Abdul Abdullah wins 2025 Archibald Prize Packing Room Prize with Jason Phu portrait

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Abdul Abdullah wins 2025 Archibald Prize Packing Room Prize with Jason Phu portrait

2 May 2025

Melbourne and Bangkok, Thailand, based Australian artist Abdul Abdullah was named winner of the 2025 Archibald Prize Packing Room Prize yesterday, for his portrait — titled No mountain high enough — of Jason Phu.

The announcement of the Packing Room Prize is a bit like the beginning of Archibald Prize season, the annual arts award for Australian portraiture, and runs through to the closing of the Archibald exhibition, being Sunday 17 August this year.

Entry is open to any Australian artist, who’s painting was produced in the twelve months prior to the closing date for entries. The work should feature a “distinguished” Australian subject, usually in the arts, sciences, or politics, who, further, sat for the artist, face to face, while the work was produced.

Nearly two-thousand-four-hundred works were submitted this year, for the Archibald, together with the also annual Wynne (landscape painting), and Sulman (painting, genre, or mural painting) Prizes, the second highest of entries in the history of the prizes.

It can only be imagined how busy the loading dock at the Art Gallery of NSW must have been during the entry stage. The winners of all three awards will be announced next week, on Friday 9 May 2025.

More Australian publishing plagiarism allegations, this time in cook books

2 May 2025

Australian cook Nagi Maehashi, founder of popular food blog RecipeTin Eats, and publisher of two cook books (her first title was riotously successful), has accused Brisbane based baker Brooke Bellamy, of copying at least two of her recipes.

In addition, Maehashi also claims Bellamy copied “word for word”, a Portuguese tart recipe, published by late Australian chef Bill Granger, in his 2006 cook book, Every Day.

I’m not sure you can copy a recipe for something like Portuguese tarts, but allegedly re-printing one verbatim might be another story:

It has historically been difficult to prove recipe plagiarism, especially when recipes such as baklava, caramel slice and Portuguese custard tarts are not original ideas but versions of traditional recipes that have been tweaked and replicated thousands of times.

Bellamy has denied the plagiarism allegations, saying all recipes in her book, Bake with Brooki, were her own original work.

Starbucks turns its fortunes around in Australia

29 April 2025

American coffee chain, Starbucks, is enjoying a surge in popularity in some parts of Australia.

Starbucks, put simply, had to stop chasing the mainstream market — metropolitan city coffee purveyors who savoured the neighbourhood cafe experience.

This is a far cry from their Australian nadir in 2008. To continue the good run though, they’ll need to retain the cafe-style business model, where customers can sit down and socialise. This rather than converting shops into glorified fast food collection points, apparently the norm in North America.

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Australia, coffee, trends

Australians favour early voting, time for politicians to take notice

24 April 2025

Shane Wright, writing for The Sydney Morning Herald:

A record 542,000 people, or 3 per cent of those on the electoral roll, cast a ballot on the first day of pre-poll voting on Tuesday. It was a 72 per cent increase on the 314,000 who cast a vote on the first day of pre-polling at the 2022 election.

According to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), there are a little over eighteen-million Australians registered to vote in the upcoming federal election (Saturday 3 May 2025). To expect all of these people to attend a polling booth on a single day, is absurd, especially in more populous regions. Could that many people possibly vote in one day? Despite the best efforts of polling booth staff, I think some people might miss out. This after having possibility waited hours in a queue.

Of course eighteen million people wouldn’t all descend on polling booths on election day. Some people would have sent in postal votes, while a supposedly small number would voted early, as they were unable to do so on election day because of work or travel commitments. But with up to half of Australians expected to cast their votes during the two weeks ahead of election day, it is clear not all of those people will be working or travelling on the day. When it comes to voting early, Australians are voting with their feet, by walking to into pre-polling booths in droves.

Voting is compulsory in Australia, as it should be, and all the more reason people be given — particularly in the absence of an online voting system — a reasonable amount time to vote. Naturally there are risks in voting early. The candidate a person votes early for might make a serious blunder in the lead up to election day. The party someone backs might announce a policy on the eve the election that is not popular. Parties typically do not release the costings of their policies and promises until the last minute. People who have voted early might find the proposed expenditure excessive.

Then again, policies can quickly be altered, or dropped completely, immediately after the election. An elected lawmaker can unforgivably err shortly after assuming office. There may be little a voter could do at that point, except wait for the next election. But nine million, maybe more, Australians cannot be wrong. The option to vote early, unconditionally, is something the people want, risks notwithstanding. It is time all politicians in Australia accepted early voting as an inherent part of the election process. I also wrote about early voting at the last federal election, three years ago.

Say what you will, this is a democracy after all, but I’m sold on it.

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Australia, current affairs, politics

Australia is bigger than Pluto, are then dwarf continents a thing?

22 April 2025

This, an image comparing Australia with dwarf planet Pluto, was published years ago, but somehow I only saw it for the first time a few days ago. Incredible, isn’t it? Width-ways, going from the east to west coasts, Australia dwarfs Pluto (no pun intended).

