‘The nine-year political attack on the arts and entertainment sector is now over. The neglect, the contempt and the sabotage of the previous government has ended,’ said our new Minister for the Arts
@Tony_Burke
MP.
It’s not just Peter Stefanovic but everyone associated with Sky News Australia who should be apologising: producers, researchers, crew, everyone. What a low dog act you pathetic bastards.
If you'd like to ask the Herald Sun news desk in Melbourne if they plan to crucify Scott Morrison for fleeing the country in a national crisis in the same way they pilloried former Christine Nixon for going out to dinner on Black Saturday, the news desk's line is (03) 9292 1226.
I can't help noticing that the identities & cultural background of the two people who slipped through Sydney quarantine into Victoria hasn't been splashed all over the media, unlike some other cases. I wonder if that's because they're rich & white?
Just had my second AZ shot at the beautiful Royal Exhibition Building. Knowing this was also where people were treated in the 1918-20 influenza pandemic gives this whole experience a lovely, historic synergy.
Things I did not expect to happen today: choking up on air and almost crying at the start of my radio show as I started reading out the names of some of the many arts venues reopening in the coming days and weeks in Melbourne.
This latest Melbourne lockdown will be devastating for artists of all stripes who had shows booked for tonight onwards. If you have tickets for a show over the next 7 days, please consider donating the money rather than asking for a refund if you're in the position to do so.
So
@OperaAustralia
posted a $5.6 million profit for 2018 but have stood down their orchestra without paying them whereas tiny
@griffintheatre
has committed to paying casual FOH staff while closed. The ethical difference is staggering. For shame Opera Australia!
Members of the orchestra of
@OperaAustralia
performed with their instruments outside the offices of Opera Australia today to call on the company to reconsider its decision to stand down musicians without pay.
#MEAASOMA
#COVID2019AU
Big shout out to all the straight allies who've helped us queers make it through the last few toxic months. We couldn't have done it without you.
#marriageequality
#AlmostThere
Anyone else feeling slightly freaked out at the idea of visiting people and socialising again? After 267 cumulative days in lockdown to date, I think I've become slightly institutionalised...
Just burst into tears talking to the receptionist at my mum's GP while explaining that I need a support letter so I can apply for a travel exemption to enter the ACT on compassionate grounds. how's your day going?
Dear
@abcnews
given that you have a nightly sports bulletin that we sports-loathers sit through quietly, any chance of a nightly arts bulletin as well please, celebrating our nation’s culture equally?
Hugely honoured to be presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the
@GreenRoomAwards
tonight alongside the legendary
@RZMaza
. Much love and thanks to all the Melbourne performing arts community.
#greenroomawards
This Thursday, after fire, devastation & heartbreak & a long campaign to raise the necessary funds to rebuild, our beloved
@LaMamaTheatre
officially reopens. As Chair, I’m so proud: especially of our amazing staff & their Herculean efforts. Thanks all who contributed. x
@Bushwife
@joshtpm
No, what's disgusting is queer kids committing suicide because they've been excluded from the curriculum and bullied by straight kids who think that that exclusion gives them permission to be violent, abusive and cruel. Get your priorities right.
I'm one of these 21,997 new cases: got my positive result just before midnight last night. Luckily my case seems pretty mild. Thanks to the team at St Vincent's Hospital for processing tests so promptly despite them being absolutely hammered.
Dear Melbourne: take heart: we have a government that listens to scientists and medical experts and their modelling. We will get through this - especially if we lean on each other when we need to for support. Stay strong. Stay safe. Wear masks. Wash your hands. Love, Richard. xx
@MoiraDeemingMP
@VictoriaPolice
Funny you’re only saying this now, not hours ago when it happened - like, when there was an actual microphone right there waiting for you to speak into it.
I helped Mum move into a nursing home today. Even though it’s what she wanted - she made the decision to move into care; she even chose the nursing home itself - I still feel like a dreadful son at the moment.
