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Crikey

Comment

Emma Elsworthy

Bali bombmaker gets out of jail free

Bruce Lehrmann Brittany Higgins Bali Umar Patek AMA Grace Tame Penny Wong Grove (Organization) Guardian Australia Deanna Violet Coco

INDONESIA’S BOMBSHELL

Bali bombmaker Umar Patek has been released from jail after serving just over half of his 20-year sentence, the ABC reports, something Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called “abhorrent”. Patek helped build the bomb that killed more than 200 people, including 88 Australians, in a Bali nightclub in 2002 — he was on the run for nine years as one of Asia’s most wanted terrorism suspects before being caught. Patek was a senior figure in the al-Qaeda-linked network Jemaah Islamiyah, as Guardian Australia continues, and the Indonesian government said he had completed a “deradicalisation” program while inside. So why was Patek released? He received 33 months of sentence reductions — Indonesia often gives them to prisoners on national holidays — which left him eligible for parole after serving two-thirds of his sentence.

Staying overseas a moment and Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong will tell the US that both of us need to show the Indo-Pacific that our alliance is not just about military cooperation and security, but economics too, as the SMH reports, that we want to “do business and create wealth” with countries as well. Wong will say that it’s about showing we “have skin in the game” by getting involved in “development, connectivity, digital trade and the energy transition”, otherwise we risk being outplayed by China. Wong will also urge Beijing to take up a US offer to put “guardrails” in place to manage competition, saying it was in “all the world’s interests”, Guardian Australia continues. If you’d like to delve into the issue more, The Conversation has a cracking analysis this morning.

‘I’LL BE THERE’: BRITTANY HIGGINS

Former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins says she’d be happy to take the witness stand in a defamation action after the man once accused of raping her, Bruce Lehrmann, hired defamation lawyer Mark O’Brien. The rape charge against Lehrmann has been dropped. Lehrmann is reportedly sizing up Channel 10’s The Project and the ABC over a National Press Club speech, but there’s a heck of a lot of media reporting and speeches to go through, news.com.au noted. Higgins tweeted “If required I am willing to defend the truth as a witness in any potential civil cases brought about by Mr Lehrmann” yesterday from a Queensland hospital, The Australian ($) reports. So who is O’Brien? He’s acted for VC recipient Ben Roberts-Smith, actor Craig McLachlan, former treasurer Joe Hockey and businessman Chau Chak Wing and is known for his “aggressive approach” as a lawyer, the paper says.

Hey, speaking of lawyers — the Aboriginal Legal Service (ALS) has fronted the Supreme Court of WA over cell lockdowns at Banksia Hill and Casuarina Prison, The West ($) reports. The ALS says the lockdowns (caused by staff shortages) should be unlawful — indeed one kid was in his cell for more than 20 hours a day for 26 days this year — which is an astounding and dismal fact. The court agreed they were unlawful, but they’ve continued, ALS says. An urgent hearing will take place tomorrow.

SLEEPING ON THE JOB

Junior doctors at a Sydney hospital have been told napping on quiet night shifts is forbidden and management would replace lounges with “less comfortable chairs” if it didn’t stop, the ABC reports. An email said doctors were not being “paid to sleep” and should have a “cup of tea” instead. Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Hospital apologised after the letter was posted online, calling it an “insensitive and inappropriate email”. The Australian Medical Association (AMA) NSW pointed to a recent study that found half of all doctors in training who work overtime had stuffed up something because they were so tired. It is kind of a bizarre fact that the people entrusted with our lives often work intensely long hours, have unpredictable rosters, do overtime, wait around on-call, and work night shifts. In 2016, the AMA got a bunch of doctors to record their work hours, with several reporting single shifts that lasted as long as 72, 59, 58 and 53 hours.

Meanwhile, the national AMA has called the refusal to reinstate the mask mandate “weak political leadership”, Guardian Australia reports, saying it was the best policy for stopping COVID infections. We need a plan that “relies on more than vaccination”, the peak body said, with one expert warning 1 million Australians could have long COVID by 2023. It comes as the country’s peak actuarial body says the government should urgently investigate why 13% more people died this year in Australia, news.com.au reports. An extra 15,400 people died in the first eight months of the year, according to analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics data by the Actuaries Institute. A third of the deaths had no link to COVID — it’s an “incredibly high number for mortality”, and actuary Karen Cutter said she has no idea what’s behind it.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

An Adelaide woman hasn’t put her bin out for two years, and no, this isn’t an angry neighbour story worthy of a segment on A Current Affair. Alice Clanachan just didn’t need to — she has basically no rubbish worthy of the regular bin thanks to an extremely thorough approach to “reduce, reuse, recycle”, as Guardian Australia reports. Clanachan was like, I probably could’ve gone longer than 26 months, but it was getting a bit hot out. So what was in the bin? Mostly tradie rubbish like repairs from old pipes or drains, but also worn-out gardening gloves, rapid antigen tests, thermal paper receipts, vacuum cleaner dust, dental floss and broken ceramics. Fascinating.

Wondering how this is possible? Clanachan said she doesn’t drive a car, and cycling to get the groceries keeps the items she buys pretty low. She takes her own glass containers for grains and rice, and buys a lot of produce from farmers markets where they’re not practically vacuumed-sealed in plastic. She doesn’t really buy pre-packaged food, gives egg cartons to people with backyard hens, and even gives yoghurt containers to a friend who grows mushrooms. When fellow Adelaidian Trudy Conroy heard about Clanachan, she was livid. Conroy’s record was about 18 months, and she’s sure she would’ve gone further if not for this old manky pillow no one wanted. “It felt a bit weird putting it out, it had spiderwebs and duct tape on it,” Conroy said.

