REX BAILOUT OR BUYER?
A potential government bailout for the troubled airline Rex could require a government representative taking a seat on the company’s board, the AAP is quoting experts as saying this morning, while the AFR claims any potential buyer for Regional Express would need to be willing to invest significantly to update the airline’s ageing fleet.
Rex appointed Ernst & Young Australia as administrators this week and halted its domestic 737 services, while regional services remain operational. According to Transport Minister Catherine King, the government is working with administrators to ensure Rex’s “absolutely vital” regional presence continues, with Helen Bird of Swinburne University claiming any government involvement, in particular funding, could require conditions allowing some control in the boardroom.
Virgin Australia has been quick to claim it is not a potential buyer of Rex, with chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka telling the AFR: “We flew regional aircraft prior to the pandemic and that was really tough business for us. We didn’t have the right business model for it.” Staff have been warned that more than 600 jobs are at risk, the paper adds.
As the government spent yesterday responding to questions about Rex and the state of the economy after what Treasurer Jim Chalmers called “sticky and stubborn” inflation figures, it also tried to announce a new $371m package in response to the disability royal commission, Guardian Australia reports. The government’s response was met with dismay by advocate groups though, the AAP says, after the Commonwealth accepted in full only 13 of the 222 recommendations for which it has full or joint responsibility.
Disability Australia interim president Marayke Jonkers told the national newswire the government’s plan was insufficient and lacked a proper time frame. She called for every suggestion from the report to be accepted and warned that unless urgent action was taken to make society more inclusive, Australians with disabilities would be left to suffer.
CLOSING THE GAP
Malarndirri McCarthy, the new minister for Indigenous Australians, has expressed her deep concern at the news the first Closing the Gap report since the voice referendum has shown the number of First Nations peoples imprisoned, taking their own life and losing children to out-of-home care have all increased, Guardian Australia reports.
The AAP says only five of 19 Closing the Gap targets are on track to be met, according to the Productivity Commission’s Annual Data Compilation Report.
Responding to the news, McCarthy said in a statement: “These figures are deeply troubling, but I am determined to work in partnership with First Nations Australians, the Coalition of Peaks and state and territory governments to bring about positive change. I will be reaching out to my colleagues across the Parliament to seek a bipartisan approach to Indigenous affairs.”
Meanwhile, the ABC is reporting on the ongoing dispute between the government and the Australian Federal Police Association (AFPA) over a pay deal as new stats show a record number of threats against elected officials have been registered.
The AFP said over 1,000 reports of harassment, nuisance, and offensive and threatening communications have been made against parliamentarians over the past financial year, compared to 555 threats in 2021-22, and 709 in 2022-23.
AFPA president Alex Caruana urged the government to offer a better pay deal, adding: “It would be foolish to tell my members to not look after a member of Parliament or a member of the population. We are not going to ask our members to do something that will endanger someone’s life. My members would literally take a bullet for a politician … We are expecting the government to respect our members are taking the blows for the politicians so nobody else does.”
Speaking of pay increases, Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance members at Nine Entertainment yesterday accepted an 11.5% pay increase over three years, The Australian reports, after 500 journalists at the company’s newspapers staged a five-day strike which coincided with the start of the Olympic Games.
In Paris overnight flag bearer Jess Fox became the most successful Australian Olympian of all time in individual events after winning her sixth career gold medal, with victory in the C1 canoe slalom. BMX rider Natalya Diehm won a bronze as did trap shooter Penny Smith. At the time of writing Australia is sitting fourth overall in the medal table.
Also of note was the fact the triathlon events actually went ahead in the River Seine, with an extraordinary comeback staged by Great Britain’s Alex Yee in the men’s event. The Guardian quotes Antoine Guillou, a deputy mayor in charge of waste, as saying: “We have reversed the tide of history, more than 100 years of history during which the Seine was considered almost as a sewer. That is an enormous satisfaction for us. We had a bet and it paid off. A symbolic line has been crossed.”
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
As the Paris Olympics fully gets into the swing of things, it’s worth revisiting a tale you may have missed from the opening ceremony amid all the hot takes (my Crikey colleague Charlie Lewis has compiled some of them here for your reading pleasure).
Spare a thought for the reigning men’s high jump Olympic champion Gianmarco Tamberi who issued a hell of an apology to his wife after losing his wedding ring during the much-discussed ceremony. The BBC recalls how the 32-year-old Italian was waving his country’s flag on board a boat sailing down the River Seine when his wedding ring slipped off his finger.
The Independent reports Tamberi, who memorably shared his gold medal with Mutaz Barshim of Qatar at the last Olympics, said in his statement: “I’m sorry my love, I’m so sorry. Too much water, too many kilograms lost in the past few months or maybe the uncontrollable enthusiasm of what we were doing. Probably all three things, just the fact that I heard it, I saw it fly… I followed her with a glance until I saw her bouncing inside the boat.