#fuckAlzheimers
Eight hours and 15 mins after I started queuing to get tested for COVID, I finally got swabbed. And now to isolate and wait for results. The system is so overwhelmed - I feel so sorry for the St Vincent’s staff, and also for security who bore the brunt of many people’s ire today.
I’ve been volunteering at
@3RRRFM
since 1993, regularly since 1997, and presenting
#SmartArts
as a volunteer broadcaster since 2004. I refuse to let a pandemic stop me from talking about art and culture on the radio. Mask, sanitiser, social distancing, travel permit, go!
Hey
@PeterDutton_MP
how does it feel to have not only failed at having the numbers for a tilt at PM but losing a safe Liberal seat as a consequence of your buffoonery?
#Wentworthvoted
Had my first session with a psych yesterday re my ongoing depression/anxiety after waiting months for an appt, and feel so much bloody happier/calmer today. There's definitely something to be said for taking proactive steps towards managing one's mental health! Also, fuck stigma!
While cinemas and theatres will remain closed in Victoria for the time being, I'm advised by a gallerist friend that commercial galleries are now classified as retail businesses and so will be able to reopen on Wednesday along with bookshops etc. Time to go look at art again!
The pleasant fact that
@cporterwa
will never be Prime Minister now, that his career will always be permanently tainted, is outweighed by the fact that a woman is dead, and that there are thousands of privileged pricks just like him waiting in the wings.
Tomorrow will be the 15th anniversary edition of my weekly program
#SmartArts
on
@3RRRFM
. No bells, no whistles, just business as usual: looking at a range of productions, exhibitions and political issues shaping the Melbourne arts ecology.
@vanOnselenP
I’m old enough to remember when journalists recused themselves from writing about their friends when they had a clear conflict of interest.
@therealgrantmay
@BrilynHollyhand
Hello from Australia, where 38.9% of the population reported having no religion in the 2021 Census, up from 30.1% in 2016, and where our last mass shooting killed 3 people in 2022. You’ve had what, 190 mass shootings THIS YEAR. It’s not secularism - it’s guns, dickhead.
A couple of months ago Melbourne had 700 new COVID cases a day. Now we're at zero for the 27th day in a row. Lockdowns work - and fuck the Tory scum who bleated that economics were more important than human lives, and that zero cases was an impossible achievement.
For the 27th day in a row Victoria has recorded no new COVID-19 cases or deaths. It means the state is on the cusp of eliminating the virus. It's a milestone many believed was impossible just 3 months ago, especially Melbourne's frontline healthcare workers.
#abc730
@kirstenrobb
Victoria’s Minister for Creative Industries, the Hon.
@MartinFoleyMP
today announced a new $16.8 million survival package designed to save hundreds of jobs in the state’s creative and cultural sector:
My respect for
@TamePunk
has grown even more today: not only has she ruined
#scottyfrommarketing
's PR moment, she's highlighted the societal pressure that's constantly placed on women to smile, to be polite, to not risk offending a man no matter what sexist remarks he's made.
How can we reframe the conversation around drag story time events and stand up to the far right? Big thanks to
@PPantsdown
and
@tom_tanuki
for speaking with me for my latest
@ArtsHub
piece.
@MarkRobinsonMP
As a gay man I’m sad too. Sad that Wilson Gavin was taught to hate gay culture and hate himself. You have failed him. Our society has failed him.
@LyleShelton
@AuConservatives
He signed a contract agreeing to a workplace code of conduct. He then broke that code of conduct. Twice. This is not about free speech, it's about appropriate workplace behaviour.
Tonight’s reopening of
@LaMamaTheatre
was magical, joyful, and a much needed celebration of community & creativity. The highlight was without doubt the Phoenix - an aerial act rising above the theatre itself & dancing in the air, evoking the theatre’s renewal. Magnificent.
Just talked to my mum to wish her a happy birthday - her dementia is rapidly advancing - it felt like talking to someone on a raft who's slowly drifting out of earshot. I just wanted to shout "I love you," constantly.
#fuckdementia
If you or anyone you know needs support as a result of the widespread discussion of Pell's acts of abuse, you can contact the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732), Lifeline 131 114, or beyondblue 1300 224 636.
