LAST CHANCE
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been granted leave to appeal his extradition to the US, the ABC reports. The British High Court granted the appeal on the grounds that Assange could be discriminated against because he is Australian, a claim disputed by the barrister acting for the US. The ABC says that had the appeal failed, UK Police could legally have “hauled him out of Belmarsh Prison and onto a plane immediately”, though this was unlikely. Assange’s wife, Stella, is “relieved”; as The Herald Sun points out, the appeal appeared to be the whistleblower’s last chance to avoid extradition.
Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court (ICC) is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, The Australian reports via The Wall Street Journal. The ICC’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan says he has “reasonable grounds to believe” Netanyahu and Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant “bear criminal responsibility” for “war crimes and crimes against humanity” in the wake of Israel’s war in Gaza. The US ABC reports Netanyahu called the announcement a “disgrace” and an attack on the Israeli military and all of Israel, vowing to press ahead with Israel’s war against Hamas. It comes as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian have been found dead at the site of a helicopter crash in the country’s northwest.
STRAIGHT TO THE BANK
Australians are planning on using their $300 energy bill rebate to bolster savings or pay off loans, according to a survey run by The Age. Only 21% of voters intend to spend the rebate, which the paper says allays some fears the injection of cash would fuel inflation. Interestingly, the survey responders seemed split along political lines regarding what they saw as the cause of higher interest rates, with 66% of Coalition voters saying it’s “domestic factors”, almost double Labor voters’ 36%. Meanwhile, the SMH is blaming high inflation for a sharp fall in job advertisements. Job website SEEK, which measures the amount of advertisements, reports they fell by nearly 5% in April, with total ads down nearly 20% in the past 12 months.
To other news and News Corp papers are running an online petition entitled “Let Them Be Kids”, which is asking the Australian government to raise the age kids can access social media from 13 to 16, enforceable through age verification. The Daily Telegraph is running three stories alongside the survey detailing the alleged dangers of social media usage in younger teenagers and children. The ABC has reported age verification could force millions of Australians to give over their personal information in exchange for internet access, with technology non-profit Electronic Frontiers Australia calling it a “porn passport“.
Say What?
There is no way you are not driving homelessness of Australian citizens by ignoring the rate of JobSeeker.
Imogen Bunting
The Q+A questioner pressed Treasurer Jim Chalmers on the ABC last night, saying she is living below the poverty line due to the government’s refusal to significantly increase JobSeeker payments.
Crikey Recap
“We know the Coalition is split over nuclear power, but you would have thought recent events in the United States would be encouraging Dutton to push forward. At the end of April, the most recent new nuclear reactor, in Georgia, began operating. ‘Georgia Power announced this week that the 1,114-megawatt (MW) Unit 4 nuclear power reactor at Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro, Georgia, entered into commercial operation after connecting to the power grid in March 2024,’ the US Energy Information Administration (IEA) announced on May 1. Vogtle 3 began operating in mid-2023.
But mammoth delays and massive cost blowouts are neither here nor there to the Coalition, remembering that nuclear power is actually all about keeping coal-fired power going, not building any nuclear power stations. The reason Dutton might not want to mention Vogtle is what the enormous cost of the new reactors has done to power prices: cause a permanent 10% increase in electricity bills for consumers across Georgia and beyond.”
“To his credit, Rundle seems aware of his own absurdity, asking himself: ‘Why prioritise the fight against the Yes In My BackYarders, when they’re pushing for what’s desperately needed?’ Good question, Guy. But clearly you were excited to do it. So badly did you want to prioritise the fight against YIMBYs that you bypassed the overwhelming expert consensus on upzoning and land-use reform, in favour of becoming bedfellows with anti-immigration activist Leith van Onselen.
And to what end? After all, the most recent paper on the success of Auckland’s upzoning policies shows that one of the biggest beneficiaries — aside from all the people who now have homes and more affordable rents — was the region’s public builder, Kāinga Ora. After the Auckland upzoning, state-developed dwelling completions increased threefold, which goes a long way to explain why the public builder was one of the most vocal advocates for upzoning in the first place.
“A military alliance with like-minded Western nations designed to contain China’s ambitions in the Pacific seems like exactly the sort of notion the Republican Party would historically be championing. The bipartisan vote in the US Congress last December to progress AUKUS was an example of old-school US foreign policy thinking. But Trump has changed the Republican Party to be more isolationist and less principled. It’s not hard to imagine Trump’s colleagues in Congress would follow suit if he decided to change his mind later on, given Trump’s stamp of approval is crucial to the electoral survival of many of them.
And it’s also easy to imagine Trump changing his mind: he’s a famous flip-flopper, with a tendency to side with the most recent person to speak to him, and he’s not afraid to upend longstanding US foreign policy at a moment’s notice.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Aggression or caution: The choice facing Iran’s next leaders (The New York Times) ($)
‘Stop threatening Taiwan’, its new president William Lai tells China (BBC)
Israel’s war on Gaza: US slams ICC prosecutor as 18 killed in north Gaza (Al Jazeera)
This baby is in the pursuit of happiness. Are South Korea’s climate goals stopping him? (Euronews)
Government puts all public housing programmes under review after damning report into Kāinga Ora (The New Zealand Herald)
THE COMMENTARIAT
The case against Julian Assange has been a cruel folly. His right to appeal is a small step towards justice — Duncan Campbell (The Guardian): “Once again, Assange was too unwell to attend Monday’s hearing, but his wife and father were both present. One of the many absurdities has been that he is being held in one of our highest security prisons when our whole jail system is bursting at its seams. He could quite easily be granted bail under whatever conditions deemed necessary so that he could be with his wife and two children. This should be a priority for him now.
And so this long saga continues. Few come out of it well. Both the British and American governments have shown themselves to be unconcerned about the press freedom they so glibly claim to support, if any of it shows them up in an unfavourable light. It was Priti Patel, when home secretary, who gave the go-ahead for extradition in the first place and none of her deferential successors have given any indication they would have the guts to challenge the US, as Theresa May did when she, as home secretary, refused to allow the extradition of Gary McKinnon in 2012. Only a handful of MPs have had the decency to speak up for Assange and he has never had the support from the media that should have been forthcoming. The judicial system could also easily have kicked this case out years ago, but there has been a spinelessness on display here too.”
Our research shows what the rental market is really like for international students — The housing debate often misses what international students bring to Australia. International education is one of Australia’s top exports and was worth A$47.8 billion in 2023. Last month, a Property Council of Australia report also found ‘international students are not the cause of the housing crisis’. The report showed international students only make up 4% of the rental market in Australia. It points out rents started rising in 2020 during COVID ‘when there was no international student migration and most students had returned home’.
Our research shows international students in South Australia are finding it expensive, difficult and stressful to secure a place to live while they are studying. This suggests they are experiencing the problems of Australia’s housing crisis. But it does not indicate they are causing it. We also need to be careful simply thinking more student accommodation will fix this issue. It does not address the problem of housing affordability and it does not help international students interact with their local communities in Australia.”
