NAPLAN RESULTS
NAPLAN results have been leading the majority of coverage overnight, with the ABC reporting one in three students are still not meeting literacy and numeracy benchmarks and The Australian highlighting one in 10 children “need additional support to progress satisfactorily”. The Sydney Morning Herald says the results, released today, are set to escalate the battle between Education Minister Jason Clare and his state counterparts. Clare has given state ministers until September to sign up to an agreement linking an extra $16 billion in funding to a series of education reforms aimed at lifting performance. The ABC quotes him as saying: “These results show why serious reform is needed and why we need to tie additional funding to reforms that will help students catch up, keep up and finish school.”
Looking at the results, the AAP highlights female students outperformed their male counterparts in writing, while male students performed better in numeracy. The newswire said about one in three First Nations children tested in the “needs additional support” proficiency level with regards to reading and numeracy, compared to one in 10 non-Indigenous students. The ABC also points out “stark differences” remain between metropolitan and non-metropolitan students, with 24% of students from very remote schools categorised as “strong” or “exceeding” in terms of literacy, compared to 70.7% of students from major cities.
The ABC and AAP also flagged that there was only one sustained cheating-related incident among the more than 4 million tests sat by almost 1.3 million students. The incident, at a West Australian school, involved 19 students receiving “inappropriate assistance” during a test.
Elsewhere on the national broadcaster is the row between Nancy Pelosi and Paul Keating, with the former US speaker of the house calling the former prime minister’s remarks about Taiwan last week “ridiculous”. In last night’s 7.30, Pelosi was asked about Keating calling Taiwan “Chinese real estate” and responded bluntly: “You don’t want to get my description of him for saying that … that’s ridiculous”, adding it was “a stupid statement to make”. Ahead of the airing of the interview, Keating released a statement accusing the ABC of “being excited by sensationalist comment from a person who shares not a jot of identity with Australian national interests”, the SMH reports, and accused Pelosi of making a “recklessly indulgent visit to Taiwan in 2022”.
Keating made his initial comments about Taiwan while discussing the AUKUS defence pact. My colleague Bernard Keane yesterday wrote about the former PM’s reaction to the alliance and the latest details of the agreement recently tabled in Parliament. You can read it here.
NO MORE SCOOTERS
The City of Melbourne has banned rental e-scooters within its borders, according to today’s Age. The paper says councillors on Tuesday evening voted to withdraw from contracts with scooter companies Lime and Neuron with five days’ notice. The decision reportedly gives the operators 30 days to remove their e-scooters from the city.
Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece is quoted as telling the meeting last night: “After two years I have run out of patience at what I’m seeing on the streets and footpaths of our city,” calling the situation “shameful”. He added: “There are literally more people disobeying the law on e-scooters than there are actually following the rules; people riding around without helmets, people double-dinking, people in groups, riding on the footpath, creating havoc on the footpaths of our city.”
As a result of last night’s vote, Lime and Neuron scooters will be removed from Melbourne’s CBD and suburbs including Docklands, Carlton, Southbank, South Yarra, Flemington, Kensington, Port Melbourne, Parkville and East Melbourne from mid-September, the paper says. It is not yet clear exactly how the ban will be enforced.
Talking of bans, the AFR has another turn of the wheel on the Albanese government’s much-criticised attempts to enforce some kind of crackdown on gambling advertising (the subject of today’s Commentariat below). The paper reports as part of the current government proposal betting firms will still be able to buy sponsored Google results on some search terms. Responding to the latest news, teal independent Kate Chaney said: “Anything short of a blanket ban will just move ad revenue around, as we saw with tobacco. A carve-out allowing sponsored content on search engines would be the thin edge of the wedge.”
The government has already briefed media companies, betting firms and sporting codes on the proposals (involving eyebrow-raising NDAs), which anti-gambling advocates say don’t go far enough and betting firms and media organisations say go too far, the AFR recalls, adding that government MPs were set to meet with AFL players and executives for the code’s annual event at Parliament House last night.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
Nine pieces of art by Banksy have appeared in London over the past nine days.
On Tuesday, a new piece showing a gorilla appearing to lift up a shutter at the entrance to London Zoo, allowing other animals and birds to escape, was confirmed on the artist’s official Instagram page, the Press Association reports.
The work follows the animal theme of the previous eight Banksy pieces which have appeared around the capital. Since August 5 there have been pieces involving rhinos, piranhas, goats, elephants, monkeys, a wolf, pelicans and a cat.