“A glimmer of hope… But unfortunately the bounce was in the wrong direction and floating more than a thousand times in the air I saw her dive into the water like that was the only place she wanted to be. A few moments that lasted an eternity. But if it was meant to happen, if I’m really going to lose this faith, I couldn’t imagine a better place. It will stay forever in the riverbed of the city of love, flown away while I tried to carry the Italian tricolour as high as possible during the opening ceremony of the most important sporting event in the world.”
Tamberi suggested his wife should also throw her ring in the river and then they could renew their vows.
Say What?
Lack of talent, lazy, Olympic champions.
Simone Biles
(This appears to be becoming something of an Olympics edition, but…) The gymnastics legend secured her fifth Olympic gold medal on Tuesday and subsequently took to Instagram to post a thinly veiled retort to those who dared to question her team. The 27-year-old wrote the six-word caption to accompany a picture of her with her teammates on the podium. The Guardian said the caption was a response to former US gymnast MyKayla Skinner who earlier this year criticised the US team.
CRIKEY RECAP
Between housing, tobacco and alcohol and insurance — not to mention private health insurance premia — governments are responsible for a substantial proportion of the “sticky” inflation that hawks believe justifies further interest rate increases. Housing, insurance and fuel are all areas where the Reserve Bank could lift rates to double digits and there’d still be no impact on demand beyond more homeless Australians — people have to live somewhere, they have to get to work, they have to insure their homes and cars, or risk financial catastrophe.
The argument in response from inflation hawks is too bad, that just means the RBA should lift rates even higher so that other areas of demand are crushed so mercilessly that disinflation sets in and reduces the overall CPI movement. Or, as similar people described it in Vietnam, destroying the village in order to save it.
The only persistent aspect of competition in Australian aviation, however, is the effort of Qantas to destroy it. There are allegations from politicians as well as Rex itself that Qantas aggressively moved into some Rex regional routes at below-cost levels as punishment for Rex challenging Qantas and Virgin on major city routes. We know from Geoff Culbert, now president of the Business Council, that Qantas blocks competition by slot hoarding and then cancelling flights. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission extracted a $100 million fine and compensation from Qantas — which initially confected high dudgeon at the mere suggestion of misconduct — for lying to customers and selling tickets to flights it never planned to operate.
Rex is the government’s chance to terrify Qantas and curtail its gouging, lying and rorting. Labor should avoid the Morrison government’s mistake of giving taxpayer money to an airline without using it to acquire an equity stake — the $2.7 billion that taxpayers gifted Qantas during the pandemic would have purchased up to one-third of the airline’s capitalisation, depending on when it was taken in the early stages of the pandemic. Its bailout of Rex should involve taking a substantial equity stake, with the aim of the airline continuing to operate major city services as well as its regional network.
That would outrage Qantas, but continue to put competitive pressure on it to stop its gouging and anticompetitive conduct, with the threat that the government could increase its investment in Rex and expand its capital city operations in the future.
“Cooked” is a term commonly used by Australian journalists when reflecting on the current state of the industry. There is an abiding sense of unease in every major newsroom, not helped by continuing inflation driving down an already soft advertising market. Some companies, like Seven West Media, are more exposed than others to these challenges — but Nine’s recent mass layoffs show no-one is safe.
So how cooked is the media industry? In this instalment of Crikey’s Paint By Numbers, we bring you the key data points so you can figure it out yourself.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Iran vows to avenge killing of Hamas political leader Haniyeh (BBC)
UK leader accuses far right of hijacking a town’s grief after killing of three children sparks violence (Associated Press)
Unrest at army bases highlights a long battle for Israel’s soul (The New York Times) ($)
Former BBC newsreader Huw Edwards pleads guilty to making indecent images of children (Sky News)
Ukraine says it repelled one of Russia’s largest drone attacks of war (Reuters)
Venice cuts size of tourist parties to 25 to reduce impact on city (The Guardian)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Inflation on the rise again as Labor’s political problems continue — Simon Benson (The Australian): The RBA governor made it clear that the level of state and federal government debt and spending was a primary concern of the bank and that she was determined to do whatever it took to get the job done. The question now is how quickly Bullock wants to finish the job.
Again, most economists expect that the bank will wait. What this means is that Anthony Albanese and Chalmers are unlikely to be getting any rate cuts this side of an election.
There is no good news in these numbers other than they aren’t worse.
My sculpture was beheaded. Here’s why I’m not fixing it — Shahzia Sikander (The Washington Post): At 3am on July 8, a man with a hammer decapitated an 18-foot sculpture of a woman at the University of Houston. I made this sculpture, and I called it “Witness” as an allegory of the power — or rather the lack of power — that women are accorded within the justice system.
In an unexpected way, “Witness” has lived up to its name.
As the artist who created the work, I have chosen not to repair it. I want to leave it beheaded, for all to see. The work is now a witness to the fissures in our country.
