REX GOES INTO ADMINISTRATION
With Rex Airlines announcing late on Tuesday it has gone into voluntary administration, The Australian says regional towns fear they will lose workers, services and tourists if the airline is grounded for good.
The AAP reports Ernst & Young Australia have been appointed administrators after a statement on Rex’s website last night declared Regional Express Holdings Limited and a number of its subsidiaries under the Rex Group had entered voluntary administration. The statement went on to say regional Saab 340 flights were unaffected and would continue to operate, but domestic 737 services have been halted. Virgin Australia has offered Rex passengers free rebooking.
The ABC says it understands a consultation to determine the future for those employed by Rex, which halted trading on the ASX on Monday, will begin today. It also reports employees have said crew members in Brisbane and Melbourne had been locked out of their hotels due to unpaid bills by the airline and payments on the company’s Uber account were being declined. Rex was approached for comment but did not respond.
Asked if the federal government would step in to help Rex, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Monday it was “an important airline” and he was “very hopeful that they’ll see their way through”. On Tuesday, the AAP pointed out he questioned Rex’s expansion into major city routes, telling reporters: “One of the things I expressed concern about was having no conditions so Rex, for example, moved away from their traditional role of being a regional airline into flights, for example, from Sydney to Melbourne.”
Shadow Transport minister Bridget McKenzie told 7.30: “Rex failing would be absolutely catastrophic for regional and rural Australians.” The show said numerous politicians were also highlighting the fact Qantas flew the same regional routes and the potential pressure that brought. The AAP says unlike Bonza, which went into voluntary administration in April, Rex mainly owns rather than leases its planes.
CRUCIAL INFLATION STATS DUE
Business and financial news will likely dominate proceedings today with the latest inflation data set to be released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Guardian Australia says the “fortunes of Australia’s economy — and political polling of the Albanese government” may well hinge on the stats. The Australian quotes Judo Bank chief economic adviser Warren Hogan as saying the coming 10 days would be “one of the most important periods of Australia’s economic history”.
Economists expect a 1% quarterly rise when the data is released at 11.30am AEST, AAP reports. That would take the annual rate to 3.8%, up from 3.6% in the 12 months to March. The figures are being keenly watched in an attempt to predict what the Reserve Bank of Australia will do with interest rates when its board meets early next week.
Yesterday, the ABS revealed the total number of building approvals last month dropped 6.5% on the month before, with New South Wales experiencing the largest fall. Master Builders Australia said the drop could result in the target set by the federal government’s National Housing Accord of building 1.2 million new homes by 2029 being missed, the ABC reports.
Bosses at Nine Entertainment will no doubt be a touch grateful for the timing of the ABS’ inflation stats this morning, coming as they do 30 minutes after hundreds of its journalists return to work after a five-day strike. Guardian Australia reports CEO Mike Sneesby will also be back at work after his eyebrow-raising trip to Paris for the Olympics, while the Daily Mail Australia claims some staff are unhappy at their Paris accommodation, especially when compared to where executives have been staying.
So you’re up to date with what happened sports-wise in Paris overnight, Australia’s Kaylee McKeown just won gold and set a new Olympic record in the women’s 100m backstroke. At the time of writing the victory moved Australia up to third on the medal table and helped erase the earlier disappointment of the women’s rugby sevens team losing to the United States in their bronze medal match.
Elsewhere, gymnastics superstar Simone Biles won a fifth Olympic gold as the US were victorious in the women’s team gymnastics event. And in maybe the most unsurprising news of the Games, the men’s triathlon was postponed due to pollution levels in the River Seine and now the BBC reports organisers believe both the men’s and women’s events only have a “60% chance” of going ahead on Wednesday.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
It’s that special time of the year again, when fans of the singer Kate Bush put on their best red dresses and dance along to her iconic song Wuthering Heights.
Events are held around the world on The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever, the BBC reports. This year events have happened on different weekends in July in locations ranging from Sydney Park in Sydney to Folkestone Harbour in Kent, England.
The event, which the Daily Mail says coincides with Bush’s birthday, sees groups dance for a variety of different causes. The Liverpool Echo says those who danced at Rimrose Valley Country Park did so to raise awareness about a proposed road development through the park.
The organisers in Kent said of the majestic sight of hundreds of people swaying like Kate Bush on the edge of a harbour: “After its staggeringly successful return last year, which saw this one-of-a-kind event more than double in size, we’re excited to be bringing it back with a bang.”
The ABC said The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever events happened this year in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, while posts on social media showed them also happening in places like Wagga Wagga.
Say What?
It was not hard to take the picture.
