HEALTH OF A NATION
Billionaire Clive Palmer is boasting a world-first after bankrolling a successful legal challenge to Queensland’s COVID vaccine mandates, Guardian Australia reports. The Supreme Court found police and ambulance workers in the Sunshine State were unlawfully told to get vaccines or face punishment that at times included being sacked. The judge said the police commissioner should’ve considered Queensland’s Human Rights Act more carefully when ordering vaccinations. It’s not clear yet whether anyone’s employment will be reinstated in light of the finding. Palmer, who coughed up as much as $3 million for the case, says the “precedent” showed a “trampling of human rights”, adding a class action might be next.
To more health news and six large health insurers told The Australian ($) they haven’t had to wait this long for the government to confirm the premium increase in 15 years and they won’t have time to notify customers if they don’t find out this week. Is it to avoid fallout before Saturday’s Dunkley by-election? Health Minister Mark Butler said that’s hogwash, saying it has been a year of both record profits and a cost of living crisis and that we need increases to be as “low as possible”. Speaking of: the ABC reports Labor’s tweaked stage three tax cuts sailed through the Senate last night — with Coalition support, mind you — meaning they’ll become law. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese welcomed a tax policy contest ahead of the next election, but pointed out Labor’s changes cost the same as the original plan (around $107 billion) — so what will the Coalition cut from, Albo asked in a challenge to the opposition.
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe said Mardi Gras was right to uninvite the cops to the LGBTQIA+ festival this weekend, Sky News Australia reports, after the death of Jesse Baird and his partner Luke Davies allegedly at the hands of police officer Beau Lamarre-Condon. Thorpe said the police needed “real scrutiny and accountability” instead of “empty apologies and hollow gestures”. Meanwhile, the SMH has published an insight into “troubled fantasist” Lamarre-Condon, who posted photos in all white next to private planes that friends doubted he had boarded, and was also known for blogging about close and at times exaggerated encounters with celebrities. The paper noted his “highly public pre-policing career” didn’t seem to be a red flag for the psychometric testing and psychology team.
Meanwhile, one of Davies’ fellow Qantas cabin crew said he spent more than eight hours caring for a man with severe dementia on a flight from Sydney to Singapore three weeks ago. The man was one-half of a couple headed to Switzerland to see their son for the last time, and other cabin crew told the SMH they were moved to tears by Davies tucking the man into bed, reassuring him when his memory faltered, and consoling his upset wife. It came as NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb apologised after describing the case as a “crime of passion”, something Pride in Protest’s Evan Zijl said showed police’s “fundamental misunderstanding” of domestic violence as Guardian Australia says. The Australian ($) adds the families of Davies and Baird travelled to Bungonia, near Goulburn, last night where the couple’s bodies were found.
IT’S NOT WORKING
NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commissioner Tracy Mackey has resigned days before the release of a report into children with autism being unlawfully restrained in NDIS-funded program Irabina Autism Services in Melbourne, the ABC writes. Four Corners showed footage of a non-verbal teenager being held face down by six workers as part of a severe behaviour program, and other kids aged 10-14 had been held down too, even though the pin-down method is unlawful. Mackey assured Four Corners the Irabina Autism Services program was no more, but afterwards, NDIS deputy commissioner Jeffrey Chan said he showed her evidence it was still operating. Chan alleged he was sacked two hours later as a scapegoat and swiftly took legal action that ended in a settlement. Mackey finishes up in May, NDIS Minister Bill Shorten said.
