AIRBUS ALBO
The Albanese government is looking at a new tax on thermal coal and gas producers that could bring energy prices down. It’d be temporary, The Australian ($) explains, according to mysterious government sources who spoke to the paper. Similar things are happening elsewhere — in the UK, for instance, the government has raised its energy profits levy from 25% to 30% to bring energy prices down (the industry was placated by the government allowing further exploration and supply). Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Treasurer Jim Chalmers, Energy Minister Chris Bowen and Resources Minister Madeleine King have all indicated nothing’s off the table. But it’ll have to wait until Albanese returns from a super-busy nine days abroad for the G20, ASEAN and APEC summits — he’s catching up with UK PM Rishi Sunak, US President Joe Biden, and maybe even China’s President Xi Jinping, Guardian Australia reports. Albanese said this week that if a meeting was arranged with Xi it would be a “positive thing” — and the surest sign yet that the Coalition’s ruinous relationship with Beijing was mending under Labor.
Interestingly, as AFR’s Phil Coorey notes, COP27 in Egypt was not on Albanese’s travel itinerary — despite Labor making a lot of noise about then prime minister Scott Morrison vacillating about whether he’d go to COP26, as CNN reports. At the time, Albanese and Bowen both declared they’d attend summits to show Australia was taking climate change seriously — Bowen is going to Egypt this week, but Minister for International Development and the Pacific Pat Conroy has been representing us so far. Coorey notes there’s loads on for Albo, but Biden is going to all three summits as well as COP27. Plus Sunak copped a lot of flak for considering not going to the climate summit this year, as The Guardian reports. Like him or loathe him, Morrison sending a minister to the summit wouldn’t have been received the same way. So why isn’t Albanese going? Speculation, but it could be because of Egypt’s reputation for torrid human rights abuses — the one Australia will never forget was its treatment of journalist Peter Greste — or that Egyptian authorities are known to use vague “morality” charges to prosecute LGBTIQA+ people, female social media influencers, and more, as Human Right Watch says.
BAD PRESS
The AFR has deleted, but not apologised for, lines in a story that described ABC reporter Bridget Rollason as someone who has “shot TikTok videos to catchy music of herself going to a gym, eating breakfast and having make-up applied” in an AFR story about the media’s coverage of the Victorian election. Compare that with reporter Aaron Patrick’s description of The Age’s Paul Sakkal as an “ambitious young reporter”. Rollason says the description isn’t even accurate, as Guardian Australia reports — she hasn’t filmed any TikTok videos at the gym or eating breakfast. Patrick also described Seven Network’s political reporter Sharnelle Vella as having “her own talent agent”, while Gus McCubbing was described simply as “a reporter for The Australian Financial Review“. A clarification was added, reading: “An earlier version of this online story included some detail that was not relevant or necessary. Those details have since been deleted.”
If Patrick’s name is ringing a bell, it might be because he wrote a story last year about how a “new” cohort of “angry” female journalists was making then PM Scott Morrison’s life tough. He listed Samantha Maiden, Laura Tingle and Katharine Murphy among others — three veteran journalists who have been reporting on politics for decades. Eyes rolled everywhere at Patrick’s story — New Corp, the ABC, Guardian Australia, here at Crikey and at The Saturday Paper, as well as UK musician Lily Allen for some reason, commentator Lisa Wilkinson, Labor’s Penny Wong, and more, as Guardian Australia delved into. Hey, speaking of blistering rebukes, Wong has vehemently denied the government’s plan to appoint a First Nations ambassador is a “segregation of First Nations people” as Northern Territory Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price suggested. Price and Wong had a fiery exchange over the ambassador role in the Senate — Price said it was divisive, as Sky News reports, but Wong said it was about a diversity of voices.
FOURTH TIME UNLUCKY
Queensland is calling it — the state is in a fourth wave of the COVID pandemic triggered by vaccine-resistant variants, and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has raised the virus alert level from green to amber, SBS reports. That means masks are recommended, though not enforced, indoors, particularly in vulnerable settings like healthcare facilities. Health Minister Yvette D’Ath says the best way to protect yourself is to get boosted, The New Daily continues, while vulnerable folks can also get antivirals which will bolster their immunity. The state’s chief health officer Dr John Gerrard said he expects the wave will peak in four to six weeks — hopefully before Christmas. Gerrard can still “legally order infected people to isolate, and close contacts to quarantine and mandate face masks and vaccination in health facilities for another 12 months”, SBS adds, but he can’t lock down cities or the border.
