DANGER MAN
Malcolm Turnbull said he began to think of then-PM Tony Abbott as a “very dangerous prime minister” after Abbott considered sending troops to Ukraine after the MH17 plane disaster in 2014, he told the ABC’s Nemesis. Thirty-eight Australians were aboard when the plane was shot down — no-one survived. Turnbull said sending troops was a “genuinely crazy idea” that no Western ally would have welcomed because they’d have been captured immediately. Then-deputy PM Warren Truss countered that Abbott’s response came amid confusion about whether MH17 was a one-off or the beginning of a war, considering Russia had just annexed the Crimean Peninsula. Abbott had two meetings with the ABC about speaking in its doco-series, but ultimately said no. The broadcaster notes that “he hasn’t written a memoir about his prime ministership, nor has he done an in-depth television interview about his overthrow”.
Meanwhile The Australian ($) reports a senior Fijian military officer who was alleged to have been involved in the beatings of two politicians and a businessman is the new deputy commander of the Australian Army’s 7th Brigade — that means he’s second in command of about 3,500 Australian troops, the paper adds. Colonel Penioni (Ben) Naliva was reportedly named in a UN report for the Human Rights Council and alleged to have not intervened while a youth activist was tortured in 2006. The paper carefully qualifies that it’s not saying the allegations are true, adding they are “now the subject of inquiry by the Australian government”.
COUNTING THE COSTS
There are fewer rental properties on the market than ever before, new data shows, as December’s listings were 30.2% below the month’s 10-year average. Guardian Australia reports the average rent on realestate.com.au is up 11.5% in 12 months to $580 a week. Still, it’s not as bad as 2022 when there was a 15.6% increase. Advocates want changes to negative gearing and capital gains policies to ease the housing crisis, but Treasurer Jim Chalmers has ruled the former out. The Herald Sun notes he used the same words about negative gearing that the government used about the now-changed stage three tax cuts: “We haven’t changed our view.” So what exactly is negative gearing? It allows Australians to deduct losses from investment properties, e.g. if a rental property generates $25,000 in rent for a landlord but its cost (including mortgage interest) is $30,000, that $5,000 taxable loss can be used to reduce their salary tax.
Meanwhile a woman has told The Age ($) that childcare costs more than her million-dollar mortgage every month — about $1,700 a week for two young kids. She says she makes $30 a day after paying it, because fees have increased three times in 10 months. Indeed one childcare provider increased profits by $11 million last year because of the childcare subsidy increase, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has found. The watchdog urged the government to scrutinise “price, profits, costs and outcomes”. It comes as the Australian Industry Group (Ai Group) has asked the Fair Work Commission to reduce the size of this year’s wage increase by the dollar figure of the tax cut to low- and middle-income earners, the ABC reports. Ghoulish.
‘DESPICABLE’ DECISION
The head of the General Delegation of Palestine in Australia has accused the Albanese government of “collective punishment” for pausing funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) after Israel accused several staff of involvement in the October 7 attacks by Hamas. The SMH ($) reports top Palestinian representative in Australia Izzat Salah Abdulhadi called it “one of the worst decisions by the Albanese government” because it could radicalise people in the Australian Muslim and Arabic communities watching the death toll in Gaza rise. Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi called suspending funding to the largest relief provider in the region “catastrophic”, “despicable” and “heartless”, noting the government had not condemned Israel for “war crimes” during the 114 days since the decades-long conflict intensified. Liberal Senator Dave Sharma wants the funding pause made permanent, Sky News Australia adds.
Meanwhile, back home the SMH ($) reports Sydney tradie Jack Eltis runs the NSW chapter of neo-Nazi organisation the European Australian Movement. It’s not clear whether he went to a meeting in North Turramurra at the weekend that police broke up, nor whether he was among the black-clad men police disrupted at North Sydney train station — their first big stunt attempt in Sydney, one expert said. It comes as Crikey reports Australia’s far right used truly weird AI images to promote an attempt at a month-long white nationalist celebration called Australia Month. Cringe. Cam Wilson notes a petition got 1,000 signatures, but another petition to save a local bakery got four times that, so safe to say it isn’t going well.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
On the day of her mother Mille’s funeral, a young British woman wove ribbons into the fruit trees of their family orchard. The sun warmed her neck as she decorated, next scattering handfuls of fresh lavender across the grass and arranging large wooden mushrooms for the children to perch on. A cake decorating table stood nearby topped with several untouched bowls of things such as sprinkles and nuts, alongside an ageing gramophone that had several of her mother’s favourite records leaning on it. As the cheerful attendees trickled in, hot Danish pastries and coffee were served on Mille’s wedding china. Kids pored over the black-and-white photographs, wondering who was who.
Mille was all too happy to fill them in. She wasn’t dead — heavens, no — rather her daughter had decided to throw her a living funeral. At first, Mille was a little sceptical, jokingly wondering if there was something the 87-year-old rather healthy woman didn’t know. Her daughter had shrugged that it’d be a nice way to celebrate her life. And it really was, Mille writes for The Guardian. She was so touched by everyone’s interest in her stories — the kids were more awestruck by her than by the cake table — and she felt so connected to everyone around her. Her favourite part? Going through her mother’s old cookbook with her pint-sized granddaughters. Call it whatever you like if the term “living funeral” feels a bit morbid, Mille says: “The main thing I took from it was that life needs to be shared … I felt that I was very loved.”
