ALL CLASS
Unvaccinated teachers will be back in classrooms in Victoria next week — just two months after 351 staff were sacked in April over not getting the jab, The Age reports. The mandate to have three COVID vaccines will expire tomorrow night, which covered school staff and childcare workers too. The paper says it saw an information sheet for principals that stated parents will “not have the right” to take their kid out of school because their teacher is unvaxxed — or even to ask a teacher’s vaccination status.
Meanwhile, people who test positive for COVID-19 could get a text message encouraging them to chat to their GP about anti-viral drugs under a new government proposal, The Australian ($) says. Health Minister Mark Butler says antivirals — like Lageviro and Paxlovid — can really make a difference if taken early, and it’d help out our stretched-to-the-limit hospitals. About 3000 people are in hospital with COVID across the country right now (100 in intensive care). Meanwhile, the previous federal government is under scrutiny for pouring $5.6 billion into the aviation industry during the pandemic, but not really caring where the money went, The New Daily reports. Qantas got $1 billion in government support and another $856 million in JobKeeper, an audit found.
TAKEN FOR GRANTED
Australia’s largest philanthropic journalism fund has gone a bit iffy, according to senior founding executive Prue Clarke, who accused the Judith Neilson Institute (JNI) of “a lack of transparency” about how grants were awarded, as SMH reports. It’s been a tumultuous week for the fund: four board directors have quit and the executive director has brought the lawyers in over a dispute about his job. So what is the JNI? Its eponymous founder poured $100 million into it in 2018 to fund good journalism — more than 100 projects to date, like SMH’s reporting trip to Ukraine, Guardian Australia’s Pacific bureau, and The Australian’s podcast. One can’t help but raise an eyebrow considering 60 (!) regional newspapers shut during the pandemic, as ABC reports. JNI staff were told on Monday the fund would instead put money into journalism in regional areas, migrant populations, investigative journalism, and grassroots media.
Speaking of questions of integrity, Industry Minister Ed Husic has confirmed the Albanese government will look into billions of dollars of Morrison-era industry grants, The Brisbane Times reports. That’s things like $1.2 billion for the space industry and $2.4 billion for clean energy programs, the paper explains. Husic pointed at the commuter carpark scandal and the sports rorts saga as reasons to review recent promises, and said he wants to avoid a repeat in manufacturing. Also this morning, Greens MP Sue Higginson is calling for an inquiry into the botched police operation targeting Blockade Australia protesters in Sydney’s northwest, Guardian Australia reports. The protesters said two people in camo gear were crouched in the bushland — the activists say they had no idea who they were, and when they asked, the anonymous men only said “we’ve been compromised”. Seven people were arrested as they tried to stop the men from driving away. They were cops.
LINE OF DEFENCE
Defence Minister Richard Marles says we’ve never been closer to India — and China remains both countries’ biggest trading partner and biggest security anxiety. Marles met with his Indian counterpart Rajnath Singh, as ABC reports, to compare “notes with friends” as Marles puts it. Marles warned that China’s military build-up is “now the largest and most ambitious we have seen by any country since the end of the Second World War” and that he hopes its neighbours don’t do likewise, saying we didn’t want to see another 2020 Line of Actual Control. India is actually the world’s biggest buyer of Russian military equipment, the SMH continues, spending $8 billion on arms from Moscow between 2018 and 2021.