Meanwhile Victoria says its mask rules won’t change, despite chief health officer Brett Sutton warning that Victoria is entering a new COVID wave too. You have to wear one for seven days if you have COVID or if you’re a close contact, but a spokesperson told the Herald Sun ($) there were no plans to bring masks back to public transport. Victoria has recorded 10,226 total cases in the past week — a 20% increase from the week before — and you’ve gotta imagine it’s much higher, considering a lot fewer people are seeking PCR testing. NSW’s chief health officer Kerry Chant told her state to brace for a new wave — cases are up by a quarter in NSW too.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
In adulthood, there’s nothing that captures the sheer unbridled chaos of a bird in the classroom as an animal making an escape from the zoo. We as a nation were gripped by a thrilling tale of five lions escaping from Taronga Zoo last week — among the incredible coverage was the tale of the couple who were locked down in their Roar and Snore sleepover at the zoo. Now, a development in the historic saga, as the SMH reports — two of the savvy lions who escaped managed to weasel their way through a second fence, with their four valiant cubs following the leaders. All the lions were fine, and there was no risk to human life, two facts that make the story so purely enjoyable. Indeed writer Dom Knight declared the lion escape “the most exciting thing to happen to Mosman since negative gearing”. But it’s not just us — Time magazine has actually collated a list of the 11 coolest zoo escapes.
There was Rusty the Red Panda, who wasn’t exactly easy to mistake as a common housecat when the brave boy was snapped exploring the neighbourhood of Washington, DC. There was the time the zoo keepers at Tokyo Sea Life Park were baffled to receive a photograph of one of their Humboldt Penguins doing laps at a river nearby — the tuxedo fugitive had somehow scaled a rock wall nearly twice its height, even though penguins can’t fly, and cruise around Tokyo Bay. And then there was the time recently when a deadly king cobra named Sir Vass (which means Sir Hiss in Swedish) escaped not once but twice from his home at Stockholm’s zoo. The zoo ended up drilling into the walls and using X-ray cameras to find the slippery guy, but in the end, a weary Sir Vass decided he was ready to go home himself and slithered back into his big terrarium for a nap.
Hoping you feel a little thrill today too, and have a restful weekend.
SAY WHAT?
Remote work is no longer allowed, unless you have a specific exception. Managers will send the exception lists to me for review and approval.
Elon Musk
Does this mark the tide turning for remote work? The influential Tesla and now Twitter CEO, who fired half the social media giant’s workforce, has told staff to get out of their trackies and back into the office. Musk has said before he thinks remote work is bogus and bad for productivity.
CRIKEY RECAP
Wife of Australian jailed in Baghdad says he’s been fined US$50m by Iraqi authorities
“An Australian engineer jailed in Baghdad has been issued with legal papers in his cell claiming he owes the Iraqi government US$50 million, the man’s wife says. Robert Pether has been detained in Iraq since April last year and his mental and physical health are deteriorating fast behind bars, according to his wife, Desree Pether.
“She told Crikey she spoke to her husband twice in the past three days and was told he may be in for another legal battle in an Iraqi court. According to Desree, whose claims are yet to be verified by the Iraqi embassy or DFAT, her husband was served with papers written in Arabic this week, which he was asked to sign and mark with his thumbprint.”
Teals could lose the young and the restless by obstructing workers’ rights
“Their objections matter little given the government’s lower house majority. But in the Senate, independent David Pocock’s equivocation could see the bill delayed or watered down. He says he’s in favour of raising wages, but his previous criticism of the government’s construction industry reforms suggests he’s exceedingly cautious on IR changes.
“These tepid soft-liberals are either mistakenly elevating procedural cleanliness over substantive reform, or are, as Bernard Keane wrote, ‘worrying that employers might get their shoes scuffed a little in removing them [from workers’ throats]’. But it’s no wonder industrial relations split the teals, with some parroting business lobby talking points, while the more progressive Pocock and Ryan exalt performative scrupulousness in lieu of a substantive position.”
AFP finds nothing to see here in illegal superspreading of Turnbull book
“Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and publishers have criticised a bizarre decision by the Australian Federal Police to close its investigation of the illegal distribution of hundreds, and possibly thousands, of copies of Turnbull’s book A Bigger Picture by Scott Morrison’s staff, other Coalition figures and journalists in 2021.
