Jozef Imrich, name worthy of Kafka, has his finger on the pulse of any irony of interest and shares his findings to keep you in-the-know with the savviest trend setters and infomaniacs.
''I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.''
-Kurt Vonnegut
A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed. — Henrik Ibsen, who died in May 1996
The things that make me different are the things that make me, me.
Donald Trump says his latest tariff idea is “the big one”. He’s not kidding. His reciprocal tariffs would cause global trade and supply chain chaos and be a logistical nightmare for the US and the countries on which the tariffs would be imposed.
The concept of reciprocal tariffs isn’t complicated. The US would essentially match the tariff rates of the countries with which it trades.
Rupert Murdoch’s move to squeeze three of four eldest children out of controlling his media empire was arguably the biggest dice-roll of his 70-year business career. And he failed.
The hubris that made him believe safeguarding his legacy as a media mogul was more important than the future of his family will now reverberate.
The risks for Rupert were enormous: win or lose, he stood to blow up the already fraying fabric of the Murdoch family. But a loss has added the venom of galvanising three of his children (Prudence, Elisabeth and James) against his firstborn son and anointed successor, Lachlan.
Authoritarians thrive on anger but crumble under ridicule. Their power relies on compliance; mockery strips it away
As Neil deGrasse Tyson put it “How sad it must be — believing that scientists, scholars, historians, economists, and journalists have devoted their entire lives to deceive you, while a reality tv star with decades of fraud and exhaustively documented lying is your only beacon of truth and honesty”
A bronze plaque will be revealed at the event where Wenham and Randwick Mayor Dylan Parker will also give speeches, before a special screening of Wenham’s latest film, Spit.
Writer Chris Nyst and producer Trish Lake will also return for the sequel alongside producers Greg Duffy, Felicity McVay and Wenham.
Lake told Screen: “David [Wenham] was pivotal in us keeping going because, of all his 150 [film and theatre] roles, the one that continues to be best loved and the one he hears about most frequently is that of Spit.”
David Wenham was walking in Brisbane recently when a bus driver pulled up beside him, opened the door and yelled “are you gunna pay your fare this time?”
It was a variation of the many comic lines called out over two decades that go back to a character, Johnny ‘Spit’ Spitieri, who has become an unlikely hero in Australian popular culture.
Wenham thinks Spit, who he played in the 2003 crime comedy Gettin’ Square, has resonated with audiences more than anyone else he has played, even the beloved Diver Dan in SeaChange and Faramir in The Lord of the Rings films.
Back in cinemas: actors Helen Thomson and David Wenham with Spit director Jonathan Teplitzky.CREDIT: PAUL HARRIS
He was a thong-wearing, not-too-bright junkie whose biggest concern when he was in court was who was going to pay his bus fare home.
While not a box office hit, Gettin’ Square was so popular on VHS and DVD that lines like “Me bus driver’s not going to take a cheque” and “I’m on the bones of me arse, mate”, keep getting quoted back to Wenham.
“I lived opposite a Video Ezy just down the road from Kings Cross, and the lady who ran it used to say it was the most stolen VHS and the most stolen DVD in her entire store,” Wenham said. “People up Darlinghurst Road and Kings Cross saw themselves in it.”
Twenty two years on, “Johnny Spit” is back and this time he has his own film, Spit, which had a world premiere on the Gold Coast on Sunday night.
What director Jonathan Teplitzky called “a standalone comedy” rather than a sequel has a now-clean Spit arriving back in Australia on a false passport after being on the run overseas for 20 years.
When he gets out of an immigration detention centre, Spit finds his enemies are looking to settle old scores.
The premiere was the final session of the five-day AACTA Festival that saw the Robbie Williams biopic Better Manand Netflix’s Boy Swallows Universe dominate the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards.
“The most flawed good man you could ever come across”: David Wenham in Spit.CREDIT: VINCE VALITUTTI
Wenham thinks Spit has resonated so much because he is an everyman Australian.
“He’s a good man, but he’s the most flawed good man you could ever come across,” he said.