Speaking of China, President Xi Jinping has this morning called for peace in Ukraine, The New Daily reports. He didn’t criticise Russia per se, but called the war an “alarm for humanity”. But Xi also pointed the finger at the West, saying “hegemony, group politics and confrontations” bring “war and conflict”. Things are definitely still frosty between us and China — indeed our leading wine authority will close its office in China because our wine exports have plunged from a $1.2 billion industry to just $200 million at the end of March, CNBC reports.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
It’s that time of year again — a crowd of shivering, nude-as-the-day-we’re-born folks topped with red swimming caps will shortly toddle, dangly bits and all, directly into the icy Hobart sea. Onlookers will be treated to a cosmos of moonings as bums of all shapes and sizes jiggle their way into the water. Guardian Australia points out that Sandy Bay is closer to Antarctica than some parts of Australia. It’s the nude winter solstice, which closes Hobart’s weird and wacky Dark Mofo festival. So what is it that lures people back, year after year? Perhaps it’s the “high in group nudity, which can turn anyone, from adonis to pensioners, into giggling fools”, The Guardian’s Sian Cain writes. And it’s not just the open-minded who do the starkers sprint into the sea. Two 80-somethings called Val and Philip say they’re usually pretty conservative, but the swim is such a great rush. “Our dangly bits don’t look too good, but who cares!” Val adds.
Cain actually went this year: she admits weighing up whether to shave her legs beforehand before mentally shaking herself. She turns up at 6:45am with a hot water bottle (naturally) but it is hardly the weirdest thing on show: some people are drinking shots, while one man, staring off contemplatively, is already naked but wearing one of those a Russian-style fur caps. Then it’s time — everyone strips down and the crowd rushes into the water in one frantic mass. At first, everyone’s “grunting and crying out like animals” as the cold shocks their bodies. Then, Cain says, the giggles start, and no one sits it out. “We’re free and doing something silly in the name of art and something primal none of us could name,” Cain writes. The sun rises over the sea, and it’s time for everyone to get warm again.
I hope you feel as equally unencumbered on your Thursday morning.
If you’re feeling chatty, drop me a line, tell me what you like or loathe about the Worm, or anything — eelsworthy@crikey.com.au
SAY WHAT?
These kids watch Love Island, they watch MAFS [Married at First Sight], they don’t read the Financial Times and they’re on TikTok and doing those things. He’s living in a parallel universe that he has to get from there over to here, which is what we expect of AFL footballers and people in the general community.
Eddie McGuire
The former Collingwood president went a little off topic when commenting on AFL player Jordan De Goey taking personal leave to focus on his wellbeing. McGuire seems to like his footballers to be less “memorising dance moves to a Louis Theroux rap”, and more “abreast of modern economic developments”, I guess.
CRIKEY RECAP
A note from a not-so-precious lawyer: believing survivors doesn’t mean discarding the presumption of innocence
“What is so deeply frustrating about this situation is how easily it could have been avoided. Lehrmann’s lawyers had had a go earlier this year at getting his trial permanently or temporarily stayed because of the intense publicity surrounding the case, and [Chief Justice Lucy] McCallum had refused it. She was alive to the risk, but concluded that it could be managed. [Tuesday] she said in open court that she had placed way too much trust in the media to play its part responsibly.
“This debacle is not the fault of social media, where of course Lehrmann has been and will continue to be tried endlessly. That can be ignored. The platform afforded a major media personality, giving a speech at the industry’s main awards ceremony, cannot. Nor can the broadcast power of breakfast radio.”
OK, Alan Joyce, we’re going to give you one last chance — before we set Crikey readers on you
“Of course, it has nothing to do with the fact that Joyce sacked 6000 staff during the pandemic and hasn’t managed to replace them (you may remember them — the staff that check you in, deal with your bags, get you on the plan and deal with your calls and complaints). But where would he find the time?
“He’s been busy with a court case: the nearly 1700 ground handlers he sacked are, unsurprisingly, suing him for compensation after he illegally outsourced their jobs. So, Alan, we’re going to give you one last chance. The winter holidays are upon us. Can you do better?”
The right is coming apart — and Labor needs to step up and help it self-destruct
“The right keeps looking for every issue to be a new Tampa, thinking they can work up the same social-cultural war. But the process is subject to diminishing returns, until it reverses into absurdity — a point reached, post-election, with the elegant Katherine Deves appearing on Sky Pravda Dark to tell Rowan Dean and Rita Panahi that she had withstood the storm: “I am the storm, and I am not going anywhere.”
