But perhaps different evangelical groups feel like only their own beliefs are true? And all others are corruptions that don't adhere to the correct teachings?

These mild gripes aside, our day trip down to Wollongong was pretty much a success. Even the planning was an exciting endeavour in and of itself. Although, it must be said, trying to negotiate with friends to agree on a date, an activity and location can be like trying to wrangle kittens. It took no small effort to work around people's different schedules and plans.

And while I would have preferred a slightly more challenging escape room than the one we got, it was, in hindsight, for the best. The escape room was at the Breakout Bar, next to Wollongong Central. It was themed with clockwork gears on the ceiling and tables with the entrances to the escape rooms looking like heavy thick-set lead doors. Arriving early, we were given a brief overview of the escape room and the narrative tying all five of them together.

Once we had reviewed the story, we stored our belongings in the locker, plonked on some steampunk-esque goggles and time travelled all the way to Medieval England on a quest to return Excalibur to the stone it had been lodged in.

Although the escape room was one of the easiest available, our group still struggled to solve some of the puzzles. Of note were the unintuitive nature of the nail tower as it was unclear if the key to a nearby bird cage had been released. This was primarily due to the hidden compartment having to be pulled out manually and there was no audio cue to tell us we had succeeded. Quite a lot of precious time was lost where we tried to find a way to open the hidden compartment through other means (as we thought it was activated by magnets).

One other puzzle stumped us terribly too.

Even when we asked for the easy hint, we were left scratching our heads until we looked at the opposite wall.

If ever I should complain about other people being obtuse, I ought to remind myself that I failed to see a huge red and black shield on a wall (although, to be fair, in our group of five, four pairs of eyes also failed to spot it as well).

Still, we managed to escape the room. With time to spare!

Overall, I'd say the escape room was a success in how it got us all to collaborate with its many puzzles. All of us got to contribute our expertise, allowing us to return Excalibur to its rightful place and head back into Professor B's time machine in order to search for his beloved in another time period.

And while Wollongong is certainly no sprawling Sydney, I like to think we enjoyed our time there: from soaking up the sun at Coniston Dog Beach and contributing to a driftwood hut, to nabbing free chips at Grill'd, having a dessert break at Kurtosh, or buying a couple more books to add to my ever growing collection.

Perhaps next we visit the Illawara region, me and my group of friends can look to a few coastal hikes or perhaps take a gander up on the treetops.

If heading south isn't an option, we can always go horseback trail riding instead!

Australia may not be as vibrant as other countries, but there are many a hidden gem for both locals and tourists to discover. After taking some time to explore the main thoroughfare of Wollongong, I can say there's plenty to do and see in the small coastal city that's only an hour away. An absolute steal considering how far other locations can be in the great big giant country I call home.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Claire Lehmann

Published: Jul 7, 2023

In medieval times, it was common practice for the wealthy to buy indulgences from the church to atone for their sins. These payments, the church assured, meant the person paying would not remain in purgatory for too long and would later ascend into heaven.

A wealthy person could even buy indulgences for their family members or ancestors who were long dead. Today we think of ourselves as far more enlightened than our medieval forebears. We secular folk would never pay a class of clerics large sums of money to atone for our sins. Or would we?

In recent years, billions of dollars have flowed into investment funds that market themselves as providing “environmental, social and governance” impacts. In Australia, industry super funds lead this trend, with money pouring into funds that then invest in companies that promote green, social justice, equity, diversity and inclusion causes.

The basic idea behind ESG, which has been promoted by organisations such as the World Economic Forum, is that one can make a profit and “do good” at the same time. Investors argue they can contribute to a net-zero future while making solid returns, or contribute to social justice alongside their fiduciary duty.

Rating agencies and research firms issue ESG “scores” to companies that are then used by bodies who advise institutional and retail investors which organisations they should invest in. Because ESG has no standardised metrics or even standardised definitions, such scores can be massaged by those companies that have enough money to play the game.

An entire industry of consulting agencies and non-profits exists today to implement cosmetic changes within companies to boost their ESG scores. Such cosmetic changes may include sponsoring a float at the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras or offering paid leave for staff who wish to change their gender.

