WAKE UP TO THE BROKE
Former NSW Labor MP Tania Mihailuk has defected to One Nation, describing the NSW opposition as controlled by “left-wing extremists and property developer mafia” and warning a Chris Minns Labor government will “see NSW go both woke and broke”. The SMH reports Mihailuk, who describes herself as a proud Christian and staunch anti-corruption advocate, will run for an upper house seat in the March state election. The paper adds that Mihailuk and One Nation NSW Leader Mark Latham have not always been so chummy — in 2017 she called Latham’s “transformation” from Labor leader to fringe conservative a “Shakespearean tragedy”, calling him “just a buffoon”.
Meanwhile, powerful crossbencher Alex Greenwich is urging the NSW government to copy Tasmania in introducing a $100 daily limit for its cashless gaming cards policy, Guardian Australia reports. So far we haven’t seen the Perrottet government’s gaming policy details, and the pressure is mounting after Labor released its policy yesterday. Treasurer Matt Kean dismissed Labor’s as “a gaming policy written by the gaming industry for the gaming industry”, but wouldn’t say whether he thought the Coalition’s rumoured $1000 daily spending limit on the cards was way too high. Tasmanian Senator Andrew Wilkie did, calling that “patently ridiculous”. It’d do nothing to help problem gamblers, nor stem the flow of money laundering, Wilkie said.
DEAR DIARY
Want to know what’s in Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s diary? It’ll cost ya — $1344, former senator Rex Patrick was told after he FOI’d it. It’s an “outrageous” figure, Patrick, a transparency crusader, writes for Michael West Media, particularly considering Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, Treasurer Jim Chalmers, and ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr’s ministerial diaries have all been publicly released. Patrick argues that it’s super important for members of the public to see who our leaders are meeting with and how much time they spend out in the field (for instance, whether they met with media billionaire Lachlan Murdoch, as Crikey wondered in August). Patrick doesn’t get it — he says he’s lodged more than 300 FOIs over the past five years and has never seen a cost that high.
Speaking of big cash — the Albanese government will announce today that Australia is buying 40 Black Hawk helicopters from the US for an eyewatering $2.8 billion-ish, the ABC reports. They’ll replace our European-made Taipan helicopter fleet, which has been riddled with problems — in 2021 it was revealed we’d spent more than $37 million to hire civilian helicopters because the army’s 41 Taipans were so dodgy. The Black Hawks will be based out of Oakey in Queensland and Holsworthy in NSW, and start arriving this year. Meanwhile Guardian Australia reports up to 70 troops will fly to the UK this week to train Ukrainian troops in “basic infantry tactics for urban and wooded environments”, the government says. But none are going to Ukraine, it added.
IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH
Our GP system is in “the worst shape it’s been in” since Medicare launched 40 years ago, Health Minister Mark Butler has reiterated in an interview with ABC’s 7.30. It’s not the first time he’s said it — news.com.au reported the comment in September last year too, where Butler also declared fixing the “terrifying” shortage of GPs as a top priority in the portfolio. To that end, a report with recommendations to strengthen the public health system will be published in the next few weeks, and worked into the May budget. Part of the problem, Butler says, is that our older population “has more complex chronic diseases” these days.
Meanwhile Queensland will drop its mask recommendations in healthcare settings, indoor spaces and public transport today, the Brisbane Times reports, at what the top health official called a “critical” point in the pandemic. Chief health officer John Gerrard says up to 80% of Queenslanders got COVID last year, causing an immunity that may have contributed to a lower fatality rate in the fourth wave. In the week to January 11, 9386 people reported contracting COVID, the paper says, and 77 people died. Speaking of COVID — tennis pro Camila Giorgi is making headlines overseas amid allegations she faked a COVID certificate to play in the Australian Open, as Metro UK reports. She denies it.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
It’s March 1918 and the Germans are showering Amiens, a small French city, with shells and bombs. They’re trying to break through allied lines, and many of the buildings crumble during the 28-day offensive. Quick-thinking staff race to save the city’s art collection, including an 1822 neoclassical painting called Diana and Endymion, on loan from the Louvre. It shows a scantily clad Roman goddess Diana hovering ethereally as she falls in love with a handsome Aeolian shepherd named Endymion, reclining in passion, as Guardian Australia shows. After the war, the painting is gone — assumed destroyed by bombs. Fast-forward to 2015 and an art curator from Amiens is leisurely thumbing through Paris Match magazine when they see a photo of pop icon Madonna at her home. The curator stops dead. There it is, hanging on a wall in the background of Madge’s photo: Diana and Endymion.
Is it a replica? Some sleuthing shows the painting, not listed as an original, was sold at a 1989 auction — curiously, Madonna paid three times the listed price for it, some $1.3 million. Sure, it has no visible signature from the artist, Jérôme-Martin Langlois, but it is also three centimetres shorter than the original, so it could have been sliced off to evade the painting’s return to the collections after the war. There was nothing for it: the Amiens mayor Brigitte Fouré filmed a video plea to one of the most famous women in the world. You probably haven’t heard of my tiny city, Fouré says, but we share a special connection with you. “This painting is probably a work that was lent to the Amiens museum by the Louvre before the First World War after which we lost trace of it,” Fouré continues, adding there’s no suggestion Madonna did anything illegal by buying it. “Will you lend us this work?” So far, Madge hasn’t replied, but on the upside, lots of people are suddenly talking about Amiens, the mayor says happily.
Hoping some beautiful art catches your eye today too.
SAY WHAT?
