NUMBERS AND WORDS
Eight more women were killed by their partner or ex in 2022-2023 than the year before, Guardian Australia reports, a 28% spike on the previous figure of 34. In total, 60 women were killed by men in 2022-2023 (that’s five a month) — compare that to the 26 allegedly killed in four months this year (more than six a month). Incidentally, overall 2022-2023 had the third-lowest homicide rate (247 victims) since 1989-1990. Men committed 86.4% of homicides (that’s murder, manslaughter or other cases) and First Nations peoples are killed at a rate seven times higher than non-First Nations peoples. It comes as another woman was found dead near Perth yesterday and a man known to her was arrested, WA Today adds. So what do we do? Tackle pornography, gambling, and booze to stop violent men, criminologist Michael Salter told the SMH.
Meanwhile, Minister for Women Katy Gallagher said the confusion over Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaking or not speaking at the rally was because of five key demands organisers wanted in return (but didn’t get): “to declare a domestic violence national emergency; to block the media from publishing images of victims for 48 hours; mandatory victim-blaming prevention training; alternative reporting options for victims; and increased funding,” the SMH lists. Gallagher said she wanted to speak but she and Albanese were resigned to just walk instead — but What Were You Wearing founder Sarah Williams told a crowd they refused to speak, prompting Albanese to say “I’m the prime minister” and head to the microphone, Sky News Australia adds.
CHEESE AND WINE
Victorian MP Darren Cheeseman has been booted from the Labor Party after Premier Jacinta Allan received new info about alleged inappropriate behaviour that sources say involved sexual comments to a staffer, just days after he was booted as parliamentary secretary for Education. In a statement reported by The Age, the premier said “There is no place for the member for South Barwon in my government” adding that a “respectful workplace” is a non-negotiable right. So who is Cheeseman? He was parliamentary secretary for the Commonwealth Games before it was canned and a federal MP before that (from 2007-2013) for Corangamite (Geelong, the Bellarine Peninsula and the Surf Coast).
Meanwhile, Seven’s promotion of The West Australian editor Anthony De Ceglie means former editor of The Australian Chris Dore is running the papers for now, WA Today notes. It’s a “pretty swift redemption arc” wrote the lads at CBD, considering he departed the top job for “health reasons” after making alleged lewd comments to a woman at a US work event. According to the paper, Dore was also allegedly the unnamed News Corp editor who former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said unleashed a “tirade of drunken abuse” at Kirribilli in 2015. It comes as Daily Telegraph columnist and NRL 360 co-host Paul Kent was stood down by News Corp after footage appeared to show him “intoxicated” and unruly, The Age reports. He’d only just returned to the show after facing charges of domestic violence against his former partner, the paper notes. He was cleared.
TECHNICALLY, YES
We’re investing $940 million in a US start-up that wants to build the world’s first commercial quantum computer in Brisbane, the AFR reports, one of the largest parts of the government’s Future Made in Australia policy (so far). Queensland and the federal government are going halfsies — in return, the Australian-founded PsiQuantum will move its headquarters to the state and aim to deliver the quantum computer by 2026-27, The Australian ($) continues. So what is a quantum computer? A normal computer runs silicon chips that alternate between ones and zeroes, but quantum computers use “qubits” that can be both at once. It makes it perfect for artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and medical research — Google, IBM and Microsoft are among those to commercialise it.
Meanwhile, we should tax big tech to take on misinformation and disinformation, the Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy & Defence Dialogue think tank says in a report today, because $70 million will disappear from news when Meta ditches its news contracts. The money could be used for tax incentives for news producers, philanthropic support, or to create not-for-profit or employee-owned corporate structures like The Guardian’s Scott Trust. From tech to telcos now and the ABC reports the review of the Optus outage that affected 10 million customers in November has 18 recommendations — among them telcos should be forced to notify the government and customers about outages and ensure triple-0 calls can get through via other networks, enforced by a “custodian”.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
The Tokio Express was powering through wild seas off the UK’s Land’s End in 1997 when a freak wave overwhelmed it. Some 62 shipping containers tumbled like Lego blocks into the gulping ocean, sinking fast to its depths before settling on the floor. Incidentally, they contained Lego — 352,000 pairs of flippers, 97,500 scuba tanks, 92,400 swords, 33,941 dragons and perhaps most significantly, 4,200 Lego octopi. At the time, a small British boy named Liutauras was a mere twinkle in his parents’ eye — or perhaps more accurately, a far-off future plan after they were done partying their way through their youth, considering he is just thirteen years old. But that freak wave would come to define his young life.
Over the past two years, Liutauras has been amassing a treasure trove from the Lego pieces that are still washing up on a beach in Cornwall, with about 789 pieces in his collection so far. He’d never found a Lego octopus, however — indeed no-one had since the cargo was lost, the Lego Lost At Sea project’s Tracey Williams said, dubbing it the “holy grail” of finds. But Liutauras had not given up hope, spending endless hours combing the cold, blustery beach until one day when he spotted it: sticking out of the sand, the unmistakable black tentacles of the mini Kraken. His dad Vytautas was blown away, saying he’d never in his wildest dreams expected to find the “very rare” piece. As for Liutauras, he told the BBC he was he was “happy” with the discovery. Let’s not go overboard and all that.
