LATHAM UNDER FIRE
Channel Nine is reporting NSW One Nation MP Mark Latham to the “authorities” over a tweet he wrote about debate moderator Sarah Abo which read “Never trust an Abo with something as important as that”. Racist dog whistle or stupid mistake? Hard to believe it was the latter. The former Labor leader-gone-rogue swore he didn’t mean it as a reference to a slur about Indigenous peoples — but the SMH wasn’t having it: “In Nine’s view, there is no question what Latham meant”, with the director of news describing it as “a disgrace, racist and totally unacceptable”. Abo was born in Syria, the paper’s Karl Quinn adds, and says a contravention of the Racial Discrimination Act could be tough for his management to prove — but “Twitter may prove a more fruitful avenue”.
Speaking of the fringe parties, the SMH reports this morning that Liberal candidates in key seats will benefit from chair Clive Palmer’s preferences — even though Palmer said last week he’d urge voters to put the major parties last, as ABC writes. Several how-to-vote cards from the United Australia Party (UAP) show Liberal leanings — in the Sydney seat of Mackellar, Liberal MP Jason Falinski and UAP candidate Christopher Ball both put each other in second place, while in Wentworth, UAP candidate Natalie Dumer has recommended voters put Liberal MP Dave Sharma third, while Sharma put her second. The UAP says there was no deal done. Hmm.
FLOOD ON THEIR HANDS
Remember the floods? The climate disaster has been conspicuously absent in the election cycle, but Lismore residents say they are still suffering — 10 weeks on from the floods which peaked at an unprecedented 14.4 metres in the town, less than one in six business grants have been approved across NSW, Guardian Australia reports. And the grant for medium-sized businesses (that’s more than 20 employees) hasn’t even opened for applications yet. “Lismore is now just an empty shell,” one victim told Guardian Australia. Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk put it bluntly: “Let’s face it, it’s climate change.” And the costs of inaction are mounting: at $3.35 billion in insured losses it was the most expensive Australian flooding event of all time, Business News Australia writes.
And it’s costing us more than dosh — Australia now has the worst mammal extinction rate in the world and is losing more biodiversity than any other developed nation, ABC reports. The Greens want to tackle it head-on: the party — which could hold the balance of power after the election — has announced they’d fund an independent environment watchdog to deal with mining corporations and developers “wrecking our environment”, push for stronger laws, end native logging and invest big in mass greening and restoration — all part of the new $24 billion environmental policy. The broadcaster notes that Environment Minister Sussan Ley has still not tabled December’s State of the Environment report. It’s hard to believe it’s not a political decision — she had 15 parliamentary days to do so (which haven’t elapsed), but Ley’s had it for nearly six months now, as Guardian Australia writes.
HOME TRUTHS
Prime Minister Scott Morrison will officially launch his campaign in Brisbane on Sunday, the first time the Coalition has done so since Tony Abbott’s 2013 ascent to power, The Courier-Mail ($) reports. Why Brisvegas? Some say winning big in Queensland is the surest path to the Lodge — the Coalition has a record-high number of seats in the Sunshine state and must hold onto ’em, whereas Labor — who need a net of seven nationwide to win — wants to get at least two. It might seem late in the day to launch a campaign — but in 2019, Morrison waited until six days out from the polls, as Reuters reports, and launched in Melbourne.
