TANKS TO UKRAINE
Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy says Australia will send 49 tanks to Ukraine as part of a $245 million military support package in the country’s war against Russia.
The Australian reports Conroy will formally pledge to send the decommissioned M1A1 Abrams tanks at a NATO meeting in Brussels this week, while AAP points out Kyiv has been calling for a year for the tanks to be donated to the war effort rather than be scrapped or sold.
The ABC quotes Conroy, who has been in London meeting members of the UK government before travelling to NATO, as saying: “We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Ukraine in their fight against Russia’s illegal invasion. These tanks will deliver more firepower and mobility to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and complement the support provided by our partners for Ukraine’s armoured brigades — Australia has been steadfast in our support for Ukraine.”
The broadcaster flags that Conroy also said it was “time to move on” from the controversial decision to strip and bury Taipan helicopters instead of agreeing to a formal request from Ukraine for them.
Ukrainian ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko told AAP: “This [the tanks] will be of huge help and used for various defensive lines and defensive operations.”
In domestic news, the national newswire highlights a new online tool has shown NSW police are performing fewer bail and domestic violence order checks. AAP reports the state’s crime statistics bureau has launched a new policing activity dashboard which reveals officials performed almost 26,000 fewer bail checks in 2023-24, a drop of almost 20%. Apprehended domestic violence order checks were also down by more than 11%.
The executive director of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Jackie Fitzgerald, said of the drops: “The police have got considerable vacancies, so it might be they don’t have the staff to do those checks. It can also sometimes reflect organisational prioritisation, so they may have made a decision to use their policing time to do other things and downgrade the importance of those things.”
Meanwhile, the ABC highlights the data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics which shows one in five Australian women aged 15 or older have been stalked.
The data shows an estimated 2.7 million Australian adults have experienced stalking, with young women who are studying, renting or under financial stress the most likely to be stalked. The broadcaster said almost 80% of the women reported being stalked by a current or former male intimate partner.
Also in the news, Guardian Australia reports a bill in South Australia’s upper house preventing termination of pregnancies from 27 weeks and six days was narrowly defeated last night. The AAP said Liberal MP Ben Hood introduced the private member’s bill in the Legislative Council to amend changes to SA’s abortion laws which passed in 2021.
Wednesday evening’s voting saw nine votes in favour and 10 opposed.
CARD CHARGE RESPONSE
This morning the Australian Financial Review is leading on suggestions that Mastercard and Visa are “threatening to stop providing refunds to defrauded customers” as the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) considers restricting the fees card companies can charge.
With Labor hoping to ban surcharges for using debit cards (see Tuesday’s Worm) and the RBA looking at how much retailers are charged by card companies, the paper quotes Alan Machet, Visa’s country manager, as saying: “Further regulation could restrict the ability to deliver these protections and benefits to consumers. Just because the flow of digital payments is invisible does not mean it is free to operate, innovate or future-proof.”
Richard Wormald, the local president of Mastercard, told the AFR: “There is no such thing as a free lunch. You can’t only look at one side of the equation because there are unintended consequences on the other side.” The paper reports Wormald said the protections offered by card companies to merchants and customers against frauds and for refunds were “not free”.
Elsewhere, The Sydney Morning Herald flags Commonwealth Bank (CBA) has been fined $7.5 million for sending more than 170 million emails to customers that breached Australian anti-spam laws. The paper says the emails did not include the necessary option to unsubscribe. An investigation by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) found between November 2022 and April 2024 over 34 million messages were sent to people who either had not consented or had withdrawn their consent to receive the messages.
AAP highlights in 2023 the bank also paid a $3.55 million penalty for sending 65 million emails without unsubscribe information. ACMA chair Nerida O’Loughlin is quoted as saying: “Australians are sick and tired of this kind of spam intruding on their privacy and it’s clear CBA did not have its systems in order.” The newswire reports a CBA spokesperson said the bank accepted the authority’s findings and apologised for sending the non-compliant messages.
Finally, the ABC reports Elizabeth Lee, the leader of the Canberra Liberals, has apologised after being caught on camera giving the middle finger to a journalist after a press conference. The broadcaster said tension at the press conference built between Lee and RiotACT journalist Ian Bushnell over the costs of her party’s policies. The ABC notes the pair have had other tense exchanges during the ACT election campaign.
On Wednesday afternoon, Lee apologised saying: “I don’t excuse my behaviour. It was poor behaviour and I am disappointed in myself and in a moment of frustration I did let the emotional side of my reaction get the better of me. I am more disappointed that my daughters may think it’s the sort of behaviour they would not expect from their mother, who I hope is going to be a role model for them.” The ABC said Bushnell had no comment when approached.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
At just 23 years old, Adriana Brownlee has become the youngest woman to climb all 14 of the world’s highest mountains.
The Guardian reports Brownlee completed the feat when she reached the top of Shishapangma (8,027m) in Tibet last week.
She told The Times when she neared the peak of Shishapangma she started to cry, adding: “I hadn’t reached the summit yet, I couldn’t even see it, but I knew it was going to happen. It took another hour before we reached the incredible summit. By this time it was just sunrise and we had a beautiful clear sky. It was the most incredible moment. I cried again remembering that I had just summited all 14 8,000-metre peaks and made history.”
