NAME AND SHAME
Disgraced Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith was the soldier alleged in the Brereton inquiry to have directed the killing of an elderly imam in Afghanistan in 2012, the ABC reports. The four-year inquiry by NSW Court of Appeal judge Paul Brereton alleged an elderly man named Haji Raz Mohammad was dragged from a mosque by soldiers and shot in 2012 — the army defended it by saying the imam was seen talking on a radio, but the inquiry found the radio was allegedly planted on him, and that he was unarmed and under control before his death. It recommended the killing be investigated as a possible war crime. “A classified document seen by the ABC states Mr Roberts-Smith, who at the time was an SAS patrol commander, was ‘directly involved’ in the killing,” the broadcaster reports.
To another rather different battle, and Tennis Australia boss Craig Tiley is trying to “influence” the sport’s world governing bodies to hold on to inclusive rules for trans players, Brisbane Times ($) reports. He’s urging the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) to live the values of “inclusivity”, “diversity” and “equality”. The paper notes, however, that “there are no known transgender tennis players currently seeking to compete at the elite level”. It comes after the Australian Press Council slammed The Daily Telegraph’s coverage of the manslaughter of Mhelody Polan Bruno by her partner in 2020, Crikey reports. The Tele repeatedly referenced her gender identity, the watchdog said, which may have led readers to believe it was a factor in her death and “could contribute to substantial prejudice against transgender people”.
GUILT TRIPS
Queensland children are pleading guilty to things they didn’t do because they don’t want to be held on remand for ages. Some 88% (!) of kids in detention centres and police watch houses have not been sentenced yet, Guardian Australia reports, and statistically one in three will walk free. There are 337 kids in custody in Queensland — that’s double the number in Victoria, the paper adds. Why? Bail laws. In 2019 the Youth Justice Act was tweaked to say kids must be held in custody if it looks like they’ll reoffend and put the community at risk, as Amnesty Australia explains. That means getting bail is super hard for kids, the Youth Advocacy Centre says, and often the sentence is shorter than the time they’d spend on remand — so why wouldn’t they plead guilty even if they’re not?
To another legal matter, and who’s leaking audio recordings and text messages between Brittany Higgins, her partner David Sharaz and two journalists to the media? That’s the question as The Australian ($), other News Corp papers and 7News are publishing near daily on the leaks. The Oz included a line that reads the “texts come from material produced during the investigation of Bruce Lehrmann and were widely distributed within the Australian Federal Police, the ACT office of the director of public prosecutions, the defence and possibly other parties”. But Guardian Australia spoke to sources who said the ACT Supreme Court didn’t do it, and the private material was not part of the board of inquiry. Lehrmann’s lawyer told news.com.au ($) it wasn’t the defence either, saying it’s actually seeking the recordings for the defamation proceedings against ABC and Ten Network. Daily Mail Australia editor Barclay Crawford said it doesn’t reveal its sources, assumedly apart from the many times it’s reported other journalists’ stories.
PASSING THE BUCK
Some 66 millionaires didn’t pay a cent of tax in 2020-21, the ABC reports. That’s according to new data from the Australian Taxation Office, which also found the average salary of those people was $14.5 million. The Australia Institute’s senior economist Matt Grudnoff found those people spent an average of $219,000 on tax agents, which they then claimed as a deduction. Dismal. But the AFR ($) primly reports the rich are paying their way, saying the top 1% paid the most tax in at least a decade, with an average of $317,090 in the period, up by more than $47,000 from a year earlier. It amounted to a fifth of personal income tax revenue in 2020-21, the Fin pontificates. Yay rich people etc.
The ATO also revealed that Australia had a record 2.2 million landlords last financial year, the SMH ($) continues, with about a quarter owning two or more houses. More landlords made a profit than not for the first time since at least 2009-10, probably because rates were so low. “Interest is the single largest expense claimed by landlords,” the paper notes. Meanwhile more and more renters are being asked for proof of identity, rental and financial history, and references even before they’ve looked at a rental property. The pre-apply process can take hours, Guardian Australia says, and is required before you can even get an inspection confirmation, on online platform 2Apply anyway. One prospective tenant said sometimes the inspection doesn’t even go ahead because people will just lease it before seeing it.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
A 10-year-old girl named Shunghla Mashwani was trudging through the scrub of the Cle Elum River Valley in Washington state at the weekend. Peering around at the winding tendrils of the bushes contrasting with the towering, stately trees of the old-growth forest, Mashwani was reminded of her home country of Afghanistan that she’d left just two years ago. She was trying to keep up with almost two dozen others in her extended family as their long legs crossed the terrain at a pace a little faster than hers. Momentarily distracted as the adults disappeared down a trail towards a bridge over the washing river for some lunch, Mashwani lost sight of them. The primary school girl stopped dead, suddenly very alone, peering at each of several possible pathways. Which way did everyone go?
OK, think, Mashwani told herself. If I’m lost, I should… walk downstream. So she did, finding her way to the Cle Elum River and following it as best as she could in the rugged landscape. When the light began to fade, she curled up in a clearing between some trees and shut her eyes, willing sleep to come. She figured she’d “wake up early in the morning, and then I’ll find my dad and mum in the forest”, she told CNN. All the while, a huge rescue effort was underway involving search teams, drones, helicopters, and K9s. Her dad recorded a message in their language that was broadcast over the area constantly, assuring Mashwani they were looking for her, they were coming. The next day, two volunteers spotted her little brown-haired head among the green — she was fine, just a couple of scrapes, and was back in the relieved arms of her dad shortly afterwards. The local police were blown away by Mashwani, commending her as “an extraordinarily resourceful and resilient 10-year-old”.