Hoping you lighten your footprint in some small way today.

SAY WHAT?

A 32-year-old climate activist is about to be imprisoned for 456 days for stopping traffic for 24 minutes. In that 25 minutes the Govt handed $533,475 to fossil fuel corporations.

The premier has said that protesters who cause inconvenience should be punished. What about the inconvenience of climate change? The inconvenience of losing your home and your town in flood and fire?

David Shoebridge

The Greens senator tweets that Violet Coco’s fate while the government bankrolls emissions baffles the mind considering we know climate change is real, here, and if we do nothing, will cause global calamity on a never-before-seen scale.

CRIKEY RECAP

News Corp is strangely silent on its part in the Liberals’ downfall

Bernard Keane

Dec 07, 2022

“News Corp … has been crucial to attacking any serious climate action. Its own obsession with culture war issues has meant the Liberals felt either emboldened or obliged to prosecute them. And it provided the Liberals, up to and including Scott Morrison, with a parallel universe within which to live and operate, ultimately to their downfall.

“In the News Corp universe, climate action was the obsession of a few inner-city soyaccino drinkers, trans people were enemies to be smitten hip and thigh as a first-order matter of public policy, gender and workplace issues were a minority obsession foreign to the experience of ordinary Australian women, and Morrison was a political genius and master tactician. Sadly, May 21 2022 confirmed this parallel universe had minimal overlap with planet earth.”

‘Complete chaos’: how an ex-Fox exec and investor buying Junkee became a shambles

Cam Wilson

Dec 07, 2022

“In January, Grove projected that Junkee’s traffic and revenue numbers would return to their 2019 peak by the middle of the year, even after he was warned by staff that this wasn’t possible. Grove’s plans to replicate the success of The Daily Aus and The Betoota Advocate, which had grown their audience through social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, simply wasn’t feasible in 2022 since Meta had changed its algorithms. It wasn’t going to be as simple as using the old playbook.

“Multiple Junkee staff told Crikey that Grove had claimed he sold his stake in The Daily Aus and invested $1.2 million into Scout Publishing. Suddenly in May, staff were brought into a meeting room. Grove appeared via video from an Adelaide hotel room. He told the staff that both Junkee’s chief operating officer Rob Stott and editor-in-chief Gyan Yankovich had accepted redundancies and wouldn’t be returning.”

Climate protester’s sentence is half that of Grace Tame’s abuser’s. Is this justice?

Michael Bradley

Dec 07, 2022

“Deanna “Violet” Coco is incarcerated, denied bail and sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment — with a non-parole period of eight months — for blocking traffic on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, possessing an orange flare in a public place and resisting police (not violently; she just refused to move on). Coco was protesting to raise awareness of climate change.

“Nicolaas Bester was in court in Hobart on Monday, charged with three counts of using a carriage service to menace or harass former Australian of the Year Grace Tame. Bester was Tame’s high school teacher. He groomed and serially raped her over six months when she was 15. It was not, to be clear, a relationship. On arrest police found 28 pieces of child pornography.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Zelenskyy named Time magazine’s ‘Person of the Year’ (Al Jazeera)

Sister of Iran’s supreme leader condemns protest crackdown (The Guardian)

Bank of Canada raises rate again to 4.25% — but opens door to staying there (CBC)

Nigerian military ran secret mass abortion program in war on Boko Haram (Reuters)

Germany coup plot: police raid far-right terrorist suspects behind bid ‘to overthrow government’ (EuroNews)

Taliban carry out first public execution since taking over Afghanistan (The Guardian)

Microsoft strikes 10-year deal with Nintendo over Call of Duty (Stuff)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Disjointed pot policy puts dopey Australia behind rest of world — John Ryan (SMH): “There have been 700,000 arrests for cannabis-related offending in Australia in the past 12 years, more than 90% of them for personal use or possession. That is the extraordinary finding from a study released today by public health research and drug policy organisation the Penington Institute. That’s hundreds of thousands of Australians entering the criminal justice system for use of a drug that likely does little harm to them and no measurable harm to others …

“Australia is now well out of step globally on this issue. Over the past two decades, momentum from health leaders around the world has been gathering to question the spectacularly ineffective and harmful ‘War on Drugs’ and seek constructive alternatives. Countries including Canada, Thailand and Uruguay have passed legislation either decriminalising or legalising cannabis, as have many states in the US. Recently, US President Joe Biden issued an official pardon for all citizens convicted of simple possession of cannabis under federal law.”

Kirstie Alley was a fat, glamorous actress. That was radical — Jennifer Weiner (The New York Times): “Fat actresses, fat singers or dancers or stars are still few and far between. But there are a handful, and their weight isn’t always their entire plot arc, and they’re not always the butt of the joke. And social media’s given all of us — thin, fat and in between — a soapbox to share our opinions. Women can call out designers when they don’t offer extended sizing, or complain when, for dramatic effect, a music video shows the actually quite thin Taylor Swift stepping on a scale that reads FAT.

“Fitness magazines wrestle with fatphobia in the health and wellness industry and put larger women like the yoga instructor Jessamyn Stanley on their covers (to the tittering disdain of men who can’t wait to tell their followers how gross it is). Plus-size influencers flourish on social media. And Lizzo continues to redefine the game, whether she’s wearing couture in Vanity Fair, ruling the red carpets, racking up Emmy and Grammy wins, launching a size-inclusive shapewear brand or creating a reality show to launch the next generation of ‘big grrrls’ into stardom — all while living joyously in her larger body. The world is changing. And Kirstie Alley was a part of that change, whether she meant to be or not.”