A RARE WIN
The future of the nearly extinct swift parrot has been given somewhat of a stay of execution after the Tasmanian Supreme Court ordered the government to halt plans to log the bird’s breeding ground. Guardian Australia reports that government-owned Forestry Tasmania authorised a logging plan, allegedly despite being presented with recordings of the critically endangered swift parrot in the area. The injunction was a “huge win”, former Greens leader and environmentalist Bob Brown says, and if the court upholds the case, “we expect action to be taken against those who will have plundered this native forest illegally”. You can join the quest to save the swift parrot — Guardian Australia’s 2023 Bird of the Year, no less — by clicking here.
Meanwhile, WA farmers are irate Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is too busy to meet them after vowing to phase out live sheep exports in the past two federal elections, The West Australian ($) reports. Albanese’s stance came after 2,400 sheep perished on a ship from the Middle East in 2017, the paper writes, and comes as 16,000 Australian sheep and cattle are stranded at sea amid the Red Sea crisis in a story picked up by Time and CNN overnight. A panel put together last year is working on the phase-out. Finally, the woman who was attacked by a shark in Sydney this week had a photo of her injured leg leaked, the SMH ($) reports. Cripes. St Vincent’s says it is urgently investigating.
MEN WILL BE BOYS
Conservatives are taking a stand against this darn-tootin’ wussy woke crap and they’re not afraid to speak up about it to the media! A man from Darwin has filmed himself burning his Rip Curl shorts and telling the brand “Go woke, go broke — fuck you, Rip Curl” because it posted an ad on Instagram featuring transgender woman Sasha Lowerson. United Australia Party director Craig Kelly weighed in, Sky News Australia reports, calling it a masterclass in destroying a brand. Take it from him! The former Hughes MP lost his seat in the 2022 election after an estimated $100 million UAP advertising campaign, as The Conversation reports, leaving the party with just a solitary seat in the Senate.
Meanwhile a man was moved to tears because one of Sydney’s oldest boys’ schools is going co-ed, 9News reports, and now he won’t send his grandson there. ABC’s Barrie Cassidy quipped that the Newington College protest footage was like a colourised video from the ’50s. Another protester told the reporter it was “all part of this woke, toxic masculinity type palaver”, continuing: “I just think it’s ridiculous after 160 years of thinking it’s a good idea to have a boys-only school for the development of boys through a very developmental part of their lives without being influenced by considerations of what they should look like or how they should act in front of girls.” I’m reminded wistfully of the times I was trying to reach the word count on my university essays…
ALL SHOOK UP
There have been 360,000 more bulk-billed GP trips in two months — 202,000 in rural and regional areas — since the Labor government tripled the incentive for doctors, the SMH ($) reports. For the first time since 2020, appointments paid entirely by Medicare are up — from 75.6% of GP services covered in October to 77.7% in November. Meanwhile, housing and rent prices are also on the rise — the former by 0.4% and the latter by 0.8%, Guardian Australia reports. City by city is another thing, however — no change in Sydney or Melbourne (median house prices are $1.2 million and $777,000 respectively), while they were up 1% in Brisbane ($797,000) and Adelaide ($721,000). Perth, however, was up 2% to $677,000.
Meanwhile mortgage holders can expect a rate cut in the second half of the year, one expert predicted to the ABC, after the Australian sharemarket reached a record high (up 1.06%) yesterday because of cooling inflation. Why? “Simply put, investors are optimistic about the potential for companies and their valuations to rise further from here,” the broadcaster explains. The SMH ($) adds that a 0.5% cut would slash $201 a month off a $600,000 mortgage. And Australia’s not the only one — central banks in the US, Canada and EU are all signalling an interest rate cut this year too. Will it change the thought processes of the 71% of Australians under 30 who told a survey they’d rather travel than buy a house in the next year? The New Daily notes the 2021 census found home ownership rates for Australians aged 25-34 has declined by 14% since 1971.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
“Elmo is just checking in!” the adorable figure of so many of our childhoods posted on X. “How is everybody doing?” Not fucking good, the internet responded in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek display of mass existentialism. “Elmo I just got laid off,” one person responded. “Elmo im depressed and broke,” said another. A rather memorable user responded drily: “Every morning, I cannot wait to go back to sleep. Every Monday, I cannot wait for Friday to come. Every single day and every single week for life.” It didn’t stop. Another reply: “Elmo each day the abyss we stare into grows a unique horror. One that was previously unfathomable in nature.” Yikes!
But there were pinpricks of light in the mass therapy session with the puppet. One jaunty guy responded: “I did have a good grapefruit earlier, thank you for asking.” Elmo followed up with a post that he was glad he asked, continuing it’s important to ask a friend how they are doing, causing US President Joe Biden to chime in in agreement. However, Elmo rather hastily retreated, no doubt to seek some therapy himself, signing off: “Elmo will check in again soon, friends!” No doubt times are tough for many right now. But there’s something oddly reassuring that we’re not alone — the internet’s near-infinite communities have made sure of that — and that there is always some lightness to be found, even if it’s just sharing in a joke with thousands of strangers and a muppet.
Hope you’re doing okay today, and if you’re not, that you know you will be soon.
SAY WHAT?
[ABC’s Nemesis] didn’t entirely ignore the successes of the first two years, like stopping the boats (that no-one thought could be done), finalising the trade deals that had languished for a decade, scrapping the carbon tax and mining tax, and beginning an infrastructure catch-up with new projects (such as WestConnex and the Western Sydney Airport) that are even now still being opened.
Peta Credlin
Tony Abbott’s chief of staff needs reminding that the Coalition did not stop the boats; it turned back two to three vessels a year between 2016 and 2020. Under PM Scott Morrison, the $20 billion relationship with our largest two-way trading partner China iced over for several years. Labor inherited from the Coalition $33 billion in cost blowouts and an infrastructure investment pipeline that went from 150 to 800 projects in what the International Monetary Fund warned was turbocharging our inflation. And don’t even get me started on the carbon tax.
CRIKEY RECAP
“While not using its name, Nailon seems to be saying the edited image was the result of using Adobe Photoshop’s new generative AI features, which allows users to fill or expand existing images using AI. (An example Adobe uses is inserting a tiger into a picture of a pond.) Reading between the lines, it appears as though someone used this feature to ‘expand’ an existing photograph of Purcell, which generated her with exposed midriff rather than the full dress she was actually wearing.
“Stupidity, not malice, could explain how such an egregious edit could originate. Someone who works in a graphics department at a major Australian news network told me that their colleagues are already using Photoshop’s AI features many times a day.”
“The modern Australian Nazi has distinct characteristics: young, white, male, clad head-to-foot in black and — mostly, for now — masked. Like all uniforms, theirs serves a dual purpose: to give them the comfort of tribal belonging, and to send a simple message to everyone else. The message of Nazism is simple: fear us.
“We should always remember that fascists are funny, until they’re not. It’s the same with this crew, self-evidently thick and deluded as they are. They are in deadly earnest, and the only thing keeping them from acting out their understanding of Mein Kampf is their cowardice. That will dissipate with numbers and impact. Left alone, they will multiply and they will perpetrate racist violence. That’s fact, not probability.”
“John (not his real name), 19, lives with Asperger’s syndrome, and has benefited from the pilot program. Summonsed and charged by police for three criminal offences after driving away from a minor collision in a car park, he was referred to WEstjustice, which advocated for a caution in line with phase two of the pilot.
“Previously, under Victoria Police policy, cautions were limited to minor shop theft and possession of small quantities of certain drugs. After consultation with the victim who was sympathetic to his circumstances, John’s charges were formally withdrawn.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Ukraine war critic submits bid to challenge Putin for Russia’s presidency (Al Jazeera)
Ethiopia hails return of its first plane, stolen by Mussolini in 1930s (The Guardian)
Swedish police destroy object outside Israeli embassy in Stockholm (BBC)
How the US is preparing for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan (Reuters)
Ukraine war: Kyiv strikes St Petersburg oil refinery as prisoner swap concludes (euronews)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Why I’m not done fighting — for animal rights, and for women — Georgie Purcell (Guardian Australia): “The issue at the core of these experiences for women is consent. And while I accept the apology provided by Nine News, its explanation of how it occurred fails to address this issue. I was a victim of image-based abuse while studying at university, and I have since been diagnosed with PTSD. So the explanation that this was an AI editing error came too late for me to feel anything but that my body had been violated once again. The image was out there, and once again, my determination and commitment to my work was overshadowed. I can deal with this personally. While it is tiring, I won’t stop talking about my experiences, because it reflects what women face broadly, especially young women. If men won’t stand up in newsrooms, parliaments or offices around the country, then I must, even on my worst days.
“I’ll leave the commentary about the possibility of an AI image error to the experts. What’s important to me is that this doesn’t happen again. I want women’s words to be enough, without bringing our bodies into it. The media undoubtedly controls much of the gender narrative and for that reason, they should be held to high standards. Because my dedication to end recreational duck shooting has been met with sexist and misogynistic rhetoric, I took the government’s gutless decision to ignore the recommendation of its own parliamentary inquiry, its choice to continue the slaughter of native water birds, as a personal blow. This campaign has captured my heart and soul for more than a decade. Every year, for months at a time, while loved ones enjoy weekends, I’m with animal rescuers, camping near wetlands where the shooters are, up before sunrise to the sound of gunshots.”
ABC’s Nemesis exposed the Liberal-wrecking egos. This is why I refused to take part — Peta Credlin (The Australian) ($): “As someone who spent a year working for Turnbull as his deputy chief-of-staff when he was opposition leader, and then six years working as Abbott’s chief-of -staff when opposition leader and PM, I saw these rivals at close quarters, under pressure, on good days and bad. It didn’t surprise me that Turnbull reportedly spent something like eight hours on tape lashing out at others; aside from his shocking glass jaw, this was about justifying himself and getting the affirmation he’s always craved from the lefty Q+A crowd. Likewise, it didn’t surprise me that Abbott declined to be involved because he never saw himself as the hero in a play that was all about him …
“As for Turnbull’s claim that Abbott was a ‘dangerous’ prime minister who ran a ‘terrible’ government, a minister with honour could always have resigned, if that were his view, rather than spend more time machinating against his leader than doing his job. Turnbull several times offered to use his friendship with fellow rich-lister Clive Palmer in support of the 2014 budget (the last attempt at significant economic reform) but like so much, those were empty words. And as he told the world on Monday night, by then he was in discussions with numerous colleagues, including Scott Morrison, he insisted, to remove the PM who’d won a majority akin to that of Fraser in 1975 and Howard in 1996.”
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Comedian Sami Shah will host the 2024 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards ceremony, which you can catch online.
