LABOR PONDERS LARGER RESHUFFLE
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is facing pressure to expand his weekend reshuffle beyond just replacing senior ministers Linda Burney and Brendan O’Connor, who yesterday announced they were leaving cabinet and resigning from politics at the next election.
The Australian reports some Labor frontbenchers have said the departures of the minister for Indigenous Australians and the minister for skills and training provide an opportunity for a wider changing of the guard, especially within Home Affairs.
Speaking to the broadsheet, one unnamed cabinet minister said: “What I will say about Immigration and Home Affairs … is they’re doing a really hard job. I can’t imagine how anyone holds those portfolios for an abundantly long time and remains sane.” Other frontbenchers said moving under-fire Immigration Minister Andrew Giles and Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil aside would allow “a refresh” of two troubled portfolios. “It could allow us to draw a line under some of that,” one said.
However, Guardian Australia points out that while Giles may be destined for a sideways move, O’Neil could be staying put having delegated her portfolio responsibilities to Murray Watt for the first half of next week due to bilateral talks in Bali. “With the swearing-in of new ministers set for Monday, that doesn’t suggest she is expecting to be required at Government House,” Karen Middleton reflects.
Albanese will unveil his new-look cabinet this weekend. On Saturday he is also set to speak at the NSW Labor conference, which The Sydney Morning Herald reported earlier this week is set to attract thousands of pro-Palestine demonstrators, causing the party to employ the “largest security contingent” in the division’s history.
In Canberra, the Australian Federal Police union is threatening to strike during August’s sittings of federal Parliament, The Australian reveals, meaning politicians could find themselves working remotely like they did during COVID.
The dispute is over a pay offer. Australian Federal Police Association president Alex Caruana said of the potential walkout: “That’s purely to highlight that the government can’t function without the AFP. They could work from home. It will probably save the taxpayers millions of dollars to not fly politicians in from their home jurisdiction into Canberra. They can put that savings to giving the AFP better funding and a better pay rise.”
In a bunch of polling done to coincide with its 60th anniversary, the Oz also has news of a rise in republican sentiment among Australians, up to 44%, compared to 40% in 2014. Speaking of said (drawn-out) anniversary, The Age is calling Lachlan Murdoch’s bash at the Australian Museum in Sydney’s Darlinghurst last night “one of the richest rooms Australia has ever assembled” as Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton joined billionaire business leaders, former PMs and sports bosses. The event capped quite the 24 hours for the Murdochs…
MATILDAS LOSE/’UN-AUSTRALIAN’ REMARKS
We’ve still got just under 24 hours till the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, but the real drama has already begun, with the Matildas losing 3-0 to Germany in their first match of the Games on Thursday evening (local time). Guardian Australia called the performance “tepid”, while The Sydney Morning Herald called the result a “nightmare”. More fallout and reflection are no doubt on the way.
Coverage of the women’s soccer team’s Olympic journey (and the games in general) by the Nine newspapers though is set to be disrupted after journalists rejected a new pay offer from management last night, meaning Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) members at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian Financial Review, Brisbane Times and WAtoday will go on strike for five days, starting at 11am Friday, the ABC reports.
The Age reports publishing managing director Tory Maguire and HR boss Michael Trafford spoke to staff in Melbourne and then in Sydney yesterday but failed to prevent the planned action. According to Guardian Australia, all newspaper staff covering the Olympics will go on strike, but not those working in television.
As the journalists in Paris prepare to down their tools, one Australian coach almost found himself leaving the French capital sooner than expected. Michael Palfrey has been branded “un-Australian” after saying he hoped South Korean swimmer Kim Woo-min wins the men’s 400 metres freestyle, ahead of Australia’s swimmers Sam Short and Elijah Winnington, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.
Palfrey, who has coached Woo-min previously, told Korean television on Tuesday: “I really hope he can win, but ultimately I really hope he swims well. Go Korea.” The Guardian reports Australian swimming boss Rohan Taylor spoke to the swimmers involved before allowing Palfrey to remain in Paris.
Because the US news cycle is swallowing everything else at the moment, even the Olympics couldn’t go a day without some reference to November’s election. At a massive press conference for the US basketball team in Paris, superstar Steph Curry made headlines after declaring: “Vice President [Kamala] Harris is trying to bring her energy to this campaign and hopefully, you know, she’s on the ticket and winning the election,” AFP reports. Meanwhile, NBC News reckons former president Barack Obama is set to endorse Harris “soon”.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
Social media influencer and disability activist Lucy Edwards has praised toy company Mattel following the release of its first blind Barbie.
Speaking to Glamour, Edwards, who lost her sight aged 17 due to the rare genetic disease Incontinentia Pigmenti, said: “It means so much to me because growing up as a blind teenager, I didn’t see the representation that we do now. There wasn’t anyone on the telly or any dolls that represented me.”
The blind doll has features that allow accessible play for children with sight loss as well as representing a visually impaired woman, the Press Association reports. The doll comes with accessories such as a walking cane, sunglasses, textured and vibrant fabrics and Velcro fastenings on the clothing.