On Monday, the piece involving a rhino mounting a car was defaced by a man wearing a balaclava just hours after it went up, The Guardian reports. The BBC obtained video of the man walking up to the artwork in Charlton’s Westmoor Street and spray painting on it. The crowd gathered around the piece can be heard saying “don’t do that” and after “Why did you do that? Why did you do it?”
Of the other pieces, three men who said they were “hired” by a “contracting company” to take down the billboard in Cricklewood featuring the cat for safety reasons were booed by those there, the Press Association said.
A howling wolf on a satellite dish was also removed from a roof in Peckham less than an hour after it was unveiled. A spokesperson for Banksy told the Press Association the artist was neither connected to nor endorsed the theft of the wolf artwork and had “no knowledge as to the dish’s current whereabouts”.
Say What?
Happy to host Kamala on an X Spaces too.
Elon Musk
After his much-hyped live discussion with Donald Trump on X was hit by technical issues, Musk has tried to invite the Democratic candidate to chat on his social media platform too. Musk blamed “a massive DDOS attack” for the problems with the Trump livestream on Monday, which one expert told the BBC was “unlikely”. Kamala Harris’ campaign released a statement on “whatever that was” after the event and called Musk and Trump “self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024”.
CRIKEY RECAP
And that’s a key issue: unlike a newspaper, or an online media company, Seven operates using spectrum that is owned by Australian government and thus taxpayers. It only exists because it is allowed to use a publicly owned asset. Even with such a minimalist requirement as “suitable”, Seven shouldn’t be allowed to use a public asset as part of operations that undermine public interest journalism, immiserate its own staff and reward rapists and war criminals.
Who would be inconvenienced or harmed by Seven being shut down? Its remaining staff, certainly. Investors, to a degree, although Seven West Media’s share price is just 16 cents. But there’d be fewer media industry workplaces for predators and harassers. And there’d be no impact on journalism.
Scott Morrison has appeared in a defamation trial to testify about what he knew, and when, of the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins in a ministerial office in Canberra in 2019.
Senator Linda Reynolds is suing Higgins over a series of social media posts containing alleged mistruths that Reynolds believes damaged her reputation.
Morrison tuned into the hearing in the Western Australian Supreme Court on Tuesday via a video link from Sydney.
Research has consistently found that games with higher event frequencies are attractive to problem gamblers and are more likely to lead to negative gambling outcomes, such as difficulty quitting the game and higher losses.
Livingstone said that online sports betting — allowing multiple bets on multiple games happening at the same time as well as events within single games — means gamblers “can now set up a whole host of events that you can bet on, which you bet on with enormous frequency”.
“So you’ve achieved this high event frequency, which engages people in what we call high immersion,” he said. “People that are highly immersed in the game tend to lose what’s called executive function, that is, they get lost in the product. And once they’re lost in the product, it’s very difficult for them to find their way out of it.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
More Indian hospitals hit by doctors’ protest after rape and murder of medic (Reuters)
Deception and a gamble: How Ukrainian troops invaded Russia (The New York Times) ($)
Girl, 13, admits threatening violence as dozens more rioters are put behind bars (The i paper) ($)
Paris Olympics are over and Macron now has to name a new prime minister (euronews)
Ex-Twitter worker wins £470,000 for unfair dismissal over Musk ‘hardcore’ email (The Guardian)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Online gambling reform had rare bipartisan support thanks to a brave MP. So why has Labor put action on hold? — Brett Worthington (ABC): Bravery was something [Peta] Murphy had in spades as she fought her cancer.
In her final days she continued to argue that there was no halfway house, insisting partial bans don’t work.
Her final political act was convincing those who sat opposite her in Parliament of the need to tackle online gambling. But it’s a message that looks to have fallen short with those who sat much closer on the government’s frontbench.
Anthony Albanese is trying to have a bet each way on gambling ads. Chances are he’s about to lose — Malcolm Farr (Guardian Australia): A ban would provoke counterattacks from media groups and the HQ figures of major sporting codes. And both groups have considerable influence.
The risk from not doing anything is the impression the Albanese government cares more for its own survival than that of individuals lured into life-wrecking addiction.
Add to those the perception that a government dedicated to easing cost of living pressures has dodged a means of discouraging people from keeping their money for essentials and not wasting it on wagering, which delivers few wins and drains wallets.
It is a toss-up for Albanese and without concrete action by him one of those tagline warnings on gambling ads might suit: “Chances are you are about to lose.”