Hoping you find your way back on to the path today and have a restful long weekend. Your Worm will be back in your inbox on Tuesday morning.
SAY WHAT?
The [Australian Christian Lobby] calls on all Tasmanians to take a stand against Dark Mofo and their blatant agenda to bring hell to earth and for the Tasmanian government to act swiftly to reverse the growing reputation of Tasmania as the Australian state that welcomes evil.
Christopher Brohier
The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) director got all hot and bothered about the art festival’s signs on the big screen at Hobart’s airport baggage claim reading “Welcome to Hell”, no doubt delighting Dark Mofo’s organisers with the free publicity.
CRIKEY RECAP
“The core argument of the RBA et al in wishing the problem away is that you have to ignore mining and energy profits because everyone knows that’s a special case — mining profits have inflated the overall profit share of income versus the wage share of income, and energy prices have generated enormous profits, but only due to Putin and the Ukraine war.
“But regardless of the merit of removing the biggest demonstration of exactly the point your opponents are making — that a highly concentrated industry is exploiting market power to generate massive profits, in this case, an industry that’s a critical input into the costs of businesses right across the economy — the problem is that the RBA is left inside the Pythons’ ‘What have the Romans ever done for us?’ scene.”
The grant to Perth’s Esther Foundation was picked apart by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) in an examination of the $2 billion Community Health and Hospitals Program (CHHP) grants program released this week. Alert readers may have noted that the office’s work confirmed much of what Crikey had reported in February last year in our investigative series which revealed the religious abuse inflicted on vulnerable young women who had nowhere to turn.
“As a result of those revelations, the Esther Foundation was closed down amid a WA parliamentary inquiry into its operations. Then prime minister Morrison was a central figure in allocating money to the centre which had been established by a Pentecostal Christian believer and which had used exorcisms and all-night ‘pray the gay away’ prayer sessions as a form of therapy for women with psychological and emotional problems.”
“Woolworths has quietly abandoned a plan to make all of its paper bags in Australia and will continue outsourcing some of the production to China and Vietnam, Crikey can reveal. The grocery giant set the goal of making all of its paper bags in Australia in 2021 in response to customer backlash.
“The previous year, when the supermarket chain began offering paper bags at checkout, some customers expressed disappointment the bags were made overseas. The backlash was amplified in numerous news stories at the time and Woolworths then announced it had signed a deal with Australian manufacturer Detpak.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
US Supreme Court backs Alabama Black voters, bolsters civil rights law (Reuters)
‘We are so close’: EU countries on the cusp of major deal to revamp rules on migration and asylum (euronews)
Poor air quality, high pollution levels persist on Thursday in Toronto (CBC)
China reportedly reaches secret deal with Cuba to host spy base on island (The Guardian)
Why Imran Khan has disappeared from Pakistan’s media (BBC)
El Niño under way, raising fears of extreme weather patterns (AL Jazeera)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Labor caught in pincer movement of fighting inflation and delivering to its constituency — Michelle Grattan (The Conversation): “Chalmers himself is strong on messaging, this week carefully keeping his distance from the latest rate rise. As Wednesday’s national accounts showed the economy slowing and productivity going backwards, the government is caught in a pincer movement. It must meet the challenge of managing the economy, which means at this point, as Chalmers says, putting the fight against inflation to the fore. Chalmers is always quick to quote those (including Lowe) who say the budget wasn’t inflationary. Being good economic managers is objectively necessary, but politically too. It’s a mantle Labor needs to wear for the government’s long-term survival.
“On the other hand, Labor’s base and its election pitch push in another direction. This is a LABOR government. Its core constituents, including and especially those on low wages, are hurting badly, while its core union base is feeling its oats. Labor’s mantra, before the election and since, has been to get wages moving. The unions demanded, and were given, changes to the industrial relations system to improve their bargaining power in the pursuit of wage rises. Last year’s jobs summit brought together business and unions (as well as the community sector). But by the end of it, there was no doubt the unions had the upper hand, which was always going to be the case.”
Indigenous Voice to Parliament adds a political dimension to the Barunga Festival — Patrick Dodson (The Australian) ($) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are warned that the following mentions deceased persons: “My program projected a visit this weekend to the Barunga Festival in the Northern Territory. Barunga, an Aboriginal community (2021 census population around 340) on the Central Arnhem Road, a one-hour drive east of Katherine, has hosted this sports and cultural festival since 1985. Behind the rivalry of sports teams from across Arnhem Land, the competition among spear throwers and the spectacle of dance troupes in the late afternoon bunggul, the Barunga Festival has long had a serious political dimension. The consistent players have been the land councils created under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. At Barunga in 1988, the year of Australia’s bicentenary, the land councils presented prime minister Bob Hawke with the Barunga Statement, which now hangs in Parliament House in Canberra.
“The statement called for recognition of First Peoples’ rights and a treaty. The chairmen of the Northern and Central land councils, the late Yunupingu and the late Wenten Rubuntja respectively, were principal artists of the statement. I was director of the CLC at the time and remember well the colourful ceremony that marked the presentation. In response, Hawke promised a treaty with First Nations peoples by 1990. To the Aboriginal audience he said he wished that ‘the non-Aboriginal people of Australia will recognise the injustices of the past, will recognise the obligations that we have to create an Australia in which your culture and traditions will not only be able to survive, but to flourish, in which you, the Aboriginal people, will have the opportunity of living in dignity’.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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The University of Melbourne’s Ceren Ayas will speak about Türkiye’s transition away from coal, in a seminar at the Steve Howard Room.
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Linköping University’s Katarina Sperling will speak about machine learning and AI in primary school settings, at Deakin Downtown. You can also catch this one online.