The new doll was released alongside Mattel’s first Black Barbie with Down syndrome, The New York Times adds.
Debbie Miller of the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) also praised the new Barbie. “The impact of this for me when I was younger would have been incredible. It would have made me feel more confident to own it and talk to other people about it. It’s cool to have a cane. Barbie’s got one,” she said.
Mattel worked with the American Foundation for the Blind, the RNIB, and the National Down Syndrome Society in creating the new dolls.
Say What?
To express our gratitude, your next cup of coffee or late night snack is on us!
CrowdStrike
How do you apologise for a global IT outage that brought the world to its knees? Well if you’re CrowdStrike, you offer people $10 UberEats gift cards… Unsurprisingly, the BBC reports that the gesture from the cybersecurity firm is facing something of a backlash, especially as some of those who received the gift card said it didn’t even work. CrowdStrike spokesperson Kevin Benacci said to TechCrunch: “We did send these to our teammates and partners who have been helping customers through this situation. Uber flagged it as fraud because of high usage rates.”
CRIKEY RECAP
What is utterly fascinating about this situation, apart from the spectacle of a family whose sole shared values are power and money, playing out their tragedy to whatever grubby ending the court’s verdict decides, is Rupert’s willingness to finally drop the façade that News was ever a news business at all.
It turns out that there is something more important to Rupert than maintaining that big lie, even after it was graphically exposed by the revelations in the Dominion defamation case. He will sacrifice News’ claim to integrity, even at risk of its commercial viability, on the altar of something far more dear to him: control.
In the end, Rupert Murdoch is just another king, on a lonely throne, ruling an empire of cards, scheming, ever scheming, to keep doing so even from the grave. This litigation — against his own children — confirms the worst anyone ever said of him.
Outspoken entrepreneur Dick Smith is “horrified” that the website bearing his name is selling assorted anti-vaccine books.
Dick Smith Electronics — which Smith sold in 1980 — has been entirely online since 2016 and now operates as an online marketplace where third parties can stock their items, similar to Amazon. Titles including Vaccine-nation: Poisoning the Population One Shot At a Time, Anyone Who Tells You Vaccines Are Safe and Effective Is Lying and Raising a Vaccine Free Child, along with what appear to be many other pieces of vaccine-sceptical literature, are being sold by external companies such as bookseller The Nile.
Smith said the flurry of anti-vaccine literature available on the Dick Smith website was “horrifying”.
At a deeper level, across Western democracies, it’s now a regular theme. Simplicity versus complexity; blaming someone for the problem versus working out a solution; demonising someone versus working with them; blunt assertions of authority versus the messy compromise of democracy.
The right has embraced simplicity and ridden it to success across the West, and nowhere more so than in the US. It’s also the reason right-wing governments have proven, time and again, so spectacularly incompetent: when you think problems haven’t been solved because other people want to destroy the country rather than because they’re hard to solve, effective policymaking — as opposed to blaming other people or enriching yourself and your friends — becomes very difficult. Americans lived it under Trump the first time; Britons endured it under a succession of Tory prime ministers who drove the nation into the ground.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
FBI director questions whether Trump was hit by bullet or shrapnel in shooting (The Guardian)
Queen Mary of Denmark hit by scooter on royal visit (Metro)
Typhoon Gaemi hits Chinese seaboard as authorities warn of flash floods (Al-Jazeera)
The Race for the Next Ozempic (Wired)
Big Tech says AI is booming. Wall Street is starting to see a bubble (The Washington Post) ($)
Jennifer Aniston hits out at JD Vance for ‘childless cat lady’ comments (Sky News)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Who will control the future of AI? — Sam Altman (The Washington Post): That is the urgent question of our time. The rapid progress being made on artificial intelligence means that we face a strategic choice about what kind of world we are going to live in: Will it be one in which the United States and allied nations advance a global AI that spreads the technology’s benefits and opens access to it, or an authoritarian one, in which nations or movements that don’t share our values use AI to cement and expand their power?
There is no third option — and it’s time to decide which path to take. The United States currently has a lead in AI development, but continued leadership is far from guaranteed. Authoritarian governments the world over are willing to spend enormous amounts of money to catch up and ultimately overtake us. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has darkly warned that the country that wins the AI race will “become the ruler of the world,” and the People’s Republic of China has said that it aims to become the global leader in AI by 2030.
Strong women are driving Donald Trump crazy — Frank Bruni (The New York Times): Maybe, just maybe, it’s exactly the way to go. Women’s reproductive rights are in the foreground of this presidential election, Harris is practised and eloquent in her defence of them, and that could widen a gender gap in a way that works to Democrats’ advantage. Women voters could be the barricade between Trump and that first-day dictatorship.
Also, as my Times colleagues Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan wrote recently, and as I discussed with two prominent Democrats in a conversation published on Wednesday, women opponents bring out the ugliest in Trump. Harris will quickly take up residence with Pelosi, Cheney and the gang.
And Trump will have to build an annex, maybe to his frontal or occipital lobe, to accommodate the sorority.