Jérôme Brouillet
The far too modest AFP photographer describes how he took the instantly iconic picture of Brazilian surfer Gabriel Medina at the Paris Olympics. The picture of Medina seemingly hanging in the air with his surfboard pointing skywards next to him has already been dubbed “one of the most memorable images of the Games”. The Guardian quotes Brouillet as saying: “So he [Medina] is at the back of the wave and I can’t see him and then he pops up and I took four pictures and one of them was this one.” He added, again far too modestly: “I got the shot of the day, I was with six talented photographers on the boat and for sure everyone will forget about it next week. Tomorrow won’t be any different.”
CRIKEY RECAP
But perhaps the most glaring absence from the document is any explanation of why, exactly, nuclear submarines are needed — beyond his statement that they offer greater capability than diesel-electric submarines and “deliver levels of deterrence that cannot be approached by diesel-electric boats”. The mere assertion that nuclear submarines are better, without an explanation of exactly what they are better at doing that Australia requires them to do, is a persistent characteristic of AUKUS’ defenders.
While understandable in the case of slow-witted Defence Minister Richard Marles, Babbage’s failure to detail exactly what our nuclear submarines will be doing in Australia’s defence that diesel-electric submarines can’t — beyond that our “defence needs are much more demanding” — now points to a major flaw in the entire case for AUKUS. Remember, this began life not as the result of a fundamental reconsideration of Australia’s strategic interests and the growing military power of China, but in Scott Morrison’s desperation for a big announceable to reset his dying government and a wedge to use against Labor.
That Labor has persisted with it means the responsibility for the debacle that is AUKUS will rest permanently on the Albanese government — and the apologists who were too gullible to see the reality of an incompetent Defence Department.
According to news.com.au, Berejiklian, 53, will score a pension-for-life after “she turns 55 under the rules of the old super scheme that was closed for MPs elected after 2007”. Berejiklian was elected to NSW Parliament in 2003. Berejiklian’s pension, “which is calculated on a complex actuarial formula, is likely to be worth as much as $200,000-a-year for life”, according to former state MPs.
However, despite the ICAC’s findings, Berejiklian’s pension is not at risk, integrity advocate and barrister Geoffrey Watson SC told Crikey.
“There is no automatic process under which an adverse finding by ICAC will lead to any adverse effect upon an individual beyond the finding of serious corrupt conduct and the possibility of a referral to other investigators,” Watson said.
Importantly, this struggle isn’t happening in isolation. These striking journalists have allies who are rethinking reporting, acknowledging the diverse voices it has silenced, the communities it has overlooked, and the power structures it has too often served instead of challenged. This perspective helps us recognise that journalism has always been in flux, always adapting, always fighting for its place in society. Looking to our region, we see some of these allies. Publications like Rappler in the Philippines and Project Multatuli in Indonesia are already reimagining journalism, showing us what’s possible in Australia.
So, to those fretting over a potential gap in Olympics coverage, I say this: It’s time to stand with these striking journalists. It’s time to demand not just fair wages, but a fair shot at reinventing journalism in Australia. It’s time to be as audacious in our vision for journalism as those who seek to undermine it.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Taylor Swift ‘in shock’ after fatal stabbing of three kids at dance class celebrating her music (NBC News)
Israel says it targeted Hezbollah commander in Beirut suburb (The Washington Post)
India landslides: Death toll passes 100 with dozens feared missing (The Guardian)
Venezuelans clash with police after disputed election result (BBC)
Meta reaches $1.4 billion settlement with Texas over privacy violations (The New York Times) ($)
Air New Zealand scraps 2030 carbon emissions target (Al-Jazeera)
THE COMMENTARIAT
The real reason Vance’s ‘childless cat ladies’ comment is so outrageous — Catherine Rampell (The Washington Post): The real reason to be furious about JD Vance’s “childless cat ladies” comments is not his rhetorical cruelty. It’s his attempt to hide the actual cruelty his party’s policies have inflicted upon American families and children.
By now, you’ve probably heard that the Ohio senator and Republican vice-presidential nominee has described Democrats as “childless cat ladies” who, by virtue of their having no biological children, supposedly lack a “direct stake” in America’s future. The remark has infuriated and energised women across the country. Here in western Massachusetts, where vice president Harris held the first fundraiser of her presidential campaign on Saturday, homemade “Cat Ladies For Kamala” signs dotted the crowd.
Mostly lost in this culture-war brouhaha, however, is the more substantive claim Vance was making. Vance said his point was that Democrats are “anti-child” and that Republicans are the “pro-family party”.
After Paris 2024’s stupendous opening ceremony, how the hell will Brisbane 2032 compete? — Andrew Messenger (Guardian Australia): I can’t have been the only Queenslander who was extremely worried watching the Olympic opening ceremony on Saturday morning.
For the first time in history, it was held outside a stadium — instead travelling along six kilometres of the inner-city avenues and boulevards of the world’s most beautiful city, Paris. You got Marie Antoinette and a metal band. You got the Phantom of the Opera. You got parkour across the mansard copper roofs of ordinary residential five-story apartment buildings
Oh God, I thought, we’ve only got eight years. How the hell do we compete with this?