He’s not in Washington. He is not Australia’s ambassador. Arthur Sinodinos is Australia’s ambassador in Washington and we’re continuing to engage with Arthur, who’s done a very good job on the arrangements with AUKUS. When Kevin Rudd is Australia’s ambassador that will be his sole focus.
Anthony Albanese
The PM isn’t worried about Rudd speaking openly at the World Economic Forum about China possibly exaggerating its economic growth figures, but maybe don’t get too far ahead of yourself. Rudd was appointed our incoming ambassador to the US in December.
CRIKEY RECAP
‘A bit embarrassed’: Tesla owners say they’re concerned by Elon Musk’s antics
“But after a decade of forging a public persona as a Tony Stark-esque engineering genius split between Tesla, SpaceX and The Boring Company, in 2022 Elon Musk rebranded. This year, the centibillionaire dilettante focused on buying Twitter while taking an increasingly rightward turn in his politics.
“Last year, Tesla’s stock plummeted by 45%, with some high-profile investors pointing to Musk’s tumultuous Twitter takeover as the reason. So what do Tesla owners — and Musk megafans — invested in Musk (sometimes literally) think of his recent decisions? Online communities for the car’s Australian owners have closely followed and debated his actions over the past year.”
George Pell was a winner for the Catholic Church but lost his soul in the process
“John William Dare writes: I have always thought that people who cover up crimes, particularly the abuse of children, in the mistaken belief that it was somehow justified behaviour to protect their organisation’s reputation, were more culpable than the perpetrators — who at least had their sickness as an excuse.
“This behaviour further enables the crimes, and the organisations they claim to protect suffer untold damage eventually because of the cover-up and denial. Given his own statements and the evidence and conclusions of the royal commission (which Pell always disputed), calling Pell a martyr or a saint is just another act of self-serving denial.”
Labor under Albanese is neoliberalism’s most effective agent
“In the UK, 40 years of neoliberalism — with some Blairite, big-state stuff added on top for a while — is now being challenged by a wave of strikes that has the potential to link up, and which has made it impossible for the Starmer Labour opposition to move the party back to a neo-Blairite position. Starmer and co have been forced to adopt key components of the program from the Corbyn leadership, much as they hate to.
“New Zealand and Canada have centre-left governments with a genuine left component and approach. Only in Australia do we have a Labor government committing to programmatic neoliberalism, without any vocal opposition. A genuine left is gone from the party. The unions lack any independent point of view with any visibility.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
China’s first population drop in six decades sounds alarm on demographic crisis (Reuters)
‘Full-frontal attack on democracy’ as London overrules Scottish Parliament for the first time (EuroNews)
It’s time to put cancer warning labels on alcohol, experts say (CBC)
Russia’s war in Ukraine has killed ‘more than 9000 civilians’ (Al Jazeera)
Republican ex-candidate arrested in shootings targeting New Mexico Democrats (The New York Times)
Prince Harry’s Spare is fastest-selling nonfiction book since UK records began (The Guardian)
Brittney Griner makes surprise appearance at MLK Day event (BBC)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Is Dominic Perrottet being trashed by the gambling industry for opposing pokies? — Tim Costello (Crikey): “While it was shocking to learn NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet wore a Nazi uniform as a costume to his 21st birthday, I wish I could say I was shocked by the supposed impetus behind the reveal. Undoubtedly internal party politicking was part of it, but the other major factor was the gambling industry and its desire to quash NSW’s desperately needed reform. For decades the gambling industry has worked as a puppeteer in Australian politics, and nowhere more so than in NSW. At times it has felt like a more effective shadow cabinet than the actual opposition, and that is definitely the case now.
“When you ‘follow the money’ in this tangled political web, it leads right to the gambling industry and its borderline racketeering behaviour in protecting profits — profits that so often come from human misery via poker machines that are deliberately designed to addict people; designed by psychologists, no less. The greatest of these profits come from the suburbs and people who can least afford the losses, thanks to the intentional location and targeting of stressed communities by the industry. The proposed gambling reforms in NSW are sensible and would have the dual benefit of not just reducing gambling harm but also preventing possibly the easiest way to launder money that exists anywhere in the world.”
The unique Jim Molan: a hero in every way a man can be — Greg Sheridan (The Australian): “Jim was a hero in every way a man can be. He put his life on the line for others time and again. In the war in Iraq he was the coalition’s chief of operations, the most powerful position in combat any Australian has held for many decades. The Americans revered him. He believed in counter-insurgency, that it could succeed if properly resourced, thought through and followed up with long-term commitment. I didn’t finally share that view. That, and tanks, were the only things we ever disagreed about. But Jim was always a hard-headed realist. He believed Australia’s contributions in Afghanistan and Iraq were not designed to have any strategic effect. He was thus highly critical of them.
“Before that, he put his life on the line in Indonesia. In the chaos surrounding the fall of Suharto, Jim, then the military attaché, was all over the chaotic streets gathering vital intelligence for Australia. On one terrible night in East Timor, with the murderous militias running wild, Jim advised then prime minister John Howard over the phone that Australia should send in peacekeepers, that the risk was manageable so long as the operation was done professionally. Shortly after, in East Timor, when militia violence was at its worst, he saved the life of Bishop Belo, who the militia badly wanted to kill, in an airport confrontation.”
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WHAT’S ON TODAY
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Fortress Melbourne is hosting a board game night for singles or groups, with tickets including a drink, a host to teach the rules, board game hire and hot snacks available for purchase.
