West Australian Liberal Party leader Zak Kirkup
West Australian Liberal Party leader Zak Kirkup. (Photo: Richard Wainwright, AAP)

Moving Kirkup in the world After a brief — and briefly acrimonious — internal process the Western Australian Liberals have a new leader. Zak Kirkup got his start in former premier Colin Barnett’s office. (Incidentally, a tipster tells us Barnett had been seen around parliament quite a bit in the past couple of weeks.)

Kirkup, as befitting a man who has made party leader at the age of 33, had previously pulled probably the most powerful “young Lib” move in history, having cards made up that described himself as “future prime minister” and giving one to John Howard in 2004.

It will be worth keeping an eye on The West Australian‘s coverage — Kirkup is in a relationship with Jenna Clarke, the assistant editor of the state’s only paper. Its first front page on Kirkup as opposition leader is certainly… a choice:

Arriving unBiden The debt that US President-elect Joe Biden owes black voters is well established, both in getting him the nomination and then helping deliver him battleground states. Biden has explicitly admitted as much. What an unbelievable slap in the face then that Rahm Emanuel is being considered for transport secretary in Biden’s administration.

For those unfamiliar, Emanuel is a former Obama staffer who went on to be mayor of Chicago. In that role he attempted to help cover up the murder of black teenager Laquan McDonald by suppressing video footage that contradicted the police’s story that McDonald’s murder was justified.

McDonald was shot 16 times in the back as he walked away, and after he had fallen. Emanuel suppressed the video to help his reelection chances. His potential appointment is a sign, if any were needed, that the unseating of Donald Trump is not going to lead to an automatic flourishing of progress.

Trump watch Still in the US, a striking quote coming out of rumours that Rupert Murdoch is considering offering Trump a $100 million package that would include a memoir and possibly a show on Fox News.

“Rupert is going to make a humongous offer,” a source told Vanity Fair. “The thinking is, let’s buy Trump off so he shuts the fuck up.”

And look, we may have our difference with Murdoch, but we can’t deny that this is something we might do if we had the money.

Budget emails Any journalists — or, we suppose, masochistic civilians — who subscribe to Victorian government updates were buffeted with about 100 budget-related emails yesterday afternoon.

Taken as a whole, a theme emerges. See if you can spot it:

Does that make it a seven-way tie? For the sake of space we didn’t include every instance of something being put “first”.