LITTLEPROUD GOES TO WOLLONGONG
The Coalition is committed to overturning the offshore wind zones planned for NSW’s Illawarra region and Port Stephens in the Hunter, David Littleproud has said during a “rare” outing in Wollongong.
As the ABC reports, the Nationals leader visited “a region dominated by Labor politicians”, meeting fishing and anti-wind farm groups that are opposed to plans for 2,000 offshore floating turbines destined for the waters off the NSW south coast.
“His main message is the government is moving too fast to adopt risky renewables that could push up power prices, when base load power is needed for homes and major manufacturing operations like the Port Kembla Steelworks,” the ABC reported.
Speaking with The Australian, Littleproud indicated he was opposed to large solar farms, too: “We’d like to look for whatever option we can so we don’t have to pursue large-scale renewables full stop.”
But he had to do some message massaging after contradicting statements and legislation brought in by his Coalition colleagues in the past that allowed the development of an offshore electricity sector.
Guardian Australia reported Littleproud answered a question about why his party supported an offshore wind farm in Gippsland in Victoria but not the one in Illawarra by explaining: “They are fixed in Gippsland, this is floating.”
Appearing on ABC Illawarra Breakfast, Littleproud went some way towards explaining what the Coalition’s solution would be.
“We should have a slow transition from some of our coal-fired power stations to nuclear power plants that are zero emissions and firm that up with gas and carbon capture storage, which is zero emissions as well,” he said.
Those who want details will have to wait, though. “It will take a little longer to get there,” Littleproud said, according to The Guardian.
MBAPPÉ TAKES A STAND
In Europe, football fans have just entered a month of UEFA European Championship fever. The group stage is in full swing, and at the time of writing this Worm, France was in the midst of a match against Austria. But a pre-game press conference featuring French star forward Kylian Mbappé managed to turn attention squarely towards another European obsession: politics.
Mbappé’s France is heading for snap elections on June 30 and July 7. The elections were a surprise move by President Emmanuel Macron, who dissolved the National Assembly in the wake of his party’s disastrous result at the vote earlier in June for representation in the European Parliament.
Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party was projected to win 32% of the EU elections vote, more than twice that of Macron’s party. Analysts appear to agree that Macron’s snap elections are a huge gamble: as Politico put it, the election is “likely to deliver big wins for the far right, [but] it may also knock Le Pen off her stride as she eyes the bigger prize: the presidency in 2027”.
French newspaper Le Monde reported the country was going through “a period of unprecedented uncertainty”, where it was “more challenging to make predictions than at any other time since the start of the Fifth Republic, in 1958”.
Anything can happen — and that’s why Mbappé decided to make his views plain, hoping his enormous public profile could help swing the vote towards the values of “diversity, tolerance and respect”.
“This is a never-seen-before event,” Mbappé said. “And that is why I want to talk to the whole of the French people, but also the youth. We are a generation that can make a difference. We see the extremes are knocking on the door of power and we have the opportunity to shape our country’s future.
“[I’m] against extreme views and against ideas that divide people. I want to be proud to represent France, I don’t want to represent a country that doesn’t correspond to my values, or our values.”
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
The last season of the smash hit fantasy drama Game of Thrones aired five years ago, and at the time, many predicted it would be the last true “monocultural” television obsession, gathering fans worldwide to watch the latest episode at roughly the same time, followed by compulsive discussions of the plot the next day. That kind of communal television experience has been mostly wrecked by the advent of streaming services, allowing audiences to “binge” whole seasons at once and watch episodes at will.
True, there have been shows that have come close since then, including “Succession“. But it’s hard to argue it penetrated popular culture in quite the same way.
Well, at least fans of GoT have new material to watch. The second season of spin-off series House of the Dragon premiered yesterday, Australian time, on News Corp’s Binge streaming service. And another spinoff, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight, is in the works, too. All three shows based on books by George RR Martin are produced by HBO, which owns the rights to depict the universe of Westeros on television.
Fans of Martin’s fiction have been waiting for more than a decade for the next instalment in his book series that inspired Game of Thrones, while he has busied himself writing the spinoffs that are now being made into HBO dramas. He said in 2022 the long-awaited book, titled Winds of Winter, was about three-quarters done. But then again, he has missed countless deadlines before, so fans will likely believe the book is done when they see it on bookstore shelves.
