AEMO WARNS ABOUT SHORTAGES
The country’s energy supply has been leading the news overnight, with the ABC, Guardian Australia and The Australian picking up on the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO)’s latest forecast on supplies as the country attempts to shift away from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
The ABC says AEMO has scaled back its warnings about the risk of power shortages but also warned reliability across the eastern states could still be hit if there are delays in major generation and transmission projects as coal and gas-fired power stations close. Guardian Australia highlights AEMO’s chief executive, Daniel Westerman, saying it’s critical that investments in new solar, wind, batteries, pumped hydro and transmission links are all delivered as proposed. “We know the investment’s there. It’s just got to get delivered in generation, in transmission, in storage,” he said.
Meanwhile, The Australian reports a potential shortfall in reliable supply could hit power users from this summer once major coal stations close in NSW and Victoria, unless new energy supplies are developed. The paper quotes AEMO as saying in its annual report: “If only those projects already committed or anticipated proceed, and if risks of commissioning delays eventuate as they have in recent years, reliability gaps are forecast in Victoria, NSW, and South Australia.” That risk underscores the need for taxpayer-funded federal and state government schemes to deliver new renewable generation projects, AEMO said.
The Albanese government has set a target of Australia running on 82% renewable energy by 2030, while Opposition Leader Peter Dutton wants a pivot to nuclear.
Speaking of the Albanese government, the AAP reports this morning on the continuing fallout from the decision not to include gender and sexuality in the 2026 census. Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles told reporters yesterday: “We are doing that because we do not want to open up divisive debates in the community now.” In response, Equality Australia CEO Anna Brown declared: “How counting the queer community in the next census could possibly be responsible for a lack of social cohesion is preposterous at best and victim-blaming at worst.” LGBTQI+ Health Australia chief executive Nicky Bath told AAP: “We’re too often political footballs, rather than being seen as human beings who have health and wellbeing needs. We’re at a critical junction and a data crisis.”
Marles also finds himself prominent in the ABC’s coverage this morning following the broadcaster’s freedom of information request into the defence minister’s second office in Geelong. The ABC reports the space is just 240 metres from his existing office and came at a cost to the taxpayer of more than $600,000. A spokesperson for Marles said the dual offices were within the guidelines set by the Finance Department.
Elsewhere, the AAP flags Commonwealth Bank chief executive Matt Comyn and Westpac head Peter King will appear before the House of Representatives standing committee on economics today, with NAB and ANZ executives set to appear tomorrow. The big four banks control around 80% of the Australian banking sector and Labor MP Daniel Mulino, the committee’s chair, said interest rate decisions would be a key focus of the inquiry this week.
TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
In world news, the FBI revealed on Wednesday that the gunman in the assassination attempt on Donald Trump looked online for events for both the Republican presidential nominee and current Democrat President Joe Biden, the Associated Press reports. Special agent Kevin Rojek said Thomas Matthew Crooks also repeatedly searched for information about explosives and saw the campaign rally where he opened fire last month as a “target of opportunity”, AP said.
The FBI analysis of Crooks’ online search history revealed a “sustained, detailed effort to plan an attack on some event, meaning he [Crooks] looked at any number of events or targets”, Rojek said, adding the suspect became “hyper-focused on that specific event” once a Trump rally was announced in Butler, Pennsylvania.
In terms of a motive, the FBI official added: “We have a clear idea of mindset, but we are not ready to make any conclusive statements regarding motive at this time.”
The Washington Post highlights an interview Trump gave to Phil McGraw, the US talk show host known as Dr Phil, in which without evidence he suggested Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris had made it more difficult for the Secret Service to better protect him.
The paper says Trump declared during the interview: “When this happened, people would ask, ‘whose fault is it?’ I think to a certain extent it’s Biden’s fault and Harris’ fault. And I’m the opponent. Look, they were weaponising government against me, they brought in the whole DOJ to try and get me, they weren’t too interested in my health and safety. They were making it very difficult to have proper staffing in terms of Secret Service.”
In lighter world events, the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games has just taken place in Paris. The BBC reports over 4,000 athletes made their way along the Champs-Elysees to Place de la Concorde.
The first medal of the games is set to be awarded on Thursday Paris time, with the games concluding on September 8.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
In every parent’s worst fear, a four-year-old boy knocked over and smashed a Bronze Age vase in a museum in Haifa, Israel, last week.
The boy’s father, Alex, told the BBC his son had pulled the ancient jar towards him as he was “curious about what was inside” but unfortunately the move resulted in the 3,500-year-old artifact tipping over and smashing into pieces. The jar had been displayed without glass protection because the Hecht Museum believes in a “special charm” of showing finds “without obstructions”, the BBC said.
Alex told The Guardian: “My initial reaction was denial. I couldn’t believe it was my son who did it.” After calming their upset child down Alex and his wife confessed to a security guard what had happened.
To their surprise, the museum invited them back for another visit. Director Inbal Rivlin said in a statement the family’s next trip would be an organised tour. “There are instances where display items are intentionally damaged, and such cases are treated with great severity, including involving the police. In this case, however, this was not the situation. The jar was accidentally damaged by a young child visiting the museum, and the response will be accordingly,” Rivlin said.
The BBC said a conservation specialist has been appointed to restore the jar, with the plan to return the item to its spot in the museum “in a short time”.
Say What?
This has been the meanest council ever. I am off. You are so mean, you are so mean, you are so mean.
Jilly Gibson
The former North Sydney mayor’s final council meeting ended in rather spectacular fashion on Monday night, The Sydney Morning Herald reported, with Gibson unhappy at councillors’ decision to vote against naming a plaza after her.
CRIKEY RECAP
A Fox Sports executive ran a secret social media account that attacked current and former colleagues, rivals, journalists, athletes and political figures, and posted crass, sexist and racist content.
Foxtel’s general manager of Fox Cricket Matthew Weiss used an X account, with the handle @RealRagingBull, to call Australian sports and media industry figures names including “toothless ice head”, “spastic” and “mediawhore”. The account also requested women start OnlyFans accounts and compared multiple Black women’s appearance to Chewbacca.
Crikey understands that it was an open secret among some Fox Sports staff that Weiss was behind the account. Weiss deleted the account in 2021, but remains in a high-profile position in spite of the companies’ policies around social media use.
While Tourism Australia was cutting 10% of its workforce due to budget restraints last year, the agency sent the executive whose team was most affected by the redundancies on a trip to the French Riviera at a cost of more than $66,000, Crikey can reveal.
Crikey reported in June that chief marketing officer Susan Coghill and two colleagues tuned in to a Zoom meeting called to discuss the job cuts, using generic backgrounds on the video call, before managing director Phillipa Harrison let slip that “Susan is in Cannes”, to the frustration of team members back home who were about to be laid off. Most of the redundancies were in Coghill’s own marketing team.
At the time, Tourism Australia refused to answer questions about how much the trip cost and whether the trio flew there in business class or not.
Now, using documents obtained under Australia’s freedom of information law, Crikey can reveal they did indeed fly business class, at a total travel cost of $34,143.
But the risk for Labor is that the slew of allegations of corruption and criminal infiltration of the CFMEU end up going the same way as so many others have.
After all, the Abbott government launched an entire royal commission, led by Dyson Heydon at a cost of $46 million, directed at the trade union movement in an effort to damage both unions and then Labor leader Bill Shorten.
But over and over again, the prosecutions that flowed from the royal commission either fell in a heap, were abandoned, or led to not guilty verdicts. That includes the spectacular implosion at the committal hearing stage of the prosecution of John Setka and former colleague Shaun Reardon for blackmail, when it was discovered that a Boral executive’s claims of being threatened by the pair had been invented a year after the meeting.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Photos of European influencers used to push pro-Trump propaganda on fake X accounts (CNN)
Israeli forces kill at least 10 Palestinians in West Bank raids and strikes (The Guardian)
Telegram founder Pavel Durov released from police custody to face questioning after arrest in France (New York Post)
Swiss court convicts two executives of embezzling $1.8bn from 1MDB (Al Jazeera)
Travis and Jason Kelce sign $100m podcast deal (BBC)
UK’s Starmer wants to ‘turn a corner on Brexit’. What does that mean? (The New York Times) ($)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Style-wise, Adam Bandt’s press club address was straight out of the Donald Trump playbook — Jacob Greber (ABC): From the opening sentence, Bandt’s speech was chock-a-block with Trump’s favourite rhetorical flourishes — led by catastrophism and conspiracy.
“People”, Bandt declared from the outset, “are drowning”.
“Millions of people are falling further and further behind.”
While Bandt may not have gone as far as Trump’s famous 2017 inauguration day “American carnage” address, the vibe is unmistakably similar.
“Millions of people are being robbed, fleeced and plundered by big corporations and billionaires in a heist facilitated and enabled by the politicians from Labor and the Liberals,” said Bandt.
Trump super-charged his populist appeal on the road to the White House in 2016 and his failed bid four years later by declaring the political system “rigged” against ordinary Americans. Bandt used the term repeatedly on Wednesday.
Labor losing ground on left and right — Jennifer Hewett (AFR): It’s the double threat from both the right and the left being triggered by the Greens at a time when Labor’s hold on the centre ground of Australian politics is faltering badly.
The Greens, of course, are almost a caricature of political bait and switch when it comes to focusing a sense of community grievance — including blaming big business price gouging for cost of living pressures and the Labor government for not caring.
Now they are in government, Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers can no longer rely on promising simplistic answers to problems without having to deliver results in practice.
