ISRAEL TO TIE UP ‘LOOSE END’
The caveats we mentioned yesterday about Israel not yet agreeing to the Gaza ceasefire amid the celebrations and credit-claiming have become the leading narrative this morning with Israel delaying its cabinet vote on the deal.
On Thursday, Israel accused Hamas of attempting to change the terms of the ceasefire, which Hamas has denied. Meanwhile, Palestinian authorities said Israeli air strikes overnight killed 77 people in Gaza, Reuters reports.
The Israeli cabinet meeting and vote will now happen on Friday (local time), an official told AFP, with the proposed ceasefire in the Gaza Strip set to begin on Sunday as planned, outgoing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday, despite the need for a “loose end” to be tied up at the last minute.
Reuters quotes a US official as saying the dispute involves the identities of several prisoners Hamas is demanding be released. The newswire also reports Hamas senior official Izzat el-Reshiq has said the group remains committed to the deal.
As the Israeli cabinet meeting was postponed, aid trucks sat at the Egyptian border waiting to cross into the Gaza Strip. The proposed deal involves 600 truckloads of humanitarian aid being allowed into Gaza every day of the ceasefire.
The Guardian reports that at his final press conference ahead of the second Trump administration, Blinken said: “I’ve been on the phone in one way or another all morning with [White House Middle East adviser] Brett McGurk, with our Qatari friends [Qatar acted as one of the main mediators], and I’m very confident that we will [see this] moving forward, and that we’ll see the start of the implementation of the agreement on Sunday.”
The BBC says the press conference was interrupted on numerous occasions by hecklers who told Blinken he was a “war criminal” whose legacy is genocide.
On Wednesday evening, outgoing US President Joe Biden delivered his final address to the nation in which he declared: “Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.”
Donald Trump’s inauguration is happening on Monday.
UNEMPLOYMENT IMPACT
Yesterday’s unemployment data generated plenty of headlines overnight after the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed the country’s unemployment rate for the month of December edged up to 4%.
The ABC reports that the unemployment rate rose “only because more people are looking for work”, while the Australian Financial Review flagged 56,300 people found work last month, “smashing expectations for gains of just 15,000”.
The national broadcaster said the increase in labour force participation led to the number of unemployed people increasing by 10,000, with the employment-to-population ratio reaching a new high of 64.5%.
What all this means for the economy and the chances of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) cutting interest rates next month as we head into the election cycle madness very much depends on who you ask.
HSBC Australia chief economist Paul Bloxham told the ABC: “This is good news for the economy in the sense that we are at a record high for employment to population, the unemployment rate is low and lots of job creation is going on. But it really does mean that it becomes less likely the RBA will be able to cut interest rates.”
Diana Mousina, deputy chief economist at AMP, declared: “Even though the unemployment rate is low, the central bank may conclude that a rate cut is needed to help the economy as the solid labour market data stands at odds with the broader slowdown in the economy, as measured by GDP. But, given that today’s employment data was solid across the board (which doesn’t argue the case that a rate cut is needed to support the economy), it is still unclear if a rate cut will occur in February.”
The financial market traders are still betting there’s a roughly 70% chance of a rate cut next month, while over at the AFR the paper is keen to flag “economists say there is no urgency for the Reserve Bank of Australia to deliver a pre-election cash rate cut in February”.
And then JP Morgan’s Ben Jarman is quoted by the AAP as saying: “With NAIRU [non‑accelerating inflation rate of unemployment] probably in the low fours and inflation tracking back inside the band, the RBA’s forward-looking approach should see it comfortable to start a relatively shallow, measured easing cycle, to lock-in some gains in the labour market.”
On top of all of that, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has added: “This is the soft landing that we are seeking, that we are delivering.”
So, anyone any clearer on whether the chances of an interest rate cut have increased or decreased? No, me neither.
On the issue of cost of living, the Nine newspapers flag Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is due to speak at the National Press Club next week and will no doubt be asked about the state of the economy, the upcoming election, his opposite number Peter Dutton (who this week he called “cold-hearted, mean-spirited [and] sometimes just plain nasty”), the new US president and everything in between.
