TIME AND PUNISHMENT
Australia could become an unrecognisable “public autocracy” if a national ICAC with teeth was established — according to Prime Minister Scott Morrison, that is. The PM told the SMH that the watchdog shouldn’t look at pork-barrelling in marginal seats, but rather focus on criminal activity, declaring rather theatrically that we can’t “hand government” to “faceless officials”, which would be “dangerous”. He told the paper he intends to dig his heels in over his watered-down model if he’s in the opposition after May, saying he wouldn’t compromise. Morrison has well and truly broken his 2019 election promise to establish a national integrity commission, after tabling the exposure draft bill in Parliament but not putting it up for a vote.
But his NSW counterpart Dominic Perrottet says comments like Morrison’s damage trust in NSW’s ICAC, continuing that he feels it plays an important role in upholding integrity and confidence in politics — even though the state ICAC claimed the scalps of his Liberal premier predecessors Gladys Berejiklian and Barry O’Farrell. It comes after ICAC commissioner Stephen Rushton called Morrison a “buffoon” — in a roundabout way, Guardian Australia reports. He told a parliamentary review anyone who called ICAC a kangaroo court was thus, continuing he found it offensive to the hard-working staff — and besides, ICAC isn’t even a court.
From kangaroo to chicken — an update on the raw chicken curry saga, folks. Morrison replied to the story in an interview, claiming “people went back for seconds” and that the chicken’s pink appearance “was just the way the light bounced off the skin”.
RATE EXPECTATIONS AND WEATHERING HEIGHTS
The Coalition has announced it would freeze the pension-deeming rate for two years if elected — meaning nearly a million retirees wouldn’t get a drop in payments because of the steeper-than-expected interest rate rise to 0.35% yesterday, the Herald Sun ($) reports. Major banks Commonwealth Bank, ANZ, and Westpac quickly followed suit and raised the variable mortgage rate from May 20, ABC adds. In real terms, RateCity reckons the average borrower with a $500,000 loan and 25 years remaining will see their repayments rise by $65 a month — or $130 for a $1 million loan. Interestingly neither CommBank nor ANZ confirmed what they’d do about their deposit rates — it could mean they won’t pass the hike in full onto millions of savings customers, which would be a bitter pill. So what can we expect moving forward? Reserve Bank of Australia’s Philip Lowe indicated rates would moderate at about 3% by 2024 — it’s somewhat at odds with his self-described “embarrassing” forecasts that rates would not rise until 2024, AFR reports.
Labor reckons the rate rise shows Scott Morrison’s economic credentials are “shredded”, but master-of-deflection Morrison says it’s indicative of our “journey out of the pandemic”, Guardian Australia reports. Indeed the SMH’s David Crowe says Morrison is boasting about his government’s “economic shield” in the wake of the hike, built out of low unemployment (due to drop to 3.5% this year), low taxes (30c in the dollar if you make $45,000-$200,000), and well-funded essential services. The problem, Crowe says? Labor Leader Anthony Albanese is promising the same.
Incidentally, Morrison was wedged on 3AW yesterday after pointing the finger at the pandemic and international pressures amid the interest rate hike. Neil Mitchell told the PM, “You’re doing it again. You’re telling me that interest rates have been low because of you, but now they’re going up you’re telling me it’s not because of you.” The question is, which is it?
A TALE OF ONE CITY
Dan Andrews’ Labor government in Victoria has handed down a big-spending budget, The Australian ($) reports, with $12 billion put aside for fixing Victoria’s health crisis. It’ll see the recruitment and training of thousands more nurses, paramedics, teachers, and police, the paper continues, while the state will also put $2.6 billion aside for the Commonwealth Games. It’s Treasurer Tim Pallas’ eighth budget, and he took the opportunity to accuse Morrison of “short-changing” Victorians — a line you may remember Andrews using too — indeed Pallas devoted an entire chapter of his Budget Paper No. 2 to “Victoria’s economic recovery despite insufficient economic support”. Ouch. OK — so where’s the evidence? Pallas pointed to Victoria’s share of infrastructure spending being 6% even though the state has 26% of the nation’s population, and of course, the GST carve-up which NSW is steaming at the ears about too, as Guardian Australia reports.
Picking up on the IBAC story again — that’s Victoria’s anti-corruption watchdog — a senior Victorian detective used cop powers after being paid to resolve personal disputes, IBAC alleges. In what sounds like the script of a new Underbelly season, Guardian Australia reports Wayne Dean allegedly used police stations to interview people, threatened to charge them with criminal offences, and used police databases. Yikes. Indeed he actually was allegedly associated with underworld figure Mick Gatto, the hearing heard yesterday. Dean will be back there today.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
A woman has smashed the world record for the most consecutive marathons — no fewer than 104 runs in 104 days. That means Jacky Hunt-Broersma, who is 46, has run at least 42km a day for over three months — and she’s done it all without her left leg. Hunt-Broersma is an amputee, and has been since 2002 following an illness. On Sunday, the mother-of-two woke up with the incredible knowledge that she’d set the new world record and finally had a lie-in, she tells BBC. She was happy to be done, but a part of her was like, maybe I’ll go for a run.
Hunt-Broersma says she only took up running in 2016 — once she got a taste of the longer distances and varied terrains of marathons, she was hooked. “I just threw myself in,” she says. And when she heard the female world record for running consecutive marathons was 101 (by a non-amputee, mind you), she thought — why not? “Yes totally crazy but I don’t do small goals,” she tweeted at the time. “We are always capable of more”. She raised a whopping $124,000 for charity Amputee Blade Runners along the way, and surprisingly stayed injury-free. She says running has shown her how strong both her mental health and body can be. “It gave me a total new acceptance of who I am and that I can do hard things”, she says.
Seems as good a mantra as any for your Wednesday morning.
SAY WHAT?
I reckon in the [Coalition] cabinet room there’s sour cream and sweet chilli sauce, there’s so many wedges there… This is more baloney than a New York deli.
Jason Clare
The opposition spokesperson for housing was doing his best Jerry Seinfeld impression yesterday with his food-based quips, with some saying he was sounding a little like former PM Paul Keating too.
CRIKEY RECAP
Me, Albo and the trolls: teen journalist Leo Puglisi makes a joke
“In a follow-up question, I asked [Anthony Albanese] what separates the ALP from the Liberals in terms of real policy differences, citing Albanese saying the party was not ditching offshore processing, it supported boat turn-backs, had made no commitment to an increase in JobSeeker payments if elected, and the fact that it would essentially abandon a previous plan to review the rate of unemployment benefits.
“Despite this, Albanese says he can’t understand why some voters — especially on the left — label Labor ‘Liberal lite’, and spoke about having ‘a plan’. Overall, the interview was polite, respectful and in-depth — like the one with the PM (although with fewer interruptions).”
Taylor’s obsession with failing, inflationary coal will help kill off AGL split
“Worse, coal-fired power prices are set to surge, driven by the global spike in energy prices. Households face significant electricity bill rises in coming quarters, adding further to cost-of-living pressures that have surged under Morrison.
“Those power price rises, from an increasingly unreliable power source, are partly the result of Scott Morrison and Angus Taylor’s repeated attempts to shackle Australia to coal, rather than accelerate the decarbonisation of the electricity grid, since Malcolm Turnbull’s ouster in 2018.”
News Corp’s new youth site patronises young people who just want good journalism
“A lexicon popularised by the US media giant in the mid-late 2000s, it entails: Using copious, often outdated slang terms. The Oz’s pages sport ‘clap back-ery’, ‘thirst trap’, God ‘slay’ the Queen, and more.
“Explaining political and economic phenomena via ill-fitting celebrity similes, as if this is the only way young people can understand anything. For instance, The Oz says wage growth has been ‘lower than Julia Fox’s jeans’ and inflation has made ‘the Rob Kardashian of vegetables [iceberg lettuce] more expensive than a coffee’.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Samson’s sacrifice: Malawian chief saves his community from floods (Al Jazeera)
[US] Supreme Court draft opinion would overturn Roe v Wade (CNN)
What would the end of Roe mean? Key questions and answers. (The New York Times)
Russia’s propaganda efforts in Ukraine a ‘lazy, half-baked failure’: study (news.com.au)
US job openings, total quits reach March records in tight labour market (The Wall Street Journal)
New Mexico crews battle largest wildfire burning in US as residents flee (The Guardian)
Auckland’s $2b cycle plan: Compulsory bike training in schools and bike subsidies (NZ Herald)
The European Union is set to ban Russian oil. Who is still buying it and who has stopped? (SBS)
Outcry in Shanghai as person declared dead and put in body bag found to be alive (The Guardian)
THE COMMENTARIAT
I was deputy leader of the Liberals. The party I served has lost its way — Fred Chaney (The Age): “Until 1995 I was a member of the Liberal party, and for 16 years a serving Liberal senator. I was a member of the frontbench for the majority of my years in the parliament and federal deputy leader from 1989 to 1990. The party I joined in 1958 proudly proclaimed that one of the distinctions between it and the Labor Party was that the primary obligation of a member of parliament was to the electorate, and that to cross the floor, unlike the tightly caucused Labor Party, was permitted on conscience issues.
“My concerns today are about Australian democracy. They relate to the lack of accountability in the government, the blatant pork barrelling, the use of public monies for party electoral advantage rather than the public interest, the pursuit of immediate political advantage rather than the long-term interests of the country, the daily focus on politics rather than good government, and the way the government is reactive rather than forward-looking. This government appears to be dragged kicking and screaming to policy positions that most sensible Australians would support — including on climate change. Does anyone really think the government is as serious about carbon reduction as the community or the business community?”
Locking climate targets into law to provide certainty — Zali Steggall (The Australian) ($): “Perhaps not surprisingly, the member for Goldstein, in his opinion piece on this page on Tuesday, wants to sow the seeds of confusion and fear about my climate policy, and to have you believe the Morrison-Joyce government has it covered when it comes to real action on climate change. The truth is Tim Wilson is out of step with science, business and the broader community. The Climate Change bill I propose sets up an internationally proven legislative framework to guide the economy to net-zero emissions by 2050.
“Britain has had this kind of law in effect since 2008. In part due to the law, emissions in Britain fell by 26 per cent between 2016 and 2019. By legislating, it has kept several UK governments focused through the global financial crisis, Brexit and the pandemic. They are now on track for 68 per cent emissions reduction by 2030, while growing their economy — an achievement which has been extolled by the OECD. As a result, Ireland, Germany, New Zealand, Mexico and France, to name a few, have followed suit with their own climate laws. This is all while Australia has been completely lost at sea. Through my Climate Change bill, which enshrines in law net zero by 2050, we can prevent backsliding.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Online
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Queer Eye’s Jonathan Van Ness will talk to writer Nevo Zisin about the former’s essay collection Love That Story: Observations from a Gorgeously Queer Life in a webinar from The Wheeler Centre.
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
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Federal Labor spokesperson for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen, Member for Warringah Zali Steggall, Power Ledger’s Jemma Green, and ACT Minister for Water, Energy and Emissions Reduction Shane Rattenbury will all speak at the Smart Energy Exhibition & Conference 2022.
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CEO of Sydney Monica Barone will give the keynote address to The Future City seminar, which addresses carbon, climate and societal crises.
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Labor’s Catherine Renshaw, The Green’s Heather Armstrong, independent Kylea Tink and more will be answering questions as the candidates for the federal seat of North Sydney.
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
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Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and opposition treasury spokesperson Jim Chalmers will take part in the 2022 Treasury Debate at the National Press Club.
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Democracy Sausage’s Mark Kenny and Policy Forum Pod’s Sharon Bessell and Arnagretta Hunter will explore the perils of policies during elections in a live recording at the China in the World Building.