“Grrrrrr. It couldn’t have been lamer if it had been filmed in a cubbyhouse. (They’re currently trying to work up as new talent retiring Kew state MP Tim Smith. How’s that going? Judge for yourself about 20-30 minutes in. Oh, Tim. Another car crash?)”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
‘Not the way’: Bulgaria gov’t falls after losing confidence vote (Al Jazeera)
EU plan to halve use of pesticides in ‘milestone’ legislation to restore ecosystems (The Guardian)
Powerful quake kills 1000 in Afghanistan (BBC)
Canada’s inflation rate now at 7.7% — its highest point since 1983 (CBC)
Biden will call for 3-month suspension of gas tax (CNN)
New report: Worst time for [NZ] first-home buyers in 65 years (NZ Herald)
Saudi crown prince’s visit to Turkey marks turning point after Khashoggi killing (The Wall Street Journal) ($)
Europe told to prepare for Russia turning off gas (BBC)
THE COMMENTARIAT
We can secure our energy and move to renewables — Zali Steggall (The Australian) ($): “I do not envy new Energy Minister Chris Bowen, who has landed smack-bang in the middle of an energy crisis 10 years in the making. His initial efforts should be acknowledged, as should the efforts of the Australian Energy Market Operator, which put in place emergency guardrails last week. Bowen correctly has identified that more investment in renewables, not less, is the answer to this crisis. But what is the best mechanism to accelerate uptake? And how do we ensure the reliability and security of the market?
“Fortunately, we have a potential solution. We could create a renewable energy storage target along the lines of the renewable energy target. If Australian governments take the initiative to implement a REST as a matter of priority, it will empower investors and regulators to plan, invest and deploy storage in volumes sufficient to overcome any reliability and supply shortfalls. A REST is a crucial piece in Australia’s energy transition puzzle. The government’s Rewiring the Nation plan will unlock the required investment in transmission along with the private sector.”
The Greens Party is too important to abandon it to social media mobs — Linda Gale (The Age): “I have been a member of the Greens since 2010, but the recent, ugly episode that saw me ousted as Victorian state convenor raises real concerns about the future for a party that claims to champion democracy. The Greens fight for things I believe in: social justice, economic redistribution, peace, and trying to save our planet from environmental catastrophe. As a feminist, anti-racist, education activist, trade unionist and environmentalist, of course I became active in the Greens, just as I have been active all my life in many community and campaign groups.
“On June 11, I was elected as Victorian state convenor in a democratic vote of more than 900 Greens members. I was keen to support the work of the party as we moved from our most successful ever federal election towards the Victorian state election in November. Two days later, all hell broke loose. A Greens local government councillor, Port Phillip deputy mayor Tim Baxter, posted on social media that my election ‘sends a clear message [that] trans people are not safe in this party’.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
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Former justice of the high court Michael Kirby, former NSW premier Bob Carr, Uniting’s Emma Maiden, Australia21’s Alex Wodak and Harm Reduction Australia’s Annie Madden, with ABC’s Stan Grant hosting, will discuss whether it’s time to legalise drugs, held at the Wesley Conference Centre.
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Investible’s Creel Price and Unravel Carbon’s Grace Sai are among several speakers at a seminar about how we can grow climate tech, held at KPMG.
Larrakia Country (also known as Darwin)
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Journalist Peter Simon will launch his new book, Big Jim, a biography of the former editor of the Centralian Advocate and the Northern Territory News, Jim Bowditch, at The Bookshop in Darwin’s mall.
Yuggera Country (also known as Brisbane)
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Psychologist Peter Quarry will speak about his new book, If I Were You: A psychologist puts himself on the couch, at Avid Reader bookshop. You can also catch this one online.
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
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Former PM John Howard, former MP Mal Brough, former high commissioner of Australia to the United Kingdom Richard Alston are among several speakers at a seminar about whether the Howard government was crisis prone, held at the National Press Club.