“In a letter to Hardie Grant Publishing’s lawyers this week, the AFP’s deputy commissioner investigations said the AFP had “finalised” the matter, meaning no action would be taken despite the clear breach of the Copyright Act by a number of individuals.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Jailed Egyptian hunger striker had medical intervention: family (Al Jazeera)
Masks cut COVID spread in schools, study finds (The New York Times)
How the Georgia Senate runoff will work (CNN)
Elon Musk, in first email to Twitter staff, ends remote work (Al Jazeera)
Tigray still without aid eight days after deal to end Ethiopia’s blockade (The Guardian)
US consumer prices rise less than expected; weekly jobless claims up (Reuters)
Ukraine war: Russia says troops have begun leaving Kherson as Kyiv stays sceptical (EuroNews)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Holy See and corruption: it all comes out in the wash — Dennis Shanahan (The Australian) ($): “The latest airing of the Vatican’s dirty laundry is another sad exposé of the corruption, cover-ups, archaic financial controls, mystery money transfers, perversion of the Catholic Church’s aims and downright criminal behaviour that occurs under cover of the Holy See. Behaviour that has occurred undetected and largely unpunished for decades. It is also another injection of life into the deeply held convictions of some that Cardinal George Pell was the target and victim of a ‘villainous and infamous conspiracy’. Libero Milone’s claims as the first independent auditor appointed to the Vatican finances in his new lawsuit against his former employers do not provide any evidence, as has been claimed in Rome, that money was sent to Australia to damage Pell’s defence against police investigations and charges of sexual abuse.
“Infamously, Pell was charged over allegations of sexual abuse, stood trial, was convicted and spent a year in jail but was ultimately, and unanimously, found innocent by the High Court. Corruption investigators have been told money was sent to Australia to help damage Pell, who people wanted ‘out of the way’ and sacked from his job as Vatican treasurer to clean up the finances and eradicate corruption. Cardinal Angelo Becciu, an opponent of Pell’s reforms and currently on trial for corruption involving Vatican funds and property deals, did authorise more than $2 million to be transferred to Australia during the Pell investigation and trials. Becciu has denied any wrongdoing and claimed the money was for a tech security firm to organise a domain for the Catholic Church, among other explanations.”
Forget the ‘anger and mudslinging’. Where is the contest of ideas? — Annika Smethurst (The Age) ($): “We should be careful not to dismiss this nastiness from elected officials as just part of the cut and thrust of political debate. The rhetoric and nastiness from our politicians not only drives disillusionment with politics, but it sets the atmosphere in which elections are fought. Politicians set the tone of political debate. Jennifer Lynn McCoy, a professor of political science at Georgia State University has looked at the effects of what our political leaders say during elections and the broader ramifications on democracy. Examining 11 countries, McCoy found that when politicians delegitimise their political opponents or exploit voter grievances instead of offering policy solutions, it stimulates party tribalism. Such blind partisan loyalties deter voters from examining their biases or examining the facts and ultimately does damage to our democracy.
“When this masthead revealed Premier Daniel Andrews was being investigated in a secret anti-corruption commission probe over his role in awarding two grants worth $3.4 million, his most loyal fans, fuelled by many within the party, shouted that the report was wrong, never should have been aired and was evidence of some sort of bias. But so-called ‘Dan Stans’ — an online army of diehard Andrews government backers — aren’t alone in their blind crusade. Liberal Party supporters, and some MPs, have come dangerously close to fuelling wild conspiracy theories about Andrews’ fall last year as well as siding with fringe anti-lockdown protesters who have accused the Premier of treason. This level of cuckoo has seeped into the Coalition’s campaign with Liberal candidate Cynthia Watson posting a photo of a man wearing a T-shirt demanding the elected premier be jailed.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Cross-cultural consultant Tasneem Chopra, lawyer and writer Nyadol Nyuon, author Kamila Shamsie and journalist Jamila Rizvi will talk about women of colour in the workplace, in a talk held by the Wheeler Centre.
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
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Counsellor Nicole Mathieson will discuss her new book, The Beauty Load, at Glee Books.
Yuggera Country (also known as Brisbane)
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Commentator Michael Pascoe will discuss his memoir, The Summertime of Our Dreams, at Avid Reader bookshop. You can also catch this online.
