LONDON STABBING
An 11-year-old girl who was stabbed in London’s Leicester Square this week is Australian, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has confirmed. The Guardian says the girl was visiting the English capital with her mother at the time of the attack. A court was told she required plastic surgery for wounds to her face, shoulder, wrist and neck.
The BBC reports she has since been discharged from hospital and police have charged 32-year-old Ioan Pintaru, who authorities say is a Romanian national with no fixed address, with attempted murder. The ABC writes prosecutor David Burns told the court the incident was a “random attack on a child”, saying: “The defendant has approached the 11-year-old girl, placed her into a headlock and he has then stabbed her eight times to the body.” Pintaru has been remanded in custody until the next court hearing in September.
The ABC says it understands the family is from New South Wales. A DFAT spokesperson had said assistance is being provided to two Australians, while AAP adds it was initially believed the girl’s mother was also hurt, but blood from her daughter’s injuries had been mistaken for injuries of her own.
The national newswire this morning is highlighting the visit of New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Luxon to Australia. Luxon is set to meet with NSW Premier Chris Minns on Thursday for “an infrastructure-focused day” in Sydney. He will also deliver a foreign policy address at the Lowy Institute ahead of the annual Australia-New Zealand Leaders Meeting in Canberra on Friday.
The issue of Australia deporting Kiwi criminals who have grown up in Australia is set to be brought up in the talks. The AAP says more than 3,000 criminals have been sent to New Zealand using powers under section 501 of the Migration Act over the past decade. The New Zealand Herald highlights Luxon said ahead of his trip that he would be raising the issue of 501 deportees “pretty directly” with his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese.
The AAP also carries the latest from Reuters, which reports the World Health Organization has declared mpox a global public health emergency after an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo spread to neighbouring countries.
Meanwhile, The Guardian reports a record 15 national heat records have already been broken since January this year.
ECONOMIC GLOOM
In economic news, well where to start? There’s a lot.
The AFR suggests the ASX is set to rise this morning following the news annual inflation in the United States fell below 3% in July for the first time since 2021, leading to expectations the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in September.
Guardian Australia highlights data from Commonwealth Bank showing mortgage holders are spending significantly more than 20% of their pre-tax income on their loans, representing one of the highest levels on record. The data follows the news yesterday that the Coalition has set up a new Senate inquiry into housing and will use it to create a policy on lowering the barriers for would-be home buyers to get a loan, the ABC reports. The Sydney Morning Herald says the policy could involve HECS debts being deferred and lending rules being loosened.
The AAP says the Australian Bureau of Statistics jobs numbers due out this morning are expected to show “the jobless rate ticked higher in July, as employment growth moderated”.
The AFR is also reporting the negotiations between Education Minister Jason Clare and his state counterparts over $16 billion of extra schools funding are “close to breaking down” as both sides blame each other for yesterday’s NAPLAN results (see Wednesday’s Worm). The paper reports the states want to double the $16 billion figure, linked to a series of education reforms, but Clare declared “there are no blank cheques” and threatened to walk away from the negotiations. So far only Western Australia and Northern Territory have signed up. The offer expires at the end of next month.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
What happens when a movie director says a movie star isn’t a real movie star? Well, it turns out said movie star takes it rather personally.
In a recent joint interview with Brad Pitt for GQ, George Clooney was asked if he wanted to work with the directors Pitt had worked with (and vice versa). One name put forward was Quentin Tarantino, who has directed Pitt twice. Clooney was quick to remind the interviewer that he had in fact worked with the filmmaker (as actors) in From Dusk Till Dawn, before taking the time to get something off his chest:
“Quentin said some shit about me recently, so I’m a little irritated by him. He did some interview where he was naming movie stars, and he was talking about you [Pitt], and somebody else, and then this guy goes, ‘Well, what about George?’ He goes, he’s not a movie star. And then he literally said something like, ‘Name me a movie since the millennium.’ And I was like, ‘Since the millennium? That’s kind of my whole fucking career’,” Clooney said, adding: “So now I’m like, all right, dude, fuck off. I don’t mind giving him shit. He gave me shit.”
Ouch. A Clooney-Tarantino reunion might not be on the cards anytime soon it seems…
Say What?
That’s not funny.