Yesterday Dutton followed Albanese to Tasmania and pretty much mirrored the PM in promising extra funding, bashing the other side, and saying he offers the best future for the country. Speaking a day after Albanese, Dutton said the Coalition’s energy policy, which includes nuclear power, would lower energy prices, The Mercury reports.
“We need a good energy policy, which we put forward. And you need to make sure the reckless spending stops,” he said. “At the moment, the federal government is spending money like a drunken sailor, and that’s what’s keeping upwards pressure on inflation.”
By the way, you can read what my colleagues Bernard Keane and Glenn Dyer think of Dutton’s nuclear promises in a piece earlier in the week, rather notably headlined “Dutton’s new nuclear nightmare: Construction costs continue to explode”.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
If you’re a fan of the TV show Breaking Bad, and have a spare US$4 million (A$6.5 million) burning a hole in your pocket, then I’ve got just the house for you.
Walter White’s Albuquerque family home is up for sale with the real estate agents calling it “a symbol of cinematic storytelling”.
“We recognised clearly that the pop culture significance of it was going to afford a price tag that was not going to be in relationship to what a normal home in that particular neighbourhood might go for,” real estate agent David Christensen told The Washington Post.
Apparently, if its exterior hadn’t been used in the award-winning show, the property would have been listed at around $350,000 rather than the eye-watering US$4 million.
Another real estate agent, Alicia Feil, who previously tried and failed to sell the home of Aaron Paul’s character Jesse Pinkman for US$1.5 million, warned the connection to Breaking Bad could actually lower the property’s value.
Due to things like visiting fans “it ends up being more of a nuisance to own those homes than an excitement,” she claimed.
Still, if you’re a mega fan, you have the cash, and you want to float in the famous pool or throw pizzas on the roof, I say go for it. And if you find yourself later walking around mumbling “Say my name” to yourself, maybe think about quickly moving out.
Say What?
Countries have looked at Australia as an inspiration for the way it treats asylum seekers and refugees and that is really diabolical.
Daniela Gavshon
Human Rights Watch’s Australian director spoke to Guardian Australia following its report which criticised Australia’s asylum seeker treatment and its “appalling” youth crime laws.
CRIKEY RECAP
But for most Western politicians and the media, a ceasefire will be a relief. Many right-wingers, including Peter Dutton and the Coalition here, have cheered on the Israeli government, demanded full-throated support for it by the West, and demonised anyone daring to hold the Netanyahu government and IDF to account. But for most, the 15 months of war since October 2023 have required a pro forma concern for Palestinian casualties and attempts to placate community concern about the unfolding slaughter, while the government maintains business-as-usual relations with Israel and its military machine — including continued handouts of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to companies fundamental to the IDF’s slaughter.
The commercial media, too, has had to pretend to occasionally care about the routine butchery of civilians, but has maintained the fiction that the Netanyahu government is a normal, legitimate state actor, and steadily downplayed the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians (along with Islamophobic attacks here, which receive a fraction of the coverage of antisemitic vandalism and arson attacks).
That studied indifference was shown up by the wall-to-wall coverage of the Los Angeles fires over the past fortnight, which transfixed the media for days on end here as fires killed 25 people and destroyed 12,000 structures — a huge tragedy, to be sure, but trivial compared to the 40,000 to possibly 64,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza and the three thousand killed in Lebanon, and the at-least 70,000 structures destroyed or severely damaged by the IDF in Gaza
Will China continue to welcome TikTok refugees with open arms? And is China’s great firewall going to collapse under the weight of enthusiastic foreign arrivals? Hu Xijin, former editor of the most nationalistic Chinese newspaper the Global Times, thinks this is an opportune moment for China to expand its global outreach. The massive migration from TikTok to Red has also been reported favourably in China’s state media.
Let’s look at the opportunities for Red and the Chinese state, apart from the obvious economic ones: Red would benefit greatly from a significant increase in foreign traffic, which would only grow if the proposed TikTok ban goes ahead.