Meanwhile, the WorkSafe charges against Netflix’s Outback Wrangler Matt Wright have gone before an NT court, NT News reports. The charges were brought against him and his company Helibrook after the helicopter crash that killed Chris “Willow” Wilson — WorkSafe alleged Wright changed the number of flight hours by tweaking the Hobbs meters (devices that measure the amount of time an aircraft is in use) and didn’t record flight times correctly, which may have prevented the inspection and replacement of the aircraft’s life-limited components. Wright said the charges were misleading. Finally, Woodside, Fortescue, Lendlease and Wesfarmers have weighed in on the reason behind the gender pay gap revealed this week, the AFR reports. Their ideas: care responsibilities prevent women from offshore jobs, the top-paid jobs are in male-dominated software engineering, women take on family responsibilities because they accept they’re less likely to get promotions, and not enough girls do maths and science at school. Or, ya know, sexism.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
On a cobblestone street corner in the old town of Burgdorf in Switzerland, just 300 metres from a palace and a church, stands a stately hotel. Rows of arched windows reveal the golden glow of travellers within, enjoying crisp pints of Feldschlösschen Original while wedged into squashy armchairs. But one day of the year, the Burgdorfer Stadthaus welcomes dorkuses from all corners of the globe for its annual chess competition. Polish grandmaster Jacek Stopa is a regular face in competitive chess circles — at his peak in 2015, the 37-year-old’s score was a whopping 2,544 points, ranking him 19th in Poland. So he may have been feeling more than a little smug when he sat down opposite Indian-born Singaporean Ashwath Kaushik to play chess on a chilly Sunday this month.
White moved first and the game was off. Suddenly Kaushik was moving in on Stopa’s pieces with militia-like precision, cornering the Pole’s king not once, not twice, but three times to the astonished gasps of onlookers. Three wins against a pro wasn’t bad for an eight-year-old kid, after all. Kaushik’s mum Rohini Ramachandran, who happened to be the same age as her son’s competitor, was thrilled her Kaushik had just become the youngest-ever player to beat a grandmaster at the game. He’d started playing chess at four years old, as The Guardian tells it, but within months the boy-genius had started winning games against family members several times his age. Kaushik just loves chess. Aside from the fact it’s fun, he says chess helps your brain “get better and smarter” because “you need a lot of thinking to find the best moves”. Indeed.
Hoping your inner child comes out to play today.
SAY WHAT?
Haters like to hate … isn’t that what Taylor [Swift] says?
Karen Webb
The NSW police commissioner brushed aside criticism of her handling of the alleged double murder of Sydney couple Jesse Baird and Luke Davies by quoting the popstar, a new level of tone deafness for authority figures in this country.
CRIKEY RECAP
“So Morrison’s ardent belief in individual ‘human dignity’ mainly applied to himself. He was the one chosen by God and everyone else was on a lower level. Colleagues he kept in the dark and gaslighted. Voters he lied to. If it served Morrison’s political purposes, human life didn’t have much value or dignity at all.
“Reza Barati, murdered on Manus Island trying to flee his attackers, was afforded none by then immigration minister Morrison. Robodebt victims got none from social security minister Morrison. COVID-19 victims in nursing homes got none. Women victimised by political predators got none. Like Morrison’s God, who interfered in the 2019 election but apparently sat out in 2022, Morrison’s idea of human dignity is selective.”
“Seven West Media had the biggest gender pay disparity at 13.8%, but Guardian Australia had the worst representation for women in the lowest pay quartile at 72%. While not a single major media company had an equal share of women in their top pay quartile, Sky News Australia joins News Corp as the only companies with at least 50% in the second-highest quartile.
“Despite its pay statistics, Sky News Australia had by some margin the lowest percentage of women in management positions at 24%. Guardian Australia had the most women represented as a share of total employees at 55%, while newswire service Australian Associated Press (AAP) had the lowest share at 40%.”
“Among Australia’s biggest employers, the retailers had relatively low gaps in total remuneration, with Woolworths reporting 5.7%, Coles 5.6% and Wesfarmers 3.5%. The mining companies had much bigger gaps, with BHP Group reporting 20.3%, and Rio Tinto 13.5%. Qantas reported 37% and Telstra Group 20.2%.