Hoping you feel the love around you today.
SAY WHAT?
At the time, I think I was the only openly gay member of the parliamentary party. I wonder if that registered with anyone in the room at the time. It was a difficult conversation to listen to.
Dean Smith
The national debate about whether gay people should be allowed to marry was a gutwrenching feeling for many in the community, and it was first felt by the Liberal senator when the idea of a plebiscite was discussed in a heated meeting of Coalition MPs in Canberra.
CRIKEY RECAP
“A campaign launched by a Proud Boy to expand the already controversial Australia Day festivities into a month-long celebration of white identity has failed to gain any mainstream momentum, but has found some support from Australian fringe and political figures.
“Australian online verification group RMIT CrossCheck has identified that one of the ways ‘Australia Month’ is being promoted is through the use of AI-generated, surreal and ultra-nationalistic images of white people saluting in Australiana settings, complete with grotesque distortions like extra hands that are tell-tale signs of the involvement of artificial intelligence.”
“Most obviously, when he was prime minister Scott Morrison could barely look in a mirror without it resulting in a cacophony of boos. There was the game above, not to mention his own run-in with tennis fans at the final in early 2019 — but surely the most toe-curling moment came in March 2022 when the tens of thousands gathered at the MCG for cricketing legend Shane Warne’s state funeral were roused from their grief to boo Morrison when he was announced.
“It takes the ability to elicit a special kind of cartoonish contempt to get booed at a funeral. Guess who else among our PMs earned that — Tony Abbott. Of course it’s Tony Abbott. Then PM, Abbott (and to a lesser extent his predecessor John Howard) was booed as he entered the memorial for Gough Whitlam in 2014.”
“I suspect they’re also being sneaky themselves — they know that indexing brackets wouldn’t just stabilise our tax base, but that it would erode it. The incentives for politicians to periodically dole out tax breaks wouldn’t go away. They’re irresistible during pre-election pork season. Our social services would simply be less protected from this periodic slashing.
“And there is nothing inviolably maximal about our current tax rates — indeed, they’re low by international standards (even our income taxes are, once social security contributions are factored in). Instead of being set in stone, our tax rates should evolve with our social needs.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
What is Tower 22, the Jordan-based US outpost targeted in a drone strike? (Al Jazeera)
Evergrande: Crisis-hit Chinese property giant ordered to liquidate (BBC)
Speaker Mike Johnson’s historically narrow majority has shrunk even further (CNN)
Israeli intelligence accuses 190 Gaza UN staff of Hamas, Islamic Jihad roles (Reuters)
Ex-prime minister wins first round of Finland’s presidential vote to set up a run-off (euronews)
Insurance won’t cover $2.3b of damage from 2023’s big storms (Stuff)
Inside Biden’s anti-Trump battle plan (and where Taylor Swift fits in) (The New York Times) ($)
Secret EU plan ‘to sabotage Hungarian economy’ revealed as anger mounts at Orbán (The Guardian)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Productivity Commission’s independence must stay above suspicion — Gary Banks (The AFR) ($): “In fact, independence in this context is never a black and white matter. There are degrees of independence. The test lies in the ability and willingness of an advisory body to make findings based entirely on its own analysis and judgment, without being compromised by government or others. Statutory protections against abolition or arbitrary dismissal clearly play an important part, but so too can administrative conventions, interrelationships, and the personal qualities and inclinations of office holders.
“Such operational factors are potentially subject to government influence, particularly through senior appointments. The Albanese government has also just released a statement of expectations for the Productivity Commission with the intention of ‘modernising’ it. This type of executive instrument was introduced some years ago to curtail overreach by regulatory bodies. That the commission was excluded until now was not an oversight, as the treasurer has implied, but reflective of the distinctly different role it plays.”
Are Jim Chalmers’s denials on negative gearing changes a precursor to what comes next? — Peter van Onselen (The Australian) ($): “Voters can even agree with the policy decision to break the promise but still recognise the untrustworthiness of doing so. However much Labor wants to cast its broken promise on tax as a virtuous backflip, it lampoons the truthfulness of other pledges it now makes. This is always the problem with misleading the public: future commitments become all but worthless. Anything ruled out may not in fact be off the table, no matter how many times pledges get made. Repetition doesn’t restore reputation. Expect the opposition to hammer home this point between now and the next election.
“The line of attack should be especially damaging for Anthony Albanese’s government because he campaigned at the last election on the theme of restoring integrity in politics. In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet the phrase “the lady doth protest too much, methinks” is used to question sincerity. Voters will rightly question the sincerity of this government’s commitments when ruling anything in or out in the future. Australians can rightly therefore query whether the treasurer’s denials on negative gearing changes are in fact a precursor to what really comes next, when it becomes convenient to break the pledge. For example, after the next election, if it first gets away with having broken the stage three promise.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Assistant Minister for Competition Andrew Leigh will speak about microdata’s role in a fairer competition landscape at Chifley Research Centre.
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
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Terry Lancaster, from the Australian National Maritime Museum’s Speakers Group, will give a talk on William Dampier, “Australia‘s first natural historian”, at the museum’s theatre.
