Issue cover date 05 February 2010
THIS WEEK IN THE WEEK

Here’s a quick overview on what’s inside this week’s The Week. You’ll find the best stories, opinions and commentary on everything from news and business to culture
and sport.

News

Out of the blocks

The gun fired for the start of a long election campaign when Parliament resumed and immediately became a battleground over climate change. Kevin Rudd reintroduced the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, already rejected by the Senate, and Tony Abbott countered with a taxpayer-funded $3.2bn plan over four years that would reward businesses and farmers for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Abbott said the Coalition scheme, which included tree planting and solar panel programs, would match Rudd’s 5% emissions reduction target without higher taxes or loss of jobs. Rudd ridiculed the plan, calling it a “con job” by a man who’d said climate change was “absolute crap”.

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Business

ASIC gets bigger teeth

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission will have powers to tap phones, text messages and email accounts and raid premises courtesy, of new laws announced by the Federal Government, said Patrick Durkin and Marsha Jacobs in The Australian Financial Review. There will also be increased penalties for market offences, including a fivefold rise in fines to $5m for companies and $500,000 for individuals. Maximum prison sentences have also doubled, to ten years. The move was a response to ASIC’s complaint that its efforts to prosecute the widespread phenomena of a company’s stock prices rising before a major announcement were being “stymied” by an inability to collect evidence. 

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Sport

Football: World Cup wobbles

Followers of Australian soccer won’t be at all surprised by the latest shenanigans emanating from the corridors of FIFA, said Ray Gatt in The Australian. FIFA chairman Sepp Blatter’s revelation that the goalposts have been moved to guarantee Europe stages the World Cup finals in 2018 “has left Football Australia stunned”. The FFA is bidding both for 2018 and 2022, but their chances of the earlier option now appear doomed. It’s not the first time Australia has been shafted by an organisation that purports to be all about the football family, “but quickly buckles at the knees whenever the superpowers of the game – the Europeans and South Americans – shift in their seats”. 

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Culture

Theatre: The Sapphires

Based on a true story, The Sapphires takes the audience “on a musical journey back to the swinging ’60s”, said Maria Noakes in The Sunday Times. Set in 1969, four indigenous sisters – Gail, Cynthia, Kay and Julie – sing Motown covers in St Kilda’s Tiki Club, are spotted by talent scout Dave (Oliver Wenn) and whisked off to sing for the troops in Vietnam. This “energetic and exciting piece of theatre” features some of the best Motown songs ever produced – RESPECT, Chain of Fools, Stop! In the Name of Love and I Heard it Through the Grapevine. These are delivered flawlessly by the stellar voices of Christine Anu, Casey Donovan, Hollie Andrew and Kylie Farmer.

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