The Times reports the Briton’s achievement comes just three years after climbing Mt Everest and resolving to climb all 14 of the world’s highest peaks. The paper says she was also the youngest woman to reach the top of K2 when she climbed it in 2022.
The paper revealed that aged just eight Brownlee wrote at primary school: “I would like to be famous for climbing the highest mountain in the world… and be one of the youngest girls to do this.”
Fewer than 100 people have climbed all 14 of the 8,000m peaks, The Times added.
Say What?
I said that the ‘extreme left’ has suppressed the art of comedy. I did say that. That’s not true.
Jerry Seinfeld
The 70-year-old US comedian on Wednesday took back the widely reported comments he made in an interview with The New Yorker earlier this year.
CRIKEY RECAP
The Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed something very interesting about Australian health last week: dementia is poised to become our biggest killer, ahead of heart disease. It’s already the biggest killer of women, South Australians, Canberrans and people in NSW, and will soon occupy top spot across all categories.
While part of the reason is because dementia deaths are increasing, the broader story is a good news one: we’re getting much better at preventing heart disease, which for generations was our biggest killer, and Australians are living longer. That includes Indigenous peoples, despite the appalling reality that they still die, on average, eight years younger than non-Indigenous Australians. Overall, we now have the fourth-highest life expectancy in the world.
This is contrary to the narrative that pervades the media about our health system — one in which our “frontline” health workers heroically battle to overcome government neglect and inadequate spending, while the population is beset by various “epidemics” — obesity, alcohol, illicit drugs. In fact, Australian longevity is so remarkable that in August The Economist published a piece simply titled “Why do Australians live so long?”
SHOT OF ALL FIVE STANDING AROUND A PIT IN HALF-FINISHED LIVING ROOM.
ANTHONY: I don’t really understand why we need a pit filled with spikes in the middle of the living room.
JIM, RICHARD, TANYA: Yeah we really need a spike-filled pit in living room/must have a pit filled with spikes/spike-filled pit’s the go.
ANTHONY: But someone could get pushed in and killed, and it would look like an accident?
JIM, RICHARD, TANYA: Yeah we really need a spike-filled pit in living room/must have a pit filled with spikes/spike-filled pit’s the go.
JIM: By February. Has to be in place by February.
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READ ALL ABOUT IT
Italy passes anti-surrogacy law that effectively bars gay couples from becoming parents (The Washington Post)
How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah (Reuters)
Zelenskyy presents ‘victory plan’ to Ukrainian Parliament (BBC)
Russia suspected of planting device on plane that caused UK warehouse fire (The Guardian)
Musk donates $75m to Trump campaign (The Telegraph)
The world’s second Sphere will be built in the UAE capital after the first opened in Las Vegas (Associated Press)
THE COMMENTARIAT
King Charles, know this: Australians don’t hate the royals — we just wish you’d lose interest in us — Van Badham (Guardian Australia): This generation of premiers is a new manifestation of Hawke’s pro-republican indifference. They symbolise how much easier it is politically to just do something else rather than engage in empty rituals around a distant British institution that’s not merely irrelevant to Australian lives, but that has finally, fatally, ceased to entertain us.
I say this as a committed republican: with support today roughly split between republic and monarchy, it’s not “a matter of great importance” that has won the debate. I still believe, as Hawke did, that an Australian shift from monarchy to republic is inevitable. But Australians are not Americans. Our way is not fierce opposition or revolutionary zeal. In the land of poisonous snakes and yeah, nah, it’s more wandering off to do something else and waiting for the thing to die.
We’re lazy republicans. We’re just hoping the monarchy will lose interest in us. The premiers have it right; if we stop answering the door, maybe the king will just think Australia’s not home. And stop calling.
Albo can buy any beach house he likes, but it’s time to retire the council flat story — Michelle Cazzulino (The Sydney Morning Herald) It’s not as though Australian voters are especially forgiving taskmasters when it comes to their leaders. Given the (frankly astonishing) schedule they’re expected to keep, Albanese’s current hourly rate probably equates to slightly more than he’d be making if he was wearing a paper hat and standing over a bubbling vat of deep-fried chicken. And in the interests of further bolstering his working-class credentials, it turns out the new house was actually on sale, down from $4.65 million, which is what the previous owners paid for it in 2021. Apparently, he knows a bargain when he sees it.
Now, lest anyone think I have any particular interest in Albanese’s electoral fortunes and/or real estate portfolio, let me also say this: I’d be mounting the same impassioned defence of the transaction had the name on the title deeds been Peter Dutton (who owns only his residential farm north of Brisbane, but has made millions buying and selling property over the years), or Pauline Hanson (who owns two properties), or Adam Bandt (who has his home), or the recently exhumed, howling political ghosts of the deregistered Deadly Serious Party.
Ironically, the most irritating aspect of what should have amounted to little more than a slightly voyeuristic, 10-second scroll through the house’s sale pictures yesterday (and a silent prayer for whoever has to clean the saltwater spray off the windows), turns out to have come from Albo himself. No stranger to a spirited chorus of “livin’ in the love of the common people”, he once again reminded us that he was raised by a single mum, in a council flat. A mere 50 years or so ago. See? The present-day struggle is real. He totally gets it.