But drawing comparisons between dwarf planet Pluto, and the Australian continent, however, makes me nervous. Might such a stark juxtaposition result in Australia being downgraded to dwarf continent standing? In the same way Pluto was demoted from full, to dwarf planet, status in 2006?

Were such a travesty to occur, Australia would have to claim the title of the world’s largest island, an honour presently bestowed upon Greenland. That’s not a new idea though, a rum brand, for one, made the suggestion several decades ago.

The 2025 Global Book Crawl on at indie Australian bookshops this week

22 April 2025

The Global Book Crawl began yesterday, and numerous independent bookshops in Australia are taking part. The book crawl, which has been running for several years, aims to get book lovers across the world, into indie book stores.

In Australia, if crawlers collect enough stamps in a crawl “passport”, they might go on to win a collection of fifty books. Other participating nations include Argentina, Austria, Fiji, Guatemala, Ireland (quite a lot towns involved there), Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, and Switzerland.

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Australia, books, events

Australian Electoral Commission posts new guidelines for influencers, content creators

11 April 2025

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) has issued an updated set of guidelines clarifying the role of content creators and influencers.

The move comes in the wake of mild controversy surrounding a recent interview Sydney based podcaster Abbie Chatfield recorded with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Some listeners felt the interview constituted what is considered to be electoral material, something that requires an authorisation statement from the political entity issuing said material. These are usually adverts, that variously promote a party candidate, or policy, although they can take a number of forms.

The AEC however concluded the interview did not breach any regulations. The revised guidelines come in addition to a publicity campaign being run by the AEC, warning people to be cautious about material relating to the upcoming Australian Federal election, they may encounter on social media, and, no doubt, blogs and websites.

The Ledge, a thriller by Australian author Christian White

12 February 2025

A disturbing development in a twenty-five year old missing persons case sees a group of old school friends reluctantly reunite. All have reason to be fearful of the re-opened police investigation, and all are willing to do whatever it takes to ensure they are not incriminated. It’s not easy to be sure who to trust, or exactly who knows what about that tragic day many years earlier in 1999.

The Ledge wouldn’t be a Christian White novel if it didn’t feature a twist that leaves you breathless, and wondering whether you’ve been paying attention. White’s fourth novel will not let you down.

I read The Ledge in three days, a sprint compared to my usual glacial pace, often reading until two or three in the morning. Calling this a page-turner is an understatement.

I also suggest you read White’s earlier novels, The Nowhere Child, his debut, and The Wife and the Widow, his second novel, which in trademark style, are also set across dual timelines. I’m yet to read his third novel, Wild Places, published in 2022. I’ll need to catch up on some sleep before then.

That’s not a knife: iconic Australian film Crocodile Dundee gets recut

3 February 2025

The knife, the editing room knife, has recently been taken to ocker Australian film Crocodile Dundee.

Producers deemed the slapstick comedy — that swept the once Sydney Harbour Bridge rigger, and television personalty Paul Hogan, to big screen fame in 1986 — to be out of touch with the expectations of contemporary movie audiences. This necessitated a number of “considered edits”, says Garry Maddox, writing for The Sydney Morning Herald:

Updating classic films can sometimes upset fans — there was a ruckus when George Lucas had Han Solo defending himself from bounty hunter Greedo rather than firing the first shot in a 1997 special edition of Star Wars — but the long tradition of creating new versions includes Francis Ford Coppola with both Apocalypse Now and The Godfather Part III and Ridley Scott with Blade Runner.

Scenes from the film — set between the Australian outback and New York City — where Mick Dundee, AKA Crocodile Dundee, gropes a cross-dresser in a bar, and later a woman at a party, have been removed, while others have been extended. The re-edited version of the film is to be called Crocodile Dundee: The Encore Cut, and will henceforth become the standard edition of the story.

Summer sports and the heightened risk of skin cancer

3 February 2025

As someone with an extremely fair complexion, any amount of exposure to the sun can be risky, even over the winter months, when ultraviolet (UV) levels are generally lower. Trying though to explain this anyone who does not also have fair skin, is almost an uphill battle.

In fact, I’m alarmed at just how blasé some people are to the dangers of sun exposure, especially prolonged exposure. The sad reality is, that everyone, regardless of skin type, is at risk. Despite this, being out in the sun is an innate part of the Australian psyche. It’s no surprise then that rates of skin cancer in Australia are among the highest in the world.

But the message seems to getting through, albeit at a glacial pace. The Australian Institute of Sport has twigged onto the danger of sports events taking place in the blazing summer sun, and in 2023 said sporting organisations had a duty of care to provide safe environments for participants and spectators. It’s a start, but many sporting groups have been slow to take action.

But there are a number of options for creating sun safe sporting environments. These include providing adequate shade, and scheduling events at times of the day when UV levels are lower, and considering day/night fixtures where possible.

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