Teplitzky, who started mapping out the new film with criminal lawyer-screenwriter Chris Nyst over Zoom during the pandemic, thinks Spit is the kind of mythological character – an ordinary man doing his best – that Australians like to believe they are.
“He almost gives people permission to be flawed because of his simple, unjudgemental walk through life,” he said. “He could be the dumbest or the smartest guy in the room, and you never quite know which it is.”
Twenty two years ago: David Wenham in Gettin’ Square.
Helen Thomson, who joins Gary Sweet, David Roberts and David Field in returning from Gettin’ Square, says her character, Marion Barrington, has gone from the wife of a gangster played by Timothy Spall, to a widow who runs “a funeral home and function centre”.
“None of us have ever had an experience in our careers where something we did [22 years ago] has come back,” she said. “Because it was such a happy experience the first time, and because they were such great characters, we were all thrilled.
“And I wasn’t disappointed when I read the script. It’s a gift.”
Wenham found it easy to slip back into character when he put on a pair of thongs.
“I hadn’t worn them for twenty-something years, but as soon as I put them on, it gives a physicality which helps me get into the character,” he said.
Spit, which opens in cinemas on March 6, is the latest long-delayed next instalment of a film that taps into fan nostalgia.
Iconic Australian film character, Johnny Spiteri, known for asking the court who will pay for his bus fare in Gettin’ Square, returns to the big screen to teach us all a bit about mateship. Find out how Toowoomba got a starring role:
The Federal Court has ruled in favour of taxpayer Steven Bendel in the Commissioner of Taxation v Bendel decision handed down today.
The decision, which considered the definition of a loan for the purposes of Division 7A, confirms an earlier finding by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in 2023.
The Tribunal in Bendel v FCT [2023] AATA 3074determined that an unpaid present entitlement (UPE) between a corporate beneficiary and trust did not constitute a loan undersection 109D(3) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936.
This challenged the ATO’s established view in TD 2022/11 that an unpaid present entitlement to a company constitutes a Division 7A loan.
The trustee had made distributions to a corporate beneficiary, Gleewin Investments, in various income years. Not all of the distributions had been physically paid by the end of the relevant lodgement dates, thereby creating UPEs.
In accordance with the standard taxing provisions for trusts under section 97 of Division 6 of the ITAA 1936, Gleewin Investments was taxed on the paid and unpaid distributions.
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However, the Commissioner also treated the unpaid distributions that remained outstanding at the relevant lodgement dates as loans from Gleewin Investments back to the trust.
The Commissioner issued amended assessments that treated those loans as deemed dividends within the meaning of 109D(1).
As a result, Gleewin Investments and Bendel, as beneficiaries that were presently entitled to the trust’s deemed income, were then assessed on their proportional share of the deemed dividend.
Bendel objected to these amended assessments, with the objections then disallowed by the Commissioner.
In its decision, the Federal Court said it did not accept the Commissioner’s construction of section 109D(3) of the ITAA 1936.
The court noted that the perceived mischief that lies at the heart of the Commissioner’s position is the creation of a present entitlement that is not paid to a corporate beneficiary and remains in the trust, but which benefits from taxation at the corporate beneficiary’s corporate tax rate.
However, the court said Division 7A does not operate to negate a present entitlement.
“A consequence of the Commissioner’s construction of Division 7A is that a share of net income to which a corporate beneficiary has been made presently entitled and on which the corporate beneficiary has been taxed in one year is again included net income of that same trust in the following year,” it said.
“This has the potential result of an overall tax impost that is higher than if the corporate beneficiary was never made presently entitled at all.”
The Federal Court said Division 7A is an anti-avoidance provision directed at “in substance distributions of private company profits”.
It explained that where company profits referable to a UPE make their way to a taxpayer subject to tax at personal rates, there is a deemed distribution to the taxpayer and the benefit of the corporate tax rate is lost.
“That was the mischief perceived by the legislature. Subdivision EA expressly excludes a private company’s UPEs that make their way to another,” the court said.
“The legislature did not perceive a mischief in respect of UPEs in the way that the Commissioner now perceives.”