As I commented in these pages last year, “gender affirmation leave” is offered by our two biggest supermarkets, Coles and Woolworths, and contributes to these companies earning “gold- and platinum-tier” status by the Australian Workplace Equality Index – despite the fact both companies are simultaneously implicated in wage theft scandals.

Sometimes called “wokewashing”, the practice of buying virtue through ESG allows corporate entities to deflect attention away from their PR embarrassments, like Henry VIII’s Indulgences allowed him to go on indulging.

Such practices are called wokewashing because these changes usually do not go deep enough to really cause change within a large organisation. By sheer virtue of their size, our largest corporations often make mistakes that only a complete overhaul of management practices could possibly address.

Take BHP, for example. The biggest company in Australia, and largest mining company in the world, is now embroiled in one of the biggest wage theft scandals in history. Accused of underpaying 28,500 workers $430m in wages for deducting public holidays from leave entitlements, BHP is now supporting the Yes vote in the voice referendum and has pledged a $2m donation to the campaign. This pledge is likely to boost its ESG score, but whether it satisfies the workers who have been underpaid is yet to be seen.

It is not just the mining industry that seeks ESG redemption. The banking industry wants to buy its way into heaven as well. Following on the heels of the disastrous royal commission into the sector, the Big Four are all doubling down on ESG. NAB faced criminal charges in 2021 for failing to pay casual employees long-service leave entitlements, but this is offset by its sponsorship of Midsumma – Melbourne’s queer arts and cultural festival. Last year ANZ was fined $25m for misleading consumer practices, but it also announced it was offering its staff paid leave for a sex change.

Commonwealth Bank has been in hot water in recent years for breaching money-laundering laws and Westpac was required to pay a $1.3bn fine after 250 customers made transfers that were linked to child exploitation. Both organisations are atoning for these sins by campaigning for the Yes vote.

Almost every large corporation that has signed on to the Yes campaign for the voice referendum is embroiled in some kind of scandal that involves their core business. Whether Coles is underpaying its staff, or Rio Tinto is dealing with dozens of accusations of sexual harassment, each company has significant work to do internally.

And this is why ESG is so popular among our corporate class. Symbolic gestures that can be outsourced to consultants and NGOs are an easy box-ticking exercise. Systemic changes to management habits, or making sure business practices are fair, is much more costly and time-consuming than simply waving a rainbow flag.

In the medieval period, wealthy elites would pay indulgences in order to curry favour with the church because the institution was incredibly powerful.

It is not surprising then that our biggest corporations are pledging their support for ESG goals that are also supported by the government, unions, the majority of our media, academia and non-profit sectors.

While commitment to ESG is not necessarily a sign of true moral fibre, if it can assist in washing away the stain of sin, then every dollar pledged will be money well spent.

==

Whenever a large corporation pledges its commitment to some movement or ideology, especially those that are unrelated to their actual business, you should assume that it's hiding something.

The more controversial the movement or ideology, the bigger the scandal they're trying to distract attention from.

For reference, the "Voice to Parliament" is a referendum to embed in the Australian constitution a vaguely defined independent body with unknown powers, unclear authority and unidentified influence to be a whisper in the ear of the Australian political system, supposedly representing all indigenous (Aboriginal) Australians. In essence, it functions as a form of "reparations."

When it's rejected, as current polling indicates it massively will be, as with Affirmative Action, citizens will be scolded by the supporters for their "racism," and the country will be told it's irredeemably racist. Rather than recognizing the diverse objections to the initiative: the lack of transparency of what the body is or does; progressives who insist it doesn't go far enough (e.g. a desire to literally "hand back" the land); Aboriginal Australians themselves who are concerned about establishing a "separate but equal" system; importing Critical Race Theory ideas from the US to racially divide the nation; the rather racist notion itself that any single "voice" could represent all indigenous people, ignoring that their viewpoints are as diverse as everyone else's; and the very simple answer of "I don't like this particular solution."

But while all of that is going on, the companies will be looking for their next diversion.

[bushdivingbushranger]

Hiii I hope this isn’t weird but I’m traveling to Australia soon and I would like to know

what to do{I got recommended The Blue Mountain(The3sisters)}

Is there things(places) I should avoid?

Is there any customs Americans have that should avoid doing while in Australia?

