HOLIDAYS ARE OVER
It seems like the summer break was over in a second but also that the lack of domestic news dragged on for an eternity. So here we are, back in the saddle for the election year that is 2025 and all the fun it promises to bring (I hope you enjoyed the Summer Worm we ran last week chock-full of great reads and recommendations. If you missed it you can find it on the Worm landing page here).
Today brings the first cabinet meeting of the year with the AAP saying more cost of living relief is likely to be discussed. Last week Capital Brief said there wasn’t expected to be any significant announcements this week with the meeting of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, back from his tour of the nation, and his senior minister instead providing an opportunity “to reset the agenda heading into a critical few weeks before the election is called” (if you feel like we’re stuck in a Groundhog Day of “agenda resets” you wouldn’t be alone).
Yesterday Opposition Leader Peter Dutton launched the Coalition’s unofficial election campaign with its 12 priorities for governing the country. Reminder: the election has to be held by May 17.
During his 38-minute pre-prepared speech to MPs and party loyalists, which the AFR said was “devoid of new policy measures”, Dutton called the upcoming federal election a “sliding doors moment” for Australia, Guardian Australia reports. The 54-year-old called Albanese “one of our weakest prime ministers in history” and the government one of the most “incompetent governments in history”.
The ABC reports Dutton said his party’s priorities if elected would be battling cost of living pressures, establishing nuclear power, improving housing supply, “rebalancing” migration levels, supporting small business, raising GP numbers, a tougher approach to crime and a closer relationship with Israel.
“I think the past three years are a good indication of what the future will look like under a returned Labor government,” Dutton said. “A returned Labor government — in majority or minority — will see setbacks set in stone. A newly elected Coalition government is a last chance to reverse the decline.”
The Saturday Paper highlights the significance of Dutton holding his campaign event in Victoria, a state “typically unfavourable to the Coalition but in which they hope to reclaim suburban seats lost to Labor three years ago”. The paper reports government insiders and those in the Coalition reckon Albanese will announce the election in early March with polling day in April, avoiding the need for another Budget. “I think the feeling is that he’ll want a fortnight of Parliament but not want to deliver the next budget, which won’t be pretty,” an insider is quoted as saying. Parliament next sits on February 4.
Despite Dutton on Sunday committing to strengthening Medicare, Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones said the election will be “referendum on the future of Medicare”, the AAP reports and flags Labor has previously claimed the Coalition would defund the nation’s healthcare system.
Calling yesterday’s speech by the opposition leader “frankly pretty arrogant”, Jones added: “Believe me, if Peter Dutton becomes the prime minister of Australia after this election, he will repeat what he did in government and destroy Medicare,” the ABC reports.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young slammed Dutton for his “nasty” policies, AAP reports, and told reporters in Canberra: “We cannot afford to let our country be led by a party that punches down rather than lifting Australians and the country up.”
And the election hasn’t even been called yet…
TRUMP RETURNS AS FIRES RAGE
US President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration is next week (from the headlines over the past few days you’d have thought he was already in the White House) and The Australian Financial Review reports Foreign Minister Penny Wong will be in attendance, along with Australia’s ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd. The AFR says Wong is expected to meet with Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, Marco Rubio, as well as their Japanese and Indian counterparts for a Quad foreign ministers’ meeting in Washington.
Wong said of her invitation to the inauguration: “It is a demonstration of the steadfast alliance between Australia and the United States. The United States is Australia’s vital ally, closest global partner, and most important strategic relationship. This early visit will be an important opportunity to discuss how we can advance the benefits of our strong economic and security partnership and expand our cooperation.”
The AFR says Wong’s invitation is unusual in that foreign leaders and ministers usually stay away from the inauguration and instead it is ambassadors who represent foreign governments. However, Trump has invited a raft of world leaders to attend his swearing-in on January 20.
The ABC highlights Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Friday that his government intends to “continue to have the trade arrangements that we have with the United States under our free trade agreement”, despite Trump’s pledge to install a 60% duty on imports from China, Canada and Mexico, and 10% tariffs on other nations.
The broadcaster flags that might be wishful thinking by the Australian government as Trump took to his Truth Social platform to dispute reports his tariffs plans would be scaled back. “The story in The Washington Post, quoting so-called anonymous sources, which don’t exist, incorrectly states that my tariff policy will be pared back. That is wrong,” Trump said.
Trump’s comments about the deadly fires raging in California have also created plenty of headlines over the weekend, with The New York Times reporting the 78-year-old continued his criticism of those in charge of fighting the fires by calling them “incompetent” on Sunday. Posting on Truth Social, Trump said: “The fires are still raging in LA. The incompetent pols have no idea how to put them out.”
The paper adds California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday he had invited Trump to visit the state, despite the president-elect’s attacks against him. He also said he was taking seriously Trump’s threats to withhold disaster assistance.
At least 16 people have been killed in the fires with authorities racing against the arrival of more desert winds, which have propelled the fires, on Monday.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
Over a thousand tiny snails have been released onto a remote island in the Atlantic after two species believed to have been extinct were spotted for the first time in a century.
The BBC reports a team of conservationists found a small number of Desertas Island land snails living on Deserta Grande island, close to Madeira. The 60 snails, believed to be the last of their kind, were brought to zoos in France and the UK.