Speaking of walkabout pollies, the Liberal candidate in the Western Sydney seat of Parramatta Maria Kovacic was not born in the battleground electorate and does not live there either, The Australian ($) reports. Kovacic — one of Morrison’s own ramrodded candidates amid NSW Liberal factional fighting — lives in Sydney’s northwest. Morrison described her as “Western Sydney through and through”, but she’s the president of a Liberal group in north-west Sydney’s Berowra, the Oz ($) adds. Then again, Labor’s parachuted pick Andrew Charlton only moved there from affluent Bellevue Hill five weeks ago. Charlton’s got good economic creds — he worked with former PM Kevin Rudd and the AFR describes him as a bit of a “whiz kid” and a centrist who brings entrepreneurial know-how, but was red-faced during a routine gotcha! question last week when he couldn’t name three local restaurants, the Daily Mail reports. A sign he doesn’t know the area? Or, as Crikey writes, more evidence that “the band of journalists covering the federal election have made themselves the story in the worst possible way”? You be the judge.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
In a culture obsessed with the rich and famous, it can be jarring to consider just how much wealth some amass while so many of the fans or customers that made it possible struggle with the cost of just getting by — indeed in 2018, about half of the world’s population was living on less than $5.50 a day. Of course, we aren’t privy to all the charitable efforts of the rich and famous — nevertheless country music darling Dolly Parton helps restore one’s hope in humanity in some small way. Parton has just announced her charity will give refugee children in London a book a month until they turn five years old as part of her Imagination Library — including cult classic spinoff Where is the Very Hungry Caterpillar?
It’s actually the latest in a long line of Parton’s philanthropic efforts: back in the ’90s, the dropout rate in her hometown of Sevier County, Tennessee, was high — so Parton announced she’d pay every kid $500 if they graduate from high school. The dropout rate plummeted to 6% and has stayed there since. Parton’s Imagination Library has actually been operating in Australia since 2014, gifting enrolled kids a free book a month for five years ever since — in 2018, the scheme had given out 100 million free books worldwide. Then in 2016, Parton pledged to donate $1000 a month for six months to the families who lost their homes in the US bushfires and provided free college scholarships to their kids. In 2018, Parton donated a million bucks to a children’s hospital, and then in 2020, she donated another million to fund early COVID-19 vaccine research which, incredibly, led to the creation of the Moderna vaccine.
There really is plenty of good in the world, folks. Hoping you spot some today too.
SAY WHAT?
When you look at medical negligence cases, that is the terminology that they use. It is also contained in the Crimes Act of New South Wales. I’m apologising for how people might have perceived it and the fact that it is confronting and it is ugly, and I certainly don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but that is the correct terminology.
Katherine Deves
Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s captain’s pick for Warringah has gone back on an earlier apology she made for calling trans children “surgically mutilated and sterilised” in an interview with Sky News’ Chris Kenny. Morrison has repeatedly defended Deves by saying she had withdrawn her comments and apologised.
CRIKEY RECAP
Journalism is going to have to save itself — because the way it’s going, frankly it’s done for
“Maybe it was seeing that painting of the soaring eagle that spoke to me and told me I had been chosen for such a time as this, but — what the hell — someone’s got to say it out loud: journalists, just stop it. You are fiddling while democracy burns …
“So, while journalists are being imprisoned and intimidated in China, Hong Kong and Russia, and while Maria Ressa fights the raging spread of fake news in the Philippines and is arrested and charged for criticising President Rodrigo Duterte, some Nine bozo thinks that tripping up the opposition leader is Journalism At Its Best. Thus we can see how far Australian journalism has disappeared up its own fundamental.”
The myth of ‘Scott Morrison, political genius’ is evaporating before our eyes
“Perhaps this makes a good campaigner in the technical sense. But what about campaigning in a way that wins elections? Morrison has chosen to place himself at the centre of the Coalition’s reelection campaign, repeating his winning strategy in 2019.
“At time of writing, media monitoring company Streem has Morrison as the Coalition’s leading spokesperson by featuring in 63% of the coverage, with the next closest figures Josh Frydenberg (8%) and Barnaby Joyce (5%) far behind. The only problem is that Morrison is a lot more unpopular now and he’s competing against a more popular opponent. Meanwhile, the prime minister’s brand is so tainted he can’t even go and defend former Liberal strongholds.”
Sell less stuff for more money: welcome to the world of Coles/Woolies grocery inflation
“In January, February and March this year, Coles increased sales by 4.2% — but it didn’t achieve that by selling 4.2% more products. Instead, inflation propped up the number. The company reports inflation of 3.3%, meaning the volume of goods they sold was just a miserable fraction of a per cent higher than the year prior.