Thank you so much I appreciate your time and response ♥️

Hey! Depends on where you're going. By the sound of it, if you've been recommended the Blue Mountains you're going to NSW. I don't know anything about NSW unfortunately, but I can tell you some stuff about Victoria!

I'll try and write some general stuff up, but if you send me another ask about what sort of stuff you'd be interested in doing/seeing, and how you're travelling (if you're planning to hire a car, or if you're going to rely on Ubers and public transport), I'd be more than happy to point you to some specific things :)

This'll be long, so I'll put it under the read more.

It depends what you're after, really. If you want to immerse yourself in nature, then we have some really fantastic natural areas such as the Otways, the Great Ocean Road, the Dandenong Ranges (not to be confused with the suburb Dandenong), the Yarra Ranges, the Macedon Ranges, and Victorian High Country etc. These are really fantastic places to walk around in the beautiful land. All these offer different hikes/bushwalks/walking trails that you can enjoy either by yourself or a mate. All these areas are very safe.

AVOID: TBH Victoria and Australia as a whole are very safe places, the only places I would recommend avoiding are outer suburbs of Melbourne. If you're going to the countryside you're largely going to be safe, I wouldn't recommend Ararat at night (they do have a really fantastic Chinese Museum there though), or some parts of Shepparton.

If you're interested in hanging out by the beach, there's heaps here. I wouldn't recommend Brighton beach, just because if it's a pain in the arse to get parking there depending when you'll be here, nor would I recommend Rye because it gets mad crowded. I'd also suggest going to Phillip Island, which has some cool stuff to do such as A Maze N' Things, which I think is geared more towards young children/families but I can't really recall. Phillip Island is most famous for its penguin parades, where you get to watch all the tiny little fairy penguins arrive home from their long days of fishing and swimming about. If you're really keen on animals, I also recommend Healesville Sanctuary (near the Yarra Ranges, it's about an hour and a bit from Melbourne), Werribee Open Range Zoo, and Melbourne Zoo (if you go to Melb Zoo, leave the car at home and take the tram! There's a stop right out the front :) ).

If you're keen on relaxing there's Daylesford, which is known as Victorian Spa Country because of... I'm sure you've guessed, the spas! It's also nice and close to some beautifully country towns such as Kyneton and Romsey which are part of the Macedon Ranges I believe. I used to holiday every year in Kyneton and Castlemaine, and they're really beautiful places. Castlemaine has a really great farmer's market every first Sunday of the month.

Near there, about an hour away, there's Sovereign Hill, which I highly recommend as it's SO much fun! It's a historical town, where everything is built like it would have been in the 1850s during the goldrush. You can do fun activities there like ride in a horse-drawn carriage, make your own traditional wax candles, and pan for gold in the river. If you go, I recommend you buy at least two jars of raspberry drops from the gift shop there: they are the best that you will find in the entire world.

Sovereign Hill is also close to Ballarat, which is a massive country town with beautiful architecture and some pretty nifty restaurants if you know where to look. I recommend The Forge, really delicious pizza, all wood-fired so the bases have that beautiful smoky taste. It also has a really nice ambience, and is IIRC next to a cute alleyway that has 100s of umbrellas hanging over like a little ceiling which is a great place to take photos :)

I'd also recommend Echuca, which is a far drive away but is worth it. Another old-style town with old-style shops. They have a really fun old-timey PENNY arcade (for reference, we stopped using pounds and pennies and switched to dollars in 1966) with arcade machines from 1900 to 1950. They also show old silent black and white films there. Just be careful with the bloke who runs the store because he'll try and trick you into electrocuting yourself on the electrocution arcade game 💀 it doesn't hurt dw but it does feel really weird.

Now for Melbourne. If you're looking for nightlife recommendations, I couldn't really tell you--however I can ask around and let you know. I would recommend checking out Melbourne Museum, of course, which is FANTASTIC. Beautiful displays of insects, they're absolutely mesmerising. We currently also have a display on Horridus, the triceratops fossil. It's a beautiful exhibit and you might cry a bit (I def did). There's also the State Gallery of Victoria, which is great fun as well. Do Not Go To The Restaurant There. It's nice! But it's overpriced. From there, you can hop on the tram back towards Federation Square, where you can find ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image--very interactive) and the Koorie Heritage Trust (which is a great place to go if you're interested in learning a bit more about the traditional owners of Australia and their art). If going to Fed Square, I recommend checking out Mabu Mabu which is an indigenous owned restaurant that uses native ingredients and flavours to make mega delish food. It can be a bit pricey tho, but definitely worth it!

Otherwise in Melb I would recommend the Queen Victoria Market (massive market with heaps of stuff for pretty cheap, can get really great food from here too!), Fitzroy Mills Market which is... it's a very trendy spot where you can get heaps of cool clothes and accessories. TBH it's not my cup of tea but there's also a bloke there that sells pretty nice toasties so it's fun to go to for that. I also recommend the Rose Street Market, beautiful handmade market with heaps of cool stuff. Can be pricey though, but even if you don't buy much from there, there's a lot of nice cafés and bakeries around that rule. It's also very close to the Fitzroy Market, so you can walk between them, as they run on the same days.

TBH for Melbourne, if you're interested pls send me an ask with stuff you're interested in, and I'll be able to narrow down some recommendations there. There's just a LOT of stuff to do in Melbourne as it is the State Capital.

Now for customs as an American that you should avoid while in Australia: this is a bit hard for me to answer as I've only been to the USA once so can't really remember that many differences so if any of these seem offensive to you, sorry. I would say you don't need to tip, but if you do it's appreciated. If you're on public transport, don't speak loudly on public transport, if you're driving, use your indicator/blinker. Our service culture is a lot different here, I would follow the etiquette of: the server/cashier/storeperson/whatever is doing me a favour, not the other way around, and this goes without saying but use please and thank-you with everyone for everything. Stick to the left!!! This goes for driving but for walking too, if you're walking around the city, stay on the left side of the footpath!!

God, that got long. Sorry!! Let me know if you have any other questions, esp regarding travelling around Victoria as I've done a HEAP of it with my family and can give you more specific recommendations if you would like :)

Most of all, when you're here, have fun! Strike up conversation with friendly looking locals and you will have a total blast.

[beta-lactam-allergic]

I can confirm that in Australia, public holidays aren't part of annual leave. By law public holiday leave & annual leave are separate & don't overlap. You can game this so your annual leave starts just after or ends right before a public holiday. Parents usually aim for leave around Easter & Christmas to match when their kids are on school holidays.

So add New Years Day, Invasion Day, Easter Weekend (Friday to Monday), ANZAC Day, Labour Day (actual day varies state by state), EKKA Day (Greater Brisbane only, I know Sydney, Melbourne, Darwin, Alice Springs, Tennant Creek & Launceston have equivalents & I would be surprised if Hobart, Perth & Adelaide didn't have equivalents), AFL Grand Final Day (Victoria only, I'm from QLD & don't watch AFL), Queen's Birthday, Melbourne Cup Day (Victoria only), Christmas Eve, Christmas Day & New Years Eve.

So that's 13 days as paid public holidays where I live, 12 days in the places with the fewest holidays, 14 for most of Victoria & 15 for Melbourne. That's in addition to the paid annual leave we can take whenever. Depending on the type of employee, this paid annual leave is either 4 weeks or 5 weeks (round it to average of 22 days to make it simpler). So we have anywhere from 34 to 37 days where our employers have to pay us when we aren't working.

Also note that this doesn't include paid parental leave (which the government pays for rather than employers but which employers still have to honour as time off) that parents get when they either (a) have a newborn biological child or (b) adopt a child (child defined as anyone beliw 18 years of age). This is also separate from paid annual leave

Until I saw this post, I didn't know the USA didn't have paid annual leave. It's one of the accomplishments of the union movement that we in Australia celebrate on Labour Day, alongside the 5-day work week & the 8-hour work day (though this last one has been eroded over the past 20 years). I didn't think I could be surprised by how bad the USA is anymore, but whoa, no annual leave. That's really bad. Another reason I'm glad I don't live in the USA.

I think adults need summer vacation. Like let's just close down all our jobs for three months and play outside. Please. I'm so tired.

[parkavegifts]

Holiday Weekend in Australia: A Perfect Time to Relax and Explore

A holiday weekend in Australia is a perfect time to take a break from your work spend time with your family and friends and explore the beautiful places the country has to offer. Whether you want to relax on a beach go on adventure or just enjoy the city life Australia has something for everyone. In this guide you can check out the best ways to spend Holiday weekend in Australia.

