THE PRICE WAS RIGHT
A 94-year-old retired car dealing magnate donated $1.025 million to the No campaign in the Voice to Parliament, The West Australian ($) reports, because he was inspired by Indigenous anti-Voice campaigners Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Nyunggai Warren Mundine. Brian Hadley Anderson said he did it on “a matter on [sic] principle” because the Voice was “divisive, undemocratic, and discriminatory”. The fawning story continues: “A third generation Australian, Mr Anderson — who humbly declined to pose for a photo — said he thought all Aussies should be proud of their country.” It was the single biggest donation to Advance Australia. The AFR ($) names fellow No donors energy businessman Trevor St Baker ($50,000), tech investor Steve Baxter ($20,000), Kennards Self Storage’s Sam Kennard ($115,000), and Bakers Delight founder Roger Gillespie ($20,000).
Meanwhile Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp board have pulled out of the 60th anniversary of The Australian newspaper, the SMH ($) reports, which would’ve been the media tycoon’s first trip home since 2018. It means the event, scheduled for February 20, has been postponed probably to July. Lachlan Murdoch was also due to head Down Under with his dad. Speaking of — The Times of Israel says the Israeli PM’s office confirmed Lachy is headed to Israel on Monday for a “secret meeting” with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz. The paper notes there have been reports for some years about a right-wing media outlet in Israel modelled after Fox News. What could possibly go wrong?
CLAIMS TO FAME
Victorian Opposition Leader John Pesutto will argue that ousted Liberal MP Moira Deeming damaged her own reputation by bringing up the Nazi thing over and over, The Age ($) reports. Deeming is suing Pesutto for defamation over her claim he made her look like a Nazi sympathiser when he said she didn’t distance herself from the organisers of the rally who crashed the Let Women Speak rally. Pesutto’s defence says he has never thought Deeming is a Nazi, and any damages should be small because Deeming keeps “putting into the public domain false assertions that she had been branded a Nazi”. Guardian Australia adds that he’ll defend imputations including that Deeming associated with speakers at the rally who had “known links with neo-Nazis and white supremacists”.
Meanwhile independent Senator Jacqui Lambie wants the government to address allegations the new 2IC for 3,500 Australian troops has tortured people, The Australian ($) reports. Lambie, who the paper notes served in the army for a decade, queried what process had been followed when choosing Fijian Colonel Penioni (Ben) Naliva’s as deputy commander of the army’s 7th Brigade — the Oz says the Fiji government told Defence he’d passed police and national security clearances. Meanwhile, Australia is talking to New Zealand about its involvement with AUKUS — specifically pillar two (collaboration on advanced technologies such as hypersonic weapons, cyber, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, The Age ($) explains). New Zealand has already said it doesn’t want to be anywhere near pillar one — the nuclear submarines — however.
SHOTS IN THE DARK
We have no idea where a quarter of the donations to Labor, the Coalition and the Greens ($56.7 million) came from last financial year, according to Guardian Australia. Why? In 2023, parties needed to declare donations only if they were more than $15,200. By the numbers: Labor got $22.4 million in dark money, the Greens $6.2 million, Liberals $25.2 million and the Nationals $3 million. The Albanese government vowed to lower the donation threshold at the last election, but so far hasn’t. In NSW, Victoria and Queensland the donation disclosure cap is a mere $1,000, not to mention NSW, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia all requiring near real-time disclosure during elections… so we don’t need to wait eight months after the end of the financial year to see the figures.
Meanwhile Guardian Australia says Treasurer Jim Chalmers has indicated Labor will not remove the 37% tax bracket as planned even when economic conditions improve — though it feels like a bit of a long bow based on the comments published. When asked about the 37% and bracket creep, Chalmers told the paper he believed in a “progressive tax system” and wanted changes to reflect that. This comes as sources from the PM’s team told her it wasn’t true but that didn’t stop Sky News Australia’s Sharri Markson from reporting Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is annoyed with Chalmers over the stage three tax reforms. “Labor sources” told Markson Albo was “shitty” with Chalmers that he was copping all the blowback, though Albanese’s team “dismissed” it as false. Whatever you say…
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
“This is a time capsul for the futreure,” the hand-scrawled note read, by a “12 yr old with the intelect of a 30 yr old and the spelling of a 7yr old.” The man reading it, Stephen Graff, smiled. He had been renovating his house when he found the note accompanied by memorabilia from the ’90s — some Pogs, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figure, and a sticker from Disney’s The Lion King among the loot. Graff read on, learning that the kid’s name was Nathan Headden and that he thought his family was pretty cool. His older brother Zac? A “great person”, Headden wrote neatly. His mum? An angel in disguise. And his dad? “The man of a great family.” Graff was touched. He jumped on social media, hoping to track down the author.
Headden is all grown up now — 41, living in Texas with his wife and a crotchety old corgi. When he first received the message he almost deleted it, presuming it was some shadowy figure trying to get his personal info. But he liked the look of Graff’s profile, and something about it rang true. Headden says he wouldn’t exactly describe himself as wise beyond his years now — the “known unknowns” will do that to a person — but he’s had a lifelong fascination with pop culture. As for his mum — still an angel, he told CBC, and his dad awesome as well. Graff decided to post the time capsule back to Headden. With so much negativity around, it’s special to do a “feel-good thing like this… giving back something to a boy 30 years later”.
Hoping you feel young at heart, and have a restful weekend.
SAY WHAT?
Senator, I’m Singaporean. No.
Shou Zi Chew
The TikTok CEO was repeatedly asked by US Republican Senator Tom Cotton about the powerful entrepreneur’s links to the Chinese Communist Party, whether he has a Chinese passport, and whether he is a Chinese citizen, prompting his incredulity.
