HEAD IN THE CLOUDS
Extreme global warming is “ahistorical and utterly implausible”, former prime minister Tony Abbott says, and spruiked by a “climate cult” that will “eventually be discredited”. He was speaking in London, Guardian Australia reports, mere months after July was declared the hottest month in 100,000 years, and days after scientists warned 20 of the planet’s 35 key markers of health are the worst they’ve ever been. Abbott, who The Washington Post ($) once called “one of the world’s most hated prime ministers” and who has no expertise in climate, says he’d often point out while leader that there was an ice age 10,000 years back without any man-made emissions to spark it. Well, that settles it! The consensus of nearly the entire world’s scientists about impending climate doom was wrong, folks! We’re saved!
Meanwhile Treasurer Jim Chalmers says he knows we need to do more to reach our net zero targets and keep energy cheap, The Australian ($) reports, and wants to rewrite industry policy to get an extra $225 billion of investment in low-emissions technologies by 2050. But the subsidies won’t be as enormous as US President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act which will cost $635 billion (!) and will lower emissions by 40% by 2030. Chalmers says our subsidy focus will be on critical minerals, generation and storage (like batteries), renewable hydrogen and green metals. Memo to Rupert Murdoch who once said there were “no climate change deniers around” News Corp: Andrew Bolt has again cast doubt on the climate catastrophe (“What catastrophe?” he writes in the Herald Sun) ($), adding that “no-one now believes green energy is cheaper”. Wind and solar are the cheapest sources for electricity generation and storage in Australia, a report from the CSIRO and AEMO said.
HEALTHIER, WEALTHIER… WISER?
Healthcare is about to become more accessible for 11 million pensioners, concession card holders and children. GPs who bulk-bill will get a $20.65 bonus if they are in cities and nearly $40 in regional areas, 7News reports, a $3.5 billion measure to make it easier for patients to see a doctor free. But will it work? The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners has warned Prime Minister Anthony Albanese that any change to payroll tax will unpick his government’s $6.1 billion for Medicare changes. General practices don’t pay payroll tax for doctors because they lease a room — but that’s changing for GPs in NSW and Victoria, as the SMH ($) reports. It also comes after the Australian Medical Association recommended general practices raise the price of a 20-minute appointment to $102, meaning patients would be $60.60 out of pocket. Cripes.
Meanwhile, Victoria’s metro and rural hospitals have been told to find savings of between $4 million and $10 million over the next three years, the Herald Sun ($) reports, including cutting back-of-house costs by up to 50%. You can’t cut frontline jobs such as nurses and doctors, the Health Department says, but hospitals say they’d be affected anyway. Meanwhile, Coles and Woolies made more than $1 billion in profits this year at the same time as many are struggling to afford food amid the rising cost of living. The supermarket giants were recognised with a Shonky award for the morally bankrupt feat, The New Daily reports. But it seems some are still finding two pennies to rub together — Australians just put $50 billion into superannuation for the first time in a three-month period, news.com.au reports. It’s partly because our super guarantee went from 9.5% to 10.5%, partly because unemployment is low and hours worked are high, but also because people are making personal contributions.
LOWERING THEIR VOICE
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are warned that this item mentions a deceased person.
Some 6,500 Western Australians have signed a petition to stop the Cook government from legislating a Voice to state Parliament after the resounding referendum defeat, The West ($) reports. Former Liberal candidate Sherry Sufi started it, even though booths from remote WA Indigenous communities returned a strong Yes vote. Ah, what do they know, right Sufi? Victoria and South Australia already have legislated Voices, the paper notes. It comes as former political journalist Laurie Oakes says Prime Minister Anthony Albanese looked like an “incompetent dill” after the referendum, Sky News Australia reports. Sure, the No side spreading lies was bad, he says, but so was the “pointless” and “unconvincing” Yes campaign. A dismal false equivalence.
Meanwhile government-housed renters in a remote Indigenous community have the right to not live in homes with leaking sewage, unstable electricity, no hot water and no air conditioning, the NT News ($) reports. For the first time, the High Court ruled tenants can get compensation when a house does not meet legal standards, an interesting precedent for all renters nationwide. More than 70 households had brought the case — Kwementyaye Young said they didn’t have a back door for five years. Young has since died — the last contact she had with the NT government was that her rent was increasing. Finally, the WA government has settled with Indigenous groups over stolen wages from 1936 to 1972, the National Indigenous Times reports, and First Nations folks are happy and sad. Happy it’s finished, Mirriwong Elder David Newry says, but sad that “my people, my parents deserved this [news] more and they’re gone now”.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
Australia’s goodest boy has been crowned. He’s a handsome ginger, runs two marathons a day, and is blind in one eye. Earl, a three-year-old kelpie who lives and works in north-east Tasmania, has been named the best working dog in Australia and New Zealand by the Cobber Challenge Relay. The competition involved attaching a small GPS tracker to Earl’s collar and tracking his movements — just like a human’s step counter would. It found the pooch runs an average 14.1km/h (!) covering a total of 1,300km in one week (!!). That’s quicker than any other dog we’ve seen, competition coordinator Kellie Savage told the ABC.
His owner, Alex Johns, said he’d be absolutely lost without his Earl. The pair spend their days together, moving stock, herding huffy ewes and lambs for a haircut, and visiting neighbours on other farms to say bark. John’s colleague Brad MacDonald added Earl did the equivalent of no fewer than five people’s work on the farm. But he also gets days off, where he loves to nap luxuriously around the Johns’ home and plant soft kisses on his giggling 14-month-old daughter Lacey. He’s hard-working, sure, but also “quite affectionate”, Johns says. Get yourself a man who can do both, am I right ladies? Kelpies are angels, MacDonald continues: “The type of dogs they are, they would die for you.” And us, them, some might say.