The influx of TikTok refugees brings with it two crucial attractions. First, the arrival of ordinary American people brings a previously unavailable target audience over which China can seek to exert its soft power. China’s “Going Global” strategy of exporting state media content to the Western world, which was initiated in the 1990s, has mostly failed to achieve its soft power goals.
This has left the Chinese government scratching its head trying to figure out how to access ordinary members of the public in the West. A US decision to ban TikTok could thus be a blessing in disguise, creating an unprecedented channel for communication and propaganda that the Chinese government could scarcely have dreamed of previously.
Third, popular sitting MP Maria Vamvakinou is retiring after 24 years, with Labor running former adviser Basem Abdo, a Palestinian-Australian, to replace her. The Coalition and Greens also preselected Muslim candidates, each engaging with Muslim Voices of Calwell, an informal group set up to ensure the community is heard.
For independent candidate Samim Moslih — an Afghan refugee who came to Australia in 1986, and an outspoken advocate for Gaza — Labor preselecting a Palestinian-Australian, presumably to head off a Muslim backlash, is an insult.
“It’s very visible in terms of how tacky the strategy is,” he tells me over a coffee in Roxburgh Park. The former VicRoads director has a warm, friendly vibe, but his anger with Labor is palpable. “I think a lot of Muslims, they see it for what it is. It’s so brazen, which is offensive.”
Moslih doesn’t believe having Abdo in Labor’s caucus will help the Palestinian cause, especially after what happened to Fatima Payman — “the canary in the mines”. “When she saw the injustice, and she flapped her wings, Labor turned the guns on her rather than listening,” he says. He doesn’t expect Abdo, who acts as a “conduit” between Labor and the community, to suddenly stop toeing the party line.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
David Lynch, Visionary Director of ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Blue Velvet,’ Dies at 78 (Variety)
Sydney man first to be charged under new AFP operation targeting antisemitism (ABC)
NSW government asks private sector to take public hospital patients as hundreds of psychiatrists set to resign (Guardian Australia)
Trump will ‘put measures in place’ to stop TikTok ban, top adviser says (BBC)
Jill Biden expresses disappointment with Pelosi: ‘We were friends for 50 years’ (CNN)
She is in love with ChatGPT (The New York Times) ($)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Why a truce in Gaza will not bring peace to Australian politics — David Crowe (The Sydney Morning Herald): “Every incident of antisemitism can be traced back to the prime minister’s dereliction of leadership in response to the sordid events on the steps of the Sydney Opera House,” Dutton said.
There is a breathtaking arrogance behind that sort of spin. Dutton speaks as if nobody can check the record — as if Australian transcripts can be dropped in a memory hole and sent to an incinerator like the paperwork in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Albanese clearly condemned the antisemitism. Asked on the day of the protest whether it should go ahead, he said: “I absolutely believe it should not.” He condemned the chants as “completely reprehensible” in an interview the day after the protest.
A ceasefire in Gaza should, by rights, end the distortions in Australia about who is to blame for antisemitism. But it will not. The spin will have to be challenged at every turn.
Revenge is a dish best served from the White House — Thomas B. Edsall (The New York Times) ($): In other words, the nation may be subjected to a presidency driven by a lust for revenge, carried out through the prosecutorial arms of the Justice Department, through the regulatory powers of the executive branch and, if Trump has his way, through a politicised civil service subject to at-will dismissal.
Not only has Trump won over a major bloc of voters who share his resentments and grievances; he has, at least partly, neutered the two most important institutions empowered to set guardrails on the presidency: Congress and the Supreme Court.
It will be rough sailing for the next four years, but it won’t be forever. It is virtually impossible that Trump is going to be ruler for life — there are too many obstacles, not to mention time constraints — but as Madison foresaw in Federalist 51, “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition” among the politicians and judges who hold the traditional checks and balances in their hands, as well as among the MAGA populists and antigovernment contrarians of Silicon Valley now battling for Trump’s attention.
