DUTTON WANTS RIGHT TO BREAK UP SUPERMARKETS
Peter Dutton is talking tough on supermarkets — vowing a Coalition government would reserve the right to force grocery giants to sell off stores if they keep price gouging, The Australian reports.
“The opposition leader on Tuesday sought to open a new front in the cost of living debate and take the fight to Labor and big business by proposing the new divestiture power for major players in the supermarket and hardware sectors with turnovers of more than $5 billion a year,” the story says.
As Crikey readers will know, the idea has long been championed by the Greens and Nationals — unlikely bedfellows when it comes to breaking up Australia’s supermarket duopoly.
The Liberals have been convinced to make the idea an election policy — and as The Sydney Morning Herald reports, long-time Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair Allan Fels has applauded the initiative.
‘‘It will ultimately be seen as a historic move towards the adoption of a discovery law that applies to all big business. This is normal in other countries,” he said.
It comes after Labor vowed to implement a code of conduct and fines for anti-competitive behaviour from supermarkets. The government has so far opposed the Coalition’s divestiture proposal, according to The Australian.
FEARS TRUMP WILL GET ‘KING’S’ POWERS
Donald Trump sceptics in the US are worried the former leader will be allowed to become a “king” following the Supreme Court’s decision saying presidents will enjoy “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution over acts interpreted as part of their “core” duties.
Per the news site Axios, Trump plans to “immediately test the boundaries of presidential and governing power, knowing the restraints of Congress and the courts are dramatically looser than during his first term”.
Trump would come into office, if elected, ready to wield state power against critics, “deport millions of people in the US illegally, slap 10% tariffs on thousands of products, and fire perhaps tens of thousands of government staff deemed insufficiently loyal”.
The court decision has emboldened him, the story says — and should he win the presidency again, even Democrats predict there would be a Republican majority in both the House and Senate.
Other stories would indicate a similar sentiment. “The president is now a king”, reads a headline in Mother Jones, while The Guardian writes in an opinion piece: “Was Donald Trump a king as president? The US Supreme Court thinks so”.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
Bad posture?
Turns out it’s nothing new. According to IFL Science, scribes from ancient Egypt were also cursed with office posture, if a new analysis of the skeletal remains is to be believed. Scientists analysed 30 scribes and 39 labourers (identified by their tomb style) and found that degeneration of the neck vertebrae was common.
“’In a typical scribe’s working position, the head had to be forward, and the spine flexed, changing the centre of gravity of the head and putting stress on the spine,’ the researchers write — a position that they note is ‘characteristic of many modern occupations.’”
I guess OH&S issues were the same 5,000 years ago — though I imagine the ancient scribes had less of an issue with cyberbullying.
Say What?
We cannot accept going into government if we cannot act.
Marine Le Pen
France’s National Rally party has vowed to only form a government if it wins an absolute majority on Sunday, when voters head back to the polls for a second round of voting. The far-right party got the most votes in the parliamentary election’s first round, but leading figure Marine Le Pen said it would be a “betrayal” of voters to claim power without a proper mandate, according to the Associated Press.
CRIKEY RECAP
“Having tried to overthrow the US government as president, Donald Trump has been rescued by the Supreme Court on the basis that, as Chief Justice John Roberts says, a president ‘may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts’.
That decision will not merely delay but significantly curtail any prosecution for Trump’s incitement of the insurrection on January 6, 2021, that tried to prevent Congress from declaring Joe Biden president. It’s certainly enough to prevent any trial before the 2024 election. Like Aaron Burr, Trump is off the hook.”
“In 2022, a NSW Department of Corrections staff member started an online chat with mSpy customer service. ‘Can i [sic] log into my partners [sic] device remotely or do I need to physically load into her phone,’ he asked.
A minute later, a staff member cheerfully advised that they would need access to the device for just five minutes but then ‘all the data monitored will be available through your online possible account’, according to the company’s internal chat logs.
mSpy is a software company that has sold phone and computer monitoring and tracking tools known as ‘stalkerware’ since 2010. A trove of mSpy customer data for users with Australian and New Zealand government email addresses shows how Australian state and local politicians, police, high-ranking members of government agencies, and ordinary public servants have used or intended to use this software.”
“After almost two years sporting a bright-orange ‘Guantanamo Bay prisoner suit’ to protest the imprisonment of Julian Assange, Matt Ó Branáin has a wardrobe problem following the WikiLeaks founder’s release.
‘I gave away most of my old clothes so I have to start again,’ said the New Zealander, who had also donned a sign in the style of an old police mugshot chalkboard around his neck with Assange’s UK prisoner number scrawled on it. Bristol-based Ó Branáin, 44, moved from Auckland to the UK in 2022 to support Assange. He had insisted that he wouldn’t stop wearing his ‘Gitmo’ suit until the journalist had regained his liberty.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Trump seeks to set aside New York hush money verdict hours after Supreme Court ruling (Associated Press)
Britain is broken. Can anyone fix it? (CNN)
Parents of missing Mexican students push for answers from López Obrador and Sheinbaum (NBC News)
Netanyahu privately showing openness to PA involvement in post-war Gaza (The Times of Israel)
Charity founder dies in Ukraine ‘battlefield’ (BBC)
At least 87 crushed to death at Hindu gathering in northern India (Agence France-Presse)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Euphoria felled by reality and scant ambition — I have seen what could be Labour’s future – Aditya Chakrabortty (The Guardian): “Take what follows as a parable, then a warning. An arm of British government has been in Tory hands for more years than residents care to remember. Having run the place into the ground, the blues do not repent. Rather than contrition, they offer belligerent arrogance. Surely, their opponents and critics think, surely voters will punish them? When the electoral fury doesn’t descend, a mood of political dejection starts to settle. Until one polling night, the Conservatives get the boot. At last! There are celebrations that evening. And when the newly elected Labour administration arrives for its first meeting, activists hand over roses. ‘Labour are red / Tories are sooo blue …’ reads the tag. ‘We trust our services / Return in-house with you!’
Are we in post-general election Britain this Thursday evening? No: this is two years ago, in Barnet, north London. May 2022 was a historic moment for the capital’s politics: a London borough that had never elected a Labour administration in its 57 years of existence finally flipped. The backyard of Margaret Thatcher, a local MP for her entire Commons career, adopted what she would have derided as socialism.”
I lie to my kids and they lie to me. Some secrets need keeping – Nova Weetman (SMH) ($): “When my son was nearing the end of primary school, he admitted that he’d known for many years that Santa was, in fact, just his parents sneaking around on Christmas Eve, and that he’d kept the ruse going because he hoped it meant double the presents.
At the time, I laughed and reassured him the present count wouldn’t change just because he’d busted me. But afterwards, it got me thinking about why I’d lied in the first place and why I’d kept it going for so long.
It wasn’t only the concept of Santa that I introduced to my children. I also wrote letters from fairies, left a coin under their pillows when they lost a tooth, and hid Easter eggs around the house. As soon as my children were old enough to believe, I began lying to them.”