“Woolies, meanwhile, increased revenue by 5.4%, and reports inflation of 2.7%. So it’s increasing the amount of food and drink it sells more than Coles, it seems — perhaps as a direct result of that slightly lighter price growth? I wouldn’t put it past Aussies to be comparison shopping down to the fraction of a per cent.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Sri Lanka MP among three killed on day of violence (Al Jazeera)
If Roe falls, is same-sex marriage next? (The New York Times)
Dow tumbles again as tech wreck continues, S&P hits 52-week low (CNN)
Ukraine bid to join EU will take decades says Macron (BBC)
Cuban hotel blast death toll rises to 35, official says (Al Jazeera)
Prince Harry launches global campaign inspired by kaitiakitanga (NZ Herald)
Russian ambassador to Poland pelted with red paint at VE Day gathering (The Guardian)
UK Labour leader pledges to resign if police find he broke COVID rules (The New York Times)
Nick Cave announces death of son, Jethro, aged 30 (BBC)
That signature sound from some of music’s best hits? Made in Canada (CBC)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Far from having a leftwing bias, the ABC has been tamed by cuts and incessant attacks — Kevin Rudd (Guardian Australia): “Nonetheless, the Liberal party attacks persist because they serve multiple purposes. First, they delegitimise the ABC, fuelling the idea that reporting that exposes the government’s failures cannot be believed. The ABC’s critics often claim to detest cancel culture, but they would love nothing more than to cancel the ABC. Second, by doing so, the Liberals curry favour with Rupert Murdoch, who has a direct financial stake in undermining public broadcasters, be they the ABC in Australia, PBS and NPR in the United States, or the BBC in the United Kingdom. Murdoch hates any media he can’t control, and he wants the ABC privatised …
“Fourth, and most importantly, the Liberals use these tactics because they subtly condition the ABC’s staff to be hyperconscious about confirming the stereotype. You can see it in the eyes of television reporters who, having caught themselves in the act of saying something that could be construed as vaguely left-wing, will rush to invoke a Coalition talking point (even if they know it is false) or engage in facile “both sides” arguments that draw a false equivalence between the two parties … In the space of 60 minutes, [ABC Insiders’ David] Speers interrupted Albanese on more than 60 occasions.”
Enough empty promises; the teals aim to deliver — Zoe Daniel (The Australian) ($): “The so-called importance of women’s issues, hardly hot-button in 2019 but scorching hot now, were put on the backburner when the Coalition said it would accept the recommendations of Australian Human Rights Commission Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins’s Respect@Work report on sexual harassment in the workplace. Accept does not mean what we think it means. It does not mean, for example, that the government will do anything. As of this week, only a handful of those recommendations have been implemented and the most important, a positive duty on employers to provide a safe workplace, has been parked.
“This is why, according to opinion polls across the nation, the electorate looks set to turn to other options, and looks set to take a chance on politicians who might actually keep their word. No so-called teal candidate is trying to unravel Australian democracy. Speaking for myself, this whole exercise is to do with listening to what people actually want and acting on that. That means taking the kind of action on climate change Australians have been promised for years. As independent MP Zali Steggall wrote on this page last week, we need a climate commission … Similar organisations already exist, for example, the AHRC. My opponent in Goldstein [Tim Wilson] should be familiar with that model, given his stint there for two years before his election to parliament.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Multiplex’s Frank McMahon, the NAB’s Julian Chai, and Jones Lang LaSalle’s Jesse Radisich will all discuss the future of property at a breakfast event by the Australian Property Developers Association.
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Writers Ana Maria Gomides, Mykaela Saunders, Cher Tan, and Thabani Tshuma will speak about what they would do differently in a talk at The Wheeler Centre. You can also catch this one online.
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
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Sinologist Louise Edwards will speak about the female identity in China in a seminar from the China Development Society.