Hoping you find something you feared lost today.
SAY WHAT?
[Pauline Hanson] is a well-known, longstanding and prolific sayer of racist things, particularly anti-migrant and anti-Muslim things.
Saul Holt
Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi’s silk didn’t mince words as the two politicians face off in a racial discrimination court battle over Hanson telling Faruqi to “piss off back to Pakistan”.
CRIKEY RECAP
“RBT in NSW saw an immediate cut of 23% in the road toll, or nearly 300 lives. Its impact was maximised by a massive advertising campaign essentially telling motorists they were likely to be breathalysed if they drank and drove (older readers can probably still hum the jingles from the ads) and specifying the punishments that awaited them.
“There was no talk of intervention or education programs for drink drivers. Critically, motorists, and not just working class motorists but every driver from the outer suburbs to Bellevue Hill and Mosman, believed that the chances of them being caught and punished had increased significantly, and began changing their behaviour.”
“‘You must not suppose that any of my depressions here have any relation to those terrible and reasonless depressions w[hic]h frighten me sometimes,’ Churchill wrote to his wife in 1916. There is a great deal of debate around just how serious the ‘black dog’ that afflicted him throughout his life was; some have gone so far as to suggest he may have had bipolar disorder, swerving from intense energy and impulsive activity to paralysing depression.
“Others have insisted his ‘dark moods’ were never anything more than the understandable response to the strains of high office during wartime, perhaps exacerbated by Churchill’s legendary alcohol intake.”
“It is depressing and unsurprising to learn that, in both cases, the ‘disgrace’ quote comes not from any actual player in the events but from untiring Labor critic and resident News Corp belligerent Greg Sheridan. The occasion of the uttering wasn’t a press conference or other significant political event either; it stemmed from a chat between Sheridan and Sky host Andrew Bolt.
“Thus, characteristic Sheridan rants on Sky in the evening are turned into ‘hard news’ headlines for consumption the next morning. Without shame, the line between news and opinion vanishes. It is worth noting that Sky News and other Murdoch outlets can produce legitimate reported speech stories …”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
US, UK urge Hamas to accept Israeli truce proposal in war on Gaza (Al Jazeera)
Solomon Islands’ pro-Beijing leader rules out renominating for PM (SBS)
G7 agrees to shut down coal plants by 2035, UK minister says, in climate breakthrough (CNN)
Gaza hospital staff questioned by ICC war crimes prosecutors, sources say (Reuters)
Scotland’s first minister quits rather than face no-confidence vote (euronews)
Deadline passes but students at Columbia encampment have not dispersed (The New York Times) ($)
[Canada’s] British Columbia abruptly drops drug decriminalisation after backlash (The Guardian)
Pedro Sánchez: Spain’s prime minister averts crisis but political schism could deepen (BBC)
THE COMMENTARIAT
There’s a hard-right tidal wave about to hit Europe — and it will only make the economic crisis worse — Gordon Brown (The Guardian): “There are good reasons why these trends are becoming entrenched. A low-growth economy creates a doom loop as pessimism begets a blame culture — and the more we blame others, the more pessimistic we become. Once people convince themselves that the state of their economy is so weak that they can only improve their lot at someone else’s expense, they vote for parties that specialise in targeting those they think are holding them back — immigrants, foreigners and minorities. These parties offer nothing in terms of economic policies to generate long-term growth.
“The result is that zero-sum politics exacerbates the downward economic trends, and this, in turn, intensifies and widens the appeal of zero-sum thinking. The problem Europe now faces is that the very measures it must adopt to escape this doom loop — new investment in technology, clean energy and medical advances — are being rendered impossible by its policy of fiscal retrenchment. The European Growth and Stability Pact rules out member states having deficits above 3%, and perhaps as importantly, makes no distinction between public spending on consumption and spending on investment. Added to that, Germany has a debt brake enshrined in its constitution which limits the government’s structural deficit to 0.35% of GDP. This casts a shadow over the whole of Europe …”
When it comes to TikTok, the world’s democracies have played the sucker for far too long — Tim Wu (The New York Times): “ByteDance, for its part, maintains that it is not subject to control by the Chinese government. The weight of the evidence suggests otherwise: the Chinese state owns a golden share in the company, the firm is based in China, and studies suggest that the government shapes TikTok content in accordance with party preferences. ByteDance has said it has no plans to sell TikTok, but that may be merely a means of driving up the price. What the company now has is a prime opportunity to prove its independence once and for all: by selling TikTok and taking the money.
“It is true that only a few American companies — such as Oracle, Microsoft and Meta — have the money to buy TikTok, and I’ll admit that should Meta or Google acquire it, that company would have a dangerous amount of control over one of its greatest competitors. But that need not be the future of TikTok. Its current investors could partner with individuals, such as the Canadian investor and businessman Kevin O’Leary, to turn it ‘into an American company’, as he has said he wants to do. TikTok could even be run as a nonprofit and perhaps begin a move toward a less toxic business model.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Online
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Guardian Australia’s Paul Karp will speak to the Australia Institute’s Ebony Bennett about the last fortnight’s news in a webinar.
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
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Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, Treasury and Employment Andrew Leigh will speak to the HR Leaders Forum at the ICC Sydney.
