THORPE VS CHARLES
The fallout from independent Senator Lidia Thorpe’