This is going to be my last post for a week: I'm doing a digital detox and an actual detox as part of a week long residential therapy program I'm undertaking to help give me the tools required to master my anxiety and depression. See you next Sunday once I'm out!
@outbackandsides
Given I’ve had death threats from neo-Nazis on multiple occasions, are you expecting me to present a facile ‘both sides’ argument? The fash want me dead because I’m queer. That’s their end game. So fuck the idea of ‘balanced coverage’.
Such a powerful episode of
#4Corners
tonight - congratulations
@Milliganreports
@MaryFFallon
and all involved. An honour to take part alongside some absolute legends and allies. Here’s hoping it inspires cultural change and young queers in equal measure.
Heading home tomorrow after spending just over 3 weeks with Mum. In another few weeks she moves into a nursing home, because of her Alzheimer’s diagnosis earlier in the year. To say I feel conflicted about leaving tomorrow is an understatement.
Imposter syndrome is so weird. Every time I’m asked to chair or facilitate a panel, I get so nervous in the lead-up to it and then afterwards I’m like “oh that’s right, I’m actually quite good at my job”. Stupid anxiety brain.
After several months, I finally just got the call I've been waiting for from the psych whose waiting list I've been on, and have my first of 15 free mental health sessions booked in, in a couple of week's time. I'm so relieved.
@ScottMorrisonMP
There were neo-Nazis out in force on the streets yesterday, Scott - why not come out and condemn them in the strongest possible terms?
“Excuse me boys,” I said to the young same-sex couple cuddling as they walked down Smith St together. “Every time I see a queer couple showing affection in public it helps heal my poofter-bashed teenaged self. So thank you for being yourselves “ They said thanks. I beamed. Scene.
Boosted! (At four months and eight days.) Only about 10 people ahead of me at the Royal Exhibition Building and got a shot of Dollyjuice very quickly. Hurrah for medical science!
I know it’s a first world problem and probably something to do with the USA’s prissiness around ‘cuss words’ but if
@Apple
could arrange it so that my iphone’s autocorrect didn’t change fucking to ducking, I’d be a lot fucking happier.
Just saw a pair of tawny frogmouths (I think) in my Fitzroy street. I saw one perched in a tree overhead; as I stopped to admire it, another swooped silently down beside it. The two birds vocalised gently then the first flew silently away. How lovely.
Is
@ScottMorrisonMP
going to go down in history as the Prime Minister who allowed Australia’s internationally respected arts sector to die on his watch?
Hey
@abcnews
why did you just highlight a murdered woman’s career as a sex worker and not mention the job of the other woman stabbed in the same incident?
Aboriginal people lived there about 120,000 years ago ... longer ago than most experts believe humans walked out of Africa to begin populating the Earth.
Oh no, the notorious fascist Avi Yemeni has blocked me on Twitter because I mentioned his history of domestic violence and chopping boards. However will I cope?
Thanks to everyone who's been in touch since I tweeted yesterday about having my first ever, full-blown, curled up on the floor hyperventilating & sobbing panic attack. Not at all fun, but feel so much calmer & better today - and very much cared for & supported. Thanks again. x
@bhakthi
An ex-boyfriend asked me to be his best man. Foolishly, I agreed. The bride’s family glared at me all night. I got drunk and flirted outrageously with the waiters at the wedding reception. It wasn’t as nightmarish as some of your other replies but fuck it was awkward!
@zachsilberberg
I'm increasingly convinced that the Big Bad of this season is the Master of the Land of Fiction, last seen in the Second Doctor's era: so many references recently to stories, storytelling etc - but also will be delighted to be surprised and wrong.
Thank you
#abc730
for such a detailed story about the McLachlan sexual harassment claims. Such abhorrent behaviour must be stamped out in the theatre, and in every industry.
This is the only time I’m going to say his name: Rowan Baxter was a weak prick whose sense of entitled masculinity was so fragile and poisonous that his response to his wife leaving him was to kill her and their children. What a pathetic man. My fellow men: please be better.