PACIFIC PLANS
Labor is promising more Pacific aid and climate action investment, as well as a revamp of Pacific Island worker programs in Australia, ABC reports. The package comes amid our crumbling foothold in the region as China and the Solomon Islands signed their ominous security deal. Labor’s Penny Wong will tell us more today in Darwin, but so far we know the deal would also include more maritime surveillance (maybe drones) to catch illegal fishing, a new Australia-Pacific Defence School that’ll train personnel from the region, and more funding for ABC to broadcast in the Pacific, The Australian ($) continues.
Wong will point the finger directly at Prime Minister Scott Morrison, saying his complacency allowed the dangerous security deal — which could see a Chinese military base just 2000km from Australia — to be signed, Guardian Australia reports. The red-faced Morrison government weren’t aware of the deal until the draft was released on social media, but as Crikey delved into, it was a disaster long in the making.
Hey, speaking of the broadcaster and Labor — ABC news presenter Fauziah Ibrahim has taken a break after eagle-eyed Twitter users accused her of anti-Labor bias, SMH reports. ABC’s strict social media policy stipulates staff must remain impartial, and management is reviewing her Twitter account. So what happened? Basically, Ibrahim created two public-facing lists — one called Lobotomised Shitheads and the other Labor Trolls/Thugs — and added a whole lot of Labor supporters. Feels like a long bow, but Labor supporters have also accused her of talking over Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese in a recent interview.
H2 FLOW
Prime Minister Scott Morrison will pledge two new hydrogen hubs in Townsville and Gladstone today — though the Gladstone one was already announced in the budget, the AFR adds. According to Morrison, they’ll see more than 5700 new jobs created when operational, the paper adds. It comes as a new report has found there’ll be a jobs boom when we close our fleet of coal-fired power plants and replace them with earth-friendly wind, solar, and batteries, according to the Australian Conservation Foundation. It found if Australia chose to power one million homes with new rooftop solar systems using panels and batteries, it would create more than 26,000 construction jobs, but if we chose new coal plants instead, there’d be just 4000 new jobs, The New Daily reports.
But if it seems like climate hasn’t come up much this election cycle so far, you’re right. Morrison and Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese did not mention climate change once in their debates, the SMH reports, while Crikey found per iSentia data that the media is barely talking about it at all — as a topic it’s come up the 7th, 6th, and 5th most in coverage. And yet the Lowy Institute recently found that two-thirds of Australians believe climate change is a massive and evolving problem and the government should begin to take steps now, “even if this involves significant costs”.
A MATTER OF INTEGRITY
A Sydney mayor of two decades has stepped down as the NSW corruption watchdog begins hearings into allegations of dodgy dealings, the SMH reports. Canada Bay Mayor Angelo Tsirekas says he did not use his position to help developers in return for international flights and money — NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) is also looking into an allegation Tsirekas didn’t declare a conflict of interest in Sydney’s inner west, including in Drummoyne and Rhodes.
In Queensland, teachers and education bureaucrats have been told via a video message from the new department boss to dob in their colleagues as part of a new integrity push, The Courier Mail ($) reports. The Education Department’s new director-general Michael De’Ath says it has a “zero-tolerance approach to fraud and corruption”, naming undeclared gifts, nepotism in staff hiring, and fear-based work cultures as things to flag. The Sunshine State has been grappling with an integrity crisis of late — a four-month investigation into the public sector’s integrity has already unearthed accusations of ministerial staff overreach, lobbyist influence, and instructions to sanitise information for ministers, ABC reports.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
Twentieth-century names like George Orwell and The Wright Brothers feel so embedded in history that they can take on an almost larger-than-life quality. But they burped, scratched, paid bills, snacked, and took part in all the other milieu of mundanity that all of us do — it was just a long time ago. Or was it? This week, the oldest living person in the world Kane Tanaka died — Tanaka was born in 1903 in Japan, the same year as Orwell, and around the time the Wright Brothers first took flight. The supercentenarian married husband Hideo 100 years ago and the pair had four children (Hideo passed away in 1993). Check out this supersweet photo of Tanaka on her 119th birthday (her last) courtesy of her great-granddaughter.
Japan actually has the longest-living population in the world. So how do they do it? One study suggests the Japanese common diet is a big reason — they don’t eat many animal products like red meat and dairy, nor a lot of sugar, fruit, or potatoes — instead preferring fish, rice, soybeans and green tea. A great healthcare system aside, it seems mindfulness has a role too, in Tanaka’s case anyway — in 2021, her grandson told CNN Tanaka doesn’t talk about the past, and instead “really enjoys living in the present”. Tanaka enjoyed her last years solving maths problems and doing calligraphy — in 2019, she described herself as happier than she had ever been, BBC says.
Hoping you feel a little gratitude this morning folks.
SAY WHAT?
We shouldn’t take for granted the sacrifice that was made by the ANZACs. We have to be realistic that people like Hitler and others aren’t just a figment of our imagination or that they’re consigned to history. We have, in President Putin at the moment, somebody who is willing to kill women and children. That’s happening in the year 2022.
Peter Dutton
The defence minister invoked Nazi Germany in an interview with Nine yesterday to mark ANZAC Day, continuing that China was on a “very deliberate course” and the only way to preserve peace is to prepare for war, prompting host Karl Stefanovic to question Dutton’s “provocative” language.
CRIKEY RECAP
Climate is being ignored, especially by the ABC — and the loudest voice is of denialists
“And the loudest voice in climate coverage in the election campaign? News Corp commentators have long attacked the ABC for being obsessed with climate issues, but in fact it is News Corp that has the highest volume of coverage. In the last seven days, according to Isentia, 12% of News Corp’s election coverage — bearing in mind it is the dominant media company and operates across television, print and online — was devoted to climate, compared to 8% of the ABC’s.
“In fact, the ABC devotes little attention to climate: the cost of living and Medicare have been the two biggest issues in the ABC’s election coverage, as they have been for News Corp. A federal ICAC, and the Solomons debacle, were the next two most frequent subjects for the ABC.”
Who is winning the TikTok election? Both parties are trying but it’s voter content that hits home
“Australia’s biggest official political TikTok belongs to Labor’s Julian Hill who built an audience of nearly 150,000 followers off point of view vlog-style videos and highlights of his speeches in federal parliament. The ALP launched an account a year ago sharing highlights of their own members and lowlights of their opposition …
“In the week before the election, the Liberal Party also created an account to post meme-heavy videos. Its content has a “How Do You Do Fellow Kids” vibe to them, existing in the uncanny valley where they appropriate popular meme formats but don’t feel quite right. Unlike their success on Facebook, almost none of the Liberal Party content has gone viral.”
Hillsong founding member blows the whistle on hypocrisy and cover-ups, as the unravelling continues
“One of Hillsong’s founding figures has blown the whistle on the church’s culture, alleging that senior members knew of the sexual ‘deviance’ of founder Frank Houston for years before it became publicly known. The allegations have been made by Geoff Bullock, who worked alongside Frank Houston and his son, the now disgraced Brian Houston, in establishing the original Hillsong church branch in north-west Sydney in 1983. Bullock left the church in 1995 and has maintained his silence since …
“… Bullock said senior pastors were aware of the allegations in the early 1990s. He also said that Brian Houston had told him about the allegations before Bullock left Hillsong in 1995. Despite, allegedly, being aware of Frank Houston’s behaviour — amounting to a serious moral transgression, as the church deems it — no action was taken to remove him from the ministry.”
THE COMMENTARIAT
PM’s failure to invest in medical training has hurt us — Anthony Albanese (The Australian) ($): “Across the nation, our hospitals, aged-care facilities, community health centres and local medical practices are crying out for medical staff. Visit any public hospital in the country today and you’ll hear a lot of different accents. While the services of these caring workers are welcome and very much appreciated, it shouldn’t have to be like this. We should be training up Australians to meet our medical workforce needs. The same goes for other caring roles such as aged-care workers and child carers. That’s why a Labor government will deliver 465,000 fee-free TAFE places and 20,000 new university places in areas of workforce need.
“We’ll train up the next generation of nurses and carers to ensure Australia has the health workforce it needs. In doing so we will give thousands of Australians the skills they will need to find good, secure jobs and fulfilling careers. And we’ll support and fund higher pay for aged-care workers. Earlier in the campaign, I announced Labor’s plan to establish 50 emergency medical clinics where patients with non-life-threatening medical problems will be able to receive bulk-billed care. Under the plan, existing medical practices and community health services will be able to bid for the extra funding to offer the new emergency services, which would operate seven days a week from 8am to 10pm.”
An Australian War Memorial sponsored by weapons dealers is no place for quiet reflection on Anzac Day — Paul Daley (Guardian Australia): “It is drifting closer to becoming some military Disneyland, with an unnecessary $500 million expansion so it might display more military hardware and stage exhibitions on contemporary conflicts before their impact can be properly assessed. It is steadily evolving into a place of entertainment, rather than reflection, that boastfully celebrates combat triumph and blokey derring-do — not least in terms of its questionable hot-takes on Australia’s failed Afghan mission and continued uncritical deification of special forces at a time when those units are mired in potentially existential moral/legal quagmires.
“In recent years there has been a global renaissance in the way all sorts of collecting institutions tell their stories and face the often unpalatable truths about some objects in their collections and the histories behind them. This renaissance extends to an ever more prudent consideration of who sits on their management boards and, critically, their sources of sponsorship. But it often seems as if the war memorial — at once, uniquely, a war museum, a secular shrine of remembrance and archive since it opened in 1941 — is determinedly culturally retrograde when it comes to questions of historical truth-telling and fundraising.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Turkish court sentences activist Osman Kavala to life in prison (Al Jazeera)
Judge holds Trump in contempt over documents in New York AG’s inquiry (The New York Times)
Russia expels 40 German diplomats in tit-for-tat move (Al Jazeera)
US climate activist dies after setting himself on fire outside supreme court (The Guardian)
Elon Musk to buy Twitter in $44 billion deal (CNN)
France election: Macron faces immediate challenges to power after victory (BBC)
Trudeau calls public inquiry into use of Emergencies Act during convoy protests (CBC)
‘Like a football idol’: Bolsonaro claws back support after poor COVID response (The Guardian)
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Online
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Writer Marieke Hardy will be in conversation with comedian Hannah Gadsby discussing the latter’s new book, Ten Steps To Nanette.
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Former PM Kevin Rudd will discuss his new book, The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict Between the US and Xi Jinping’s China, at The Capitol.
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
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NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet and Health Minister Brad Hazzard will be at the opening of the Sony Foundation’s You Can youth cancer centre at the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse, along with youth cancer survivor and advocate Elliot Prasad.
Kaurna Country (also known as Adelaide)
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Former foreign minister and Australian National University chancellor Julie Bishop will speak at a business luncheon held by the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce.