Say What?
That was the height of rudeness.
Unnamed Australian government official
A signing ceremony between the Australian prime minister and China’s premier turned tense when former detainee and journalist Cheng Lei was reportedly blocked from the view of a news camera by a Chinese official. The Sydney Morning Herald reported an Australian counterpart tried in vain to get the Chinese official to move, before “seething” and accusing the man of being rude.
CRIKEY RECAP
“Crikey asked every major Australian media company — Nine Entertainment, Seven, Guardian Australia, Network Ten, ARN, SCA and News Corp — as well as the ABC and SBS, about their use of NDAs in relation to workplace misconduct, how many they were party to over the past five years, and whether they saw a tension between the use of NDAs and the role of journalism and newsrooms.
The lack of replies, even after repeated promptings, was remarkable. Nine, to give it credit, replied — albeit with more weasel words. A spokesperson for Nine said it was ‘not Nine policy to require employees to sign NDAs where they have made complaints about workplace conduct’, adding ‘as is common in Australian workplaces, some employees will agree [to] confidentiality and mutual non-disparagement clauses as part of their exit arrangements’.
No other commercial media company answered our questions.”
“The World Bank has warned of the pending fiscal collapse of Palestine’s economy as a result of Israel’s war in Gaza, the withholding of Palestinian Authority (PA) taxes by the Israeli government, and the rapidly widening gap between the amount of revenue coming in and the amount needed to finance essential public expenditure.
As of the end of 2023, this financing gap reached US$682 million. This gap is projected to double within the coming months, reaching up to US$1.2 billion, the World Bank reported.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, an extremist, right-wing member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, has withheld tax funds as a punitive measure following the PA’s involvement in the International Criminal Court (ICC) possibly issuing arrest warrants against Netanyahu, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders.”
“In Europe, the slogan ‘never again fascism’ is one that still resonates. The death and destruction wrought by hyper-nationalist, authoritarian states in the first half of the 20th century still haunts the nightmares of successive generations.
But, as the recent European Union elections show, the fear of the far right is slipping. The political logic of earlier decades no longer holds in some quarters, and far-right parties are making gains across Europe, as their strategy of electoral engagement continues to pay off.
Views that would have ended political careers in Europe a generation ago are now being rewarded with electoral success.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
He fished a safe full of cash out of a creek. That was the easy part (SMH) ($)
The war in Gaza has wiped out entire Palestinian families. There are 60 who lost dozens or more (Associated Press)
Benjamin Netanyahu disbands Israeli war cabinet (CNN)
France kicks off accelerated campaign after Emmanuel Macron’s legislative poll gamble (France 24)
Greek coastguard threw migrants overboard to their deaths, witnesses say (BBC)
THE COMMENTARIAT
I stuck up for students even teachers called ‘satanic’. It cost me my job — Elise Christian (SMH) ($): “I have been personally affected by employment discrimination in a Christian school. In my case, what the school executive apparently could not tolerate was my determination, as a Christian teacher-assistant with both a professional duty of care and a faith commitment to justice, to safeguard my young students from systematic bullying on the grounds of their sexuality or gender expression, and to ensure that they could have a safe learning environment when they came to school each day.
For me, the crisis came as a result of an escalation in inflammatory rhetoric from school leadership during the 2017 marriage equality campaign period, and a concurrent uptick in incidents of peer bullying among students. As the campaign period unfolded, I noticed the sexuality-related bullying incidents in my year 5/6 classroom increase in number and intensity.”
European populists back Putin as they roll out their anti-Ukraine positions — Natasha Lindstaedt (The Conversation): “Vladimir Putin looks to be a big winner from the far-right surge in the recent European Parliament election. Not content with only exercising control over former Soviet Union members, the Kremlin is now increasing its support across the rest of Europe.
One significant symbol of the pro-Russia swing was the decision by the far-right Alternative for Deutschland party (AfD), to refuse to attend Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s speech to the German Bundestag (Germany’s national Parliament) on June 11, along with the populist Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht party. Both parties oppose military support for Ukraine.”