CRIKEY RECAP
What I found was that not only did Photoshop depict Purcell wearing more revealing clothing, but that Photoshop suggested a more revealing — sometimes shockingly so — bottom half for each female politician. It did not do so for the males, not even once. When I used this cropped image of Purcell that appears to be the same one used by Nine, it generated her wearing some kind of bikini briefs (or tiny shorts).
“We’ve chosen not to publish this image, along with other images of female MPs generated with more revealing clothing, to avoid further harm or misuse. But generating them was as simple as clicking three times in the world’s most popular graphic design software. When I used Photoshop’s generative AI fill on Albanese, Dutton and Bandt in suits, it invariably returned them wearing a suit.”
“The gambling industry was again dominant: it handed over $1 million to state and federal branches of the major parties, led by the various arms of the Australian Hotels Association, which gave $285,000 to politicians. The former Woolies pokies arm, now Endeavour Group, gave nearly $170,000 to federal, NSW and Victorian parties, roughly split between both sides.
“The fossil fuel industry was, as always, a key donor, giving over $1 million to the parties, with arch-climate criminals Woodside and Santos together paying nearly $270,000 to their servants in Labor and the Coalition. Big polluter Bluescope Steel handed over $131,000 to the parties, and will now enjoy some taxpayer largesse as well: Labor is giving one of the world’s least efficient, most carbon-intensive and most cossetted steel manufacturers $137 million to keep polluting …”
“We have an apology to make, and we offer it sincerely to the Financial Review. Yesterday on social media we engaged in some rather easy satire in the wake of the dramatically lower inflation results for the December quarter revealed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, suggesting the AFR would note that inflation had fallen but demand the Reserve Bank continue to lift interest rates.
“It was a joke — we didn’t think that even the AFR could be that stupid and that its hatred of ordinary Australians could be that intense. As it turns out, rather than parody, the tweet was almost perfectly accurate: today the AFR notes that while there has been an ‘encouraging’ fall in inflation, the RBA needs to lift rates again.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Palestinians demand international inquiry after mass grave found in Gaza (Al Jazeera)
US approves plan to strike Iranian targets in Syria and Iraq, officials say (BBC)
Biden to issue executive order targeting violent Israeli settlers in the West Bank (CNN)
EU agrees $54bn in new aid for Ukraine as Hungary falls in line (Reuters)
Barcelona imposes severe water restrictions during worst drought ever (euronews)
Azerbaijan accused of crackdown on journalists in run-up to election (The Guardian)
How Ron DeSantis blew $154m and won nothing (The Wall Street Journal) ($)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Albanese’s Stage 3 rework invites a wider tax debate the government doesn’t want to have — Michelle Grattan (The Conversation): “An immediate problem for the ‘liar’ campaign is that people are more forgiving when a broken promise benefits them. This one advantages the majority of taxpayers. Even those disadvantaged are still getting a tax cut, just a smaller one than they anticipated. If the broken promise had removed an established benefit it would be a different story. The expectation is the Coalition will reluctantly wave the package through. Apart from the by-election, the message from some of its backbenchers in poorer electorates is people want the money. The Greens are playing the Oliver Twist game, demanding more, including on welfare. If the opposition were rash enough to vote against the package in the Senate, the government would need the Greens’ support (the package has the backing of all or most other Senate crossbenchers, even Pauline Hanson).
“On occasion, notably over the government’s housing fund, the Greens played hardball and extracted concessions in return for their votes. This time, they are not in a great bargaining position. Would they really, with a by-election imminent, want to hamper tax relief for families facing painful living costs? For the longer term, the stage three decision has burst a dam, unleashing a much wider tax debate. The pressure is coming from two directions — from those whipping up scares of what the government might do and those who want the government to undertake a range of ambitious reforms. The scare campaign, fuelled by the opposition, focuses on areas such as negative gearing. Treasury’s tax expenditures statement, released this week, showed the cost to the budget of negative gearing was $2.7 billion in 2020-21, with higher income earners the main beneficiaries.”
Markets are fatally complacent about the risks of World War III — Jeremy Warner (The SMH) ($): “What Ukraine has demonstrated is that it is possible to have localised wars, even when they involve nuclear superpowers, without resorting to the mutually assured destruction of firing off a nuclear missile. And be in no doubt that the West is in effect already at war with Russia. One of the reasons the UK military is demanding more defence spending is that so much weaponry has been diverted to the defence of Ukraine that it has left Britain short of even basic needs. But if nuclear weapons have failed to act as a deterrent to military action by an insecure authoritarian regime, they probably have been reasonably effective in limiting the scale of the aggression.
“Horrific though the consequences are for besieged Ukrainians, markets take comfort from the way events have played out. Putin is considered very unlikely to also take a tilt at the NATO-guaranteed Baltics, and despite the cost-of-living crisis, the wider economic impact has been smaller than feared. Yet politicians are taking no chances and almost everywhere rearmament has become a top priority. The trouble is that countries don’t tend to rearm unless they think there is at least some chance they might have to use those weapons. Nearly all wars begin with rearmament. Adding further to the sense of global insecurity over the last week is the repudiation by North Korea’s Kim Jong Un of his peaceful reunification policy, a move which rightly or wrongly is seen as preparing the country for renewed war with the South and other regional ‘enemies’.”
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WHAT’S ON TODAY
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Former Aung San Suu Kyi adviser Sean Turnell will speak at symposium “Pursuing Conflict Transformation and Peace in Myanmar” at the University of Melbourne.