Why holiday weekends are special in australia?

Holiday weekends in Australia are long weekends usually because of public holidays like Australia day Easter and Labour Day. The weekends give people extra time to travel relax or celebrate special occasions with family and friends. Most of the people take this time to go on road trips visit beaches explore national parks or enjoy city attractions. You can even take Bucks Cruise Sydney or go on road trips visit beaches explore national parks or Explore city attractions.

Best places to visit on a holiday weekend in Australia

Sydney is a perfect mix of nature and city life. Its perfect place to spend a long weekend because it has beautiful beaches famous landmarks and great food. you can visit Sydney Opera House and harbour bridge relax at the Bondi Beach. You can explore darling harbor for a waterfront dining and entertainment or take a ferry to manly beach for a fun day by the sea.

Furthermore Melbourne is known for its amazing coffee in cultural festivals and beautiful gardens. You can walk around federation square and visit art galleries while enjoying delicious food and coffee at Queen Victoria market. You can drive along the great ocean road to see the 12 apostles and watch sports match at the Melbourne cricket ground.

If you love sun sand and adventure Gold Coast is a perfect choice for a holiday weekend. Relax on the surfers paradise beach visit famous theme parks like movie world SeaWorld and dream world. Take a boat cruise along the Gold Coast canals.

So above all you need to know that a holiday weekend in Australia is a perfect opportunity to relax travel and enjoy new experiences. Whether you prefer adventure beaches food or lifestyle there is something for everyone. With so many amazing activities out there you can make your long weekend memorable and exciting in Australia.  You can use public transport and check the weather before leaving for your holiday weekend so that you can make the most of it.

For more details visit our website https://www.rumrunner.com.au/

[beardedmrbean]

Five people have been killed and six injured after a car crashed into a pub’s outdoor dining area in Australia.

A white BMW SUV mounted the curb into the front lawn of the crowded Royal Daylesford Hotel in Daylesford, Victoria, just after 6pm on Sunday, police said.

Among the five killed were two minors.

A boy, two men in their 30s and a woman in her 40s died on the spot, said Victoria police chief commissioner Shane Patton.

A girl, reportedly a teenager, was airlifted to Alfred hospital in Melbourne where she later died on Sunday evening. The victims of the incident have not yet been named by police.

The driver of the car, a 66-year-old man, was injured in the crash and taken to hospital after he suffered shock and minor injuries, said police chief Patton.

The man remains under police guard.

“There were, in essence, two... different family groups that were known to each other who were significantly involved and impacted by this,” Mr Patton said.

The pub was filled with hundreds of patrons when the incident happened, ahead of the weekend before the Melbourne Cup Day public holiday on Tuesday.

The car had mounted a kerb and hit the patrons. Photos showed chaotic scenes in the aftermath of the crash.

Among those injured, a 35-year-old woman is said to be in a serious condition. She is being treated at the Royal Melbourne hospital’s intensive care unit.

The others who were injured included a 11-month-old baby, a six-year-old boy, a 38-year-old man and another woman in her 40s. Authorities said they are all in a stable condition.

The 11-month-old baby was flown to Ballarat Base hospital, while the six-year-old child was taken to the Royal Children’s hospital.

The man and woman were flown to Royal Melbourne hospital.

Mr Patton refuted suggestions that there was a delay in the police response as “totally incorrect”.

“The station was staffed, two police officers heard the collision and as I understand ran to the scene, it’s a matter of a couple of 100 meters or so, and they were some of the first officers on the scene,” he said.

“And they did exactly what they’re trained to do and we’re very proud.”

Several businesses in the area remained closed on Monday as community members attended the site of the accident and laid flowers on Monday.

Superintendent John Fitzpatrick called the incident “horrible” and said they are waiting to speak to the driver.

“The car crashed into an area that has been set up really post-Covid with lots of tables and chairs, not just for the Royal Hotel, there’s an ice-cream shop there as well, so there (would have been) a lot of families,” a witness told ABC Local Radio.

“And it was a really warm night, and we’ve got a long weekend... so it was pretty busy last night,” the witness said.

“It will really have shocked a lot of people, and I think we’re really only just be coming to terms with what happened today.”