Hoping your dog teaches you something about life today.
SAY WHAT?
On every occasion when the Australian public have been asked to choose between reducing emissions and protecting their cost of living, they’ve put their cost of living first.
Tony Abbott
It’s not clear what the former PM is referring to, considering his own 25-year constituents ditched him in favour of climate action advocate and teal Zali Steggall, Australian voters elected Anthony Albanese’s Labor in on a platform of more ambitious climate action, and nearly every state government is held by Labor right now.
CRIKEY RECAP
“Former PM and early adopter of the group John Howard took advantage of the attention to tell GB News that he ‘has his doubts’ on multiculturalism and surely nothing illustrates the bold new conservative thought the alliance is willing to entertain better than reheated talking points one has been trotting out in one form or another since 1988. Plus lots of jabs at ‘woke capitalism’ and a speech from Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. Indeed, there was a huge Australian contingent.
“Joining Howard were his fellow former PMs Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison, former deputy PM Barnaby Joyce, a host of Liberal MPs in Angus Taylor, Andrew Hastie, James Paterson and Dan Tehan, and former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet.”
“Up to 22 million Australians living on the coastline could be in danger this century after a study found there is no coming back from an “inevitable” ice melt in west Antarctica, which could increase sea levels by up to five metres and three times as fast as previously measured.
“It’s particularly bad news for Australians, John Church, a former research scientist with CSIRO for 40 years, has told Crikey, where 87% live within 50km of the coast. Australia’s coastal dwellers are triple the worldwide proportion, where about a third of all humans live within 100km of a coastline.”
“It’s a necessary clarification, because alongside diplomatic posts that wouldn’t look out of place on any country’s official social media channels, Israel’s Foreign Affairs Ministry posts a mix of memes, 40-second ads in English that appear to be made as television spots, retweets of social media commentators of varying repute, and now increasingly violent content.
“Some posts were later deleted which adds to the general air of chaos and confusion. Israel’s social media presence is split primarily between three accounts: @Israel; @IsraelMFA, representing the Foreign Affairs Ministry; @IDF, representing the Israel Defense Forces.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Bolivia cuts ties with Israel; other Latin American countries recall envoys (Al Jazeera)
‘Vague’ iPhone alert triggers serious accusations of spying in India (The New York Times) ($)
US all but stopped spying on Hamas in years after 9/11 (The Wall Street Journal) ($)
WeWork’s shares plunge 37% on bankruptcy reports (CNN)
UK, US, EU and China sign declaration of AI’s ‘catastrophic’ danger (The Guardian)
US Supreme Court sceptical of ‘Trump Too Small’ trademark (Reuters)
Brussels opens Pandora’s box with €100 billion budget top-up request (euronews)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Why the silence over anti-Semitism among our doctors? — “Sarah B” (The Australian) ($): “What I encountered at work and across various online groups was an unexpected silence. There were no messages of support. No collective condemnation of anti-Semitism. No solidarity for Jewish doctors or medical staff. I found this silence from a profession known for its vocal commitment to social activism puzzling and distressing. Whether it was promoting a Yes vote for the Indigenous voice, highlighting the plight of Ukrainians or asylum seekers, or support of Black Lives Matter, it was a matter of course for the medical profession to support the cause of the day. Je suis Charlie, anyone?
“Yet when the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust takes place, what do my fellow Jewish colleagues hear from our humanitarian profession? Nothing. We heard world leaders, companies and celebrities call out the attacks, as well as the blatant acts of anti-Semitism we have since witnessed, but the wider medical profession — supposedly dedicated to human life — said nothing at all. There are some who say medical institutions and professionals should be above politics, which may be true. But when there is such a stark contrast in responses to other worldwide events, where we have Wear It Purple Day at work and show ‘allyship’ to minorities in myriad ways, then the silence is truly troubling.”
Albanese’s CEO leadership style led to profound defeat. What now for Labor? — Shaun Carney (The SMH) ($): “Labor now gets to choose: will it assume more of the characteristics of a true political party, with the dynamism, internal questioning and occasional untidiness that would flow from that, or will it keep meandering along the cliff’s edge in the cause of loyalty to the boss? It’s a difficult call. Every prime minister who has led their side of politics from opposition into government deserves special consideration from colleagues and supporters because it’s a massive attainment. How far and for how long this consideration should be extended is the issue.
“The referendum has been and gone, and these days events recede into the distance quicker than ever. People want to move on. But the result is there, with the Yes case championed by the prime minister failing to reach the 40% mark. Conventional wisdom holds that the referendum loss on its own won’t damage the government’s standing. That might be so, but it was the manner of the defeat that should be giving Labor MPs pause. There is no getting around it: the referendum was a test of Albanese’s political judgment and campaigning abilities, and he was found wanting. Having witnessed him at the helm of last year’s election campaign and then in the many months leading up to the referendum, it doesn’t appear that agility and preparation are his greatest strengths.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Actor and writer Bryan Brown will talk about his new book, The Drowning, at the Wheeler Centre.
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
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Celebrity cook Adam Liaw will give the Sir Edward “Weary’” Dunlop Asia lecture at Doltone House.
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Writer Clementine Ford will talk about her new book, I Don’t: The Case Against Marriage, at Better Read Than Dead bookshop.