Liz Truss
The former British prime minister was a tad unimpressed when the campaign group Led By Donkeys unfurled a banner declaring “I crashed the economy” below a picture of a lettuce while she was sat on stage promoting her new book, The Guardian reports. Truss, who spent just 45 days as PM, was praising Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump when the banner started to unfurl from the ceiling. Upon seeing it she expressed her displeasure, removed her microphone, and walked off the stage. The lettuce on the banner was a nod to when the tabloid newspaper Daily Star set up a livestream to see if Truss would last longer in No. 10 Downing Street than the lettuce. The lettuce won.
CRIKEY RECAP
Scott Morrison’s evidence to the defamation action brought by Liberal Senator Linda Reynolds against rape victim Brittany Higgins stands as one of the more offensive moments in a career that, while he was in politics, was marked by mendacity and deception. It represents nothing less than an attempt to rewrite the history of his government’s utterly inept and malignant response to Higgins’ revelation that she was sexually assaulted by fellow Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann.
According to Morrison’s testimony, he and Reynolds were the victims of “the weaponising of this issue for political purposes to discredit both Senator Reynolds … and the government, and by extension myself”; the idea that there was a cover-up of the issue “was completely and utterly false, without any foundation” and Reynolds and her office “had done everything they possibly could within the processes they had to support Ms Higgins”.
This is a man who was prime minister, the most powerful man in the country at the time, portraying himself as the victim of a woman who was sexually assaulted inside his own ministerial wing, and of the media scrutiny of the standards of conduct within his government.
Just over a month after Matt Kean was appointed chair of the Climate Change Authority (CCA), he has taken up a role that raises serious perceived conflict of interest concerns. The former NSW Liberal treasurer and energy minister is now also the director of strategic partnerships and regulatory affairs at Wollemi Capital, a private climate and environmental investment fund.
In other words, Kean will advise the government on climate policy while also representing a company whose profits rely on these policy settings.
So, when did the Albanese government know this appointment was on the cards? And why isn’t it concerned?
After the razor-tongued former PM said Taiwan was “Chinese real estate” and “not a vital Australian interest”, former US speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi appeared on ABC’s 7.30, largely to go all Mark Wahlberg about what would have happened if she’d seen Donald Trump during the January 6 riots on Capitol Hill (“I would have to beat him up, and I would probably have to go to jail for beating him up, and that would be okay with me”).
But she also took the opportunity to say Keating had made “a stupid statement”, which in turn prompted a statement from Keating, condemning Pelosi’s “recklessly indulgent visit to Taiwan in 2022”.
Of course, headlines that start with “Paul Keating slams… ” are so frequent it can be hard to know how big a deal this really is. Crikey, as ever, is here to help with our new “Paul Keating Sledge-O-Meter™”, a definitive and ongoing ranking of Keating slams both in and out of office.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
‘How did I get here? I came from a good home.’ The violent patterns that haunt Indigenous women (Guardian Australia)
Disney World says man can’t sue over wife’s death at theme park as he signed up for Disney+ (The Telegraph) ($)
Father says baby twins killed by Israeli strike in Gaza as he registered births (BBC)
Ukraine’s surprise attack forces Russia to divert forces in response (The New York Times) ($)
New Zealand charity accidentally gives out ‘sweets’ filled with lethal dose of methamphetamine (Sky News)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Victoria’s about-face on raising the age is its surrender to a fear campaign — Daniel James (Guardian Australia): The decision will calm the nightly news cycle, the government can now point to what it is doing to tackle youth crime, but it has forever damaged the relationship with Victoria’s First Nations communities.
In its contorting, the government has tried to appease Indigenous and human rights advocates by establishing a new council code-named Cobra (eye roll), comprising justice experts, police, schools and youth justice representatives to monitor offenders and address the root causes of their behaviour. One would have thought that this type of work should already have been happening — if it hasn’t, is it any wonder we have a youth crime problem?
In a broader sense, the about-face from the Allan government is another blow to the First Nations community of Victoria, and it comes at a critical time. For in the coming days and weeks Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people residing in Victoria, including traditional owner groups, are expected to enter into Treaty negotiations with the state of Victoria. The decision not to raise the age of criminal responsibility, despite a myriad of statements to the opposite, further erodes any good faith that still exists.
Dutton’s heartless call has a human cost — and a political price — David Crowe (The Sydney Morning Herald): Peter Dutton is certain to gain support in parts of the Australian community for his strident call to ban all refugees from Gaza because of the war between Israel and Palestine.
But that does not make him right. The opposition leader has made a heartless call that deepens the division in the Australian community and is at odds with previous decisions to help civilians who seek safety from war.