Now 1,329 of their offspring have been returned to the neighbouring Bugio Island.
“If it goes as well as we hope, more snails will follow them next spring,” Gerardo Garcia from Chester Zoo said.
“It’s a huge team effort which shows that it is possible to turn things around for highly threatened species.”
Unrelated to the snails, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who emailed me suggestions on what they’d like to see more of in the Worm in 2025 and what they thought was working well. Also thank you for the kind messages about my daughter, it meant a lot to read them. For those who were struggling to get beyond the paywall on the article, I think if you haven’t accessed The i Paper before and write out the headline into Google (“My gorgeous baby has a rare, genetic condition – no one knows what to say to us”) and then search for it you should be able to read it for free. If not, I’m sure I can find a way to send it to you. Thanks again and keep the emails and suggestions coming to worm@crikey.com.au.
Say What?
Let’s get Australia back on track.
The Coalition
Peter Dutton unveiled the new slogan to counter Labor’s “Building Australia’s future” at his unofficial campaign launch in Melbourne on Sunday.
CRIKEY RECAP
Australian air passengers are facing years of turmoil as delivery schedules for new aircraft ordered by Australian airlines — from both Boeing and Airbus — face significant delays leading to further flight disruptions and fare hikes in the foreseeable future.
An ageing Qantas fleet is requiring higher levels of maintenance. With no spare aircraft or engines at Qantas Group and slower replacement and expansion for both the Limping Roo and Virgin Australia (that between them hold 98% of the Australian market), airfares within and from Australia have been forecast to surge in 2025. According to the Amex Air Monitor report for 2025, domestic economy airfares will be jumping 13.7% from 2024 prices, and ticket prices from Australia to Asian destinations are set to increase by 12%.
The Albanese government has yet to reveal the terms of its taxpayer-funded short-term rescue of regional carrier Rex. Crikey understands it is considering taking on Rex’s debt with private equity group PAG Capital and that the Department of Transport is putting together an oversight taskforce.
Apple’s new artificial intelligence features are rephrasing scam messages and emails to iPhone and Mac users to make them look more legitimate and then flagging them as a priority, raising concerns that it will lead to more people falling for them.
Late last year, Apple rolled out its AI-powered “Apple Intelligence” update to millions of Australian iPhone, iPad and Mac computer users.
Its flagship features include notification summarising and prioritisation abilities. These use AI technology to summarise the meaning of multiple push notifications in a single message, or to flag certain alerts as a priority.
The newspaper’s union, The Washington Post Guild, put out a statement this week that called it “especially disturbing that Post CEO, Will Lewis, has not directly addressed his employees in a whopping 230 days — during which tumult and turnover have driven many of our highest-profile colleagues to other companies and new policies have been implemented with little explanation”.
Crikey understands that this was likely a reference to a recent return-to-work mandate disseminated immediately following the US election, causing discontent among staff.
The mandate, seen by Crikey, instructs all managers to return to the office five days a week by February 3, all other staff to return by June, and includes remote staff “within commuting distance” of the company’s Washington DC or New York offices.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Children targeted in NDIS crackdown (The Saturday Paper)
Landlords ripping off LA fire victims, says Selling Sunset star (BBC)
Netanyahu and Biden discuss progress in Gaza ceasefire-for-hostages deal talks (CNN)
Albanese stresses need for ceasefire, says Greens losing votes on Gaza (The Sydney Morning Herald)
Bannon sets MAGA expiration date for ‘evil’ Elon Musk (Daily Beast) ($)
‘It’s total chaos internally at Meta right now’: Employees protest Zuckerberg’s anti LGBTQ changes (404 Media)
THE COMMENTARIAT
‘Meddling Musk should discover his limitations. He’s not the messiah’ — Parnell Palme McGuinnes (The Age): His international interventions show no sign of slowing. Australia is also preparing for an election year and, given the current trajectory, it’s only a matter of time until Musk’s gaze falls upon us. Some Australians are already trying to make that happen.
But Elon Musk is not God, and his judgment is not divine or perfect. He is everyman — us, unburdened by shallow empathy, crusading on behalf of victims, but without all the answers.
We don’t need him to disrupt the stinking little hypocrisies in our politics — we know what they are. We can and should be doing it ourselves, without the pitfalls of misinformation that come from relying mainly on X for information.
‘Now is the time of monsters’ — Ezra Klein (The New York Times): Donald Trump is returning, artificial intelligence is maturing, the planet is warming, and the global fertility rate is collapsing.
To look at any of these stories in isolation is to miss what they collectively represent: the unsteady, unpredictable emergence of a different world. Much that we took for granted over the last 50 years — from the climate to birthrates to political institutions — is breaking down; movements and technologies that seek to upend the next 50 years are breaking through.
Let’s begin with American politics. Trump is eight days from taking the oath of office for the second time, and America’s institutional storm walls are not, in 2025, what they were in 2017.
The Republican Party is meek, and Trump knows it. He would not have dared to send Senate Republicans names like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel and Pete Hegseth for cabinet posts in his first term. Even beyond the party, he faces no mass resistance this time, nothing like the Women’s March that overwhelmed Washington in 2017. Democrats are dispirited and exhausted.