“This new transparency is part of reforms passed last year to the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012, designed to spur companies to take more action on gender equity. Of the almost 5,000 companies included in the WGEA report, almost 1,000 have a gender pay gap in median base earnings exceeding 20%. About 350 of these have a gap of more than 30% and for about 100, the gap is greater than 40%.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Pakistani journalist arrested for social posts against government officials (Al Jazeera)
South Australia is about to elect the country’s first Voice to Parliament. So what will it do? (SBS)
Israel Gaza: Biden hopes for ceasefire by next week (BBC)
Ethiopian government tries to stop UK auction of looted Maqdala shield (The Guardian)
Canada’s top pensions have trillions in assets. Should they do more to fuel the energy transition? (CBC)
Sweden’s NATO accession ends era of go-it-alone security (Reuters)
Russian court jails leading rights advocate for ‘discrediting’ military (The New York Times) ($)
THE COMMENTARIAT
No cops at Mardi Gras isn’t a moral triumph, it’s fuzzy-headed victimhood — Josh Szeps (The SMH): “The apparent killing of these two beloved young men is sickening. The history of police aggression towards LGBTQIA+ Australians is a moral catastrophe. It’s understandable that emotions are raw. But uniformed police have marched in the Mardi Gras parade for more than a quarter of a century. NSW Police formally apologised to the LGBTQIA+ community in 2016. The murder suspect wasn’t acting in his capacity as a cop. NSW Police charged him, as they should any suspect, in any situation of domestic violence, gay or straight. It was the commander of the homicide squad, Detective Superintendent Daniel Doherty, who laid out the allegations in an explosive press conference.
“If gay pride is to mean anything in 2024, it must mean pride in diversity, in openness, in inclusiveness. Pride in dismantling stereotypes, not in indulging them. Pride in resilience, not fragility. In magnanimity, not pettiness. When uniformed police began marching in the Mardi Gras parade in 1998, it was a watershed moment. It represented the maturation of ‘gay rights’ from a rebellious fringe movement to a mainstream celebration. It was a triumph of the old-fashioned universalism of the civil rights pioneers — the aspiration that all people should be treated equally, regardless of colour, sex, creed or, in this case, uniform. Today, by contrast, we’re encouraged to amplify tribal differences and maintain a scrupulous scorecard of oppression. I am a man, married to a man, with kids and a mortgage …”
Scott Morrison bids farewell with a complex legacy — Rita Panahi (The Herald Sun): “While the PM’s defence of his government’s COVID-era response was fanciful bordering on delusional, the former PM was 100% right to urge an embrace of values that underpin our civilisation. But where was the protection of liberty and individual human dignity when the Morrison government was implementing draconian Covid policies including restricting Australians from returning to their homeland? One does not need to be religious or even a believer to understand the importance of Judaeo-Christian values to this country and indeed the West. There’s a reason why people from all types of backgrounds from all corners of the world want to migrate to countries like Australia.
“And, in the absence of religion, something sinister can take hold; a new vapid, intolerant and woke belief system which offers no grace, no redemption. ScoMo may have been treated harshly by the media with many of his lowest points, such as the infamous Hawaiian holiday, courtesy of media hyperbole. But after winning the unwinnable election in 2019, Morrison lost his mojo and ideological compass. That was evident from the Covid response errors to the ill-advised apology to Brittany Higgins to the embrace of net zero. In saying goodbye to politics, Morrison said he was ‘released from any bitterness’ and shed a tear paying tribute to wife Jenny and their ‘miracle girls’ Abby and Lily. Morrison’s legacy is complex; he frustrated and disappointed conservatives and the Left alike. One was left feeling that when it mattered most he lacked conviction.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Author Jane Smiley will talk about her career and her new book, Lucky, at the Wheeler Centre.
Yuggera and Turrbal Country (also known as Brisbane)
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Koori/Goori and Lebanese author Mykaela Saunders will speak about her new book, Always Will Be, at Avid Reader bookshop.
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
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Ukraine ambassador Vasyl Myroshnychenko and the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations’ Kateryna Argyrou will speak to the National Press Club.
