Time to catch our breath and remember the other burning issues |
One way or another, let's hope it's either settled this week or deferred and given more time for deeper, less shrill consideration. While there's no diminishing the seriousness of the Bondi attack and the proposed legislative changes rushed to Parliament for debate, it can seem it's all we're talking about these days.
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So let's take a breath and cast an eye over the other issues we shouldn't lose sight of - the stories which held our attention until Bondi knocked them off the virtual front page or sent them lower down the rundown of the TV news bulletins.
There's Gaza, of course, and the ongoing plight of displaced Palestinians, now facing a bitter winter in tents and flimsy shelters unable to withstand the fierce storms blowing off the eastern Mediterranean. They've begged Israel for better shelter but it's refused to allow caravans, building materials and temporary accomodation into the strip, arguing that it might end up being used by Hamas.
Despite sobering evidence that ought to pique our attention, climate change has gone off the boil as a story. Last year was the third hottest on record, prompting scientists to declare the Paris Agreement to restrict global heating 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial times dead in the water. Data from the World Meteorological Organisation had 2025 at 1.44 degrees warmer than pre-industrial temperatures.
See-sawing weather events in Victoria - fire and extreme heat one day, flash flooding washing cars out to sea the next - and catastrophic inundation in Queensland have made the news but there's been next to no discussion about what might be causing the disasters.
All quiet, too, on that perennial debate that traditionally rages through January: whether or not to change the date of Australia Day.
The scandal over parliamentary family travel allowances which consumed us for weeks? Also smothered by the Bondi coverage. After digging his heels in for weeks, the PM announced in December that he was tightening those rules to better reflect community expectations. Apart from one analysis in The Australian which showed most of the controversial family flights would still be allowed under the new rules, the issue seems to have evaporated.
Around the same time Communications and Sports Minister Annika Wells fell foul of community expectations with her family travel allowance claims, the under-16s social media ban came into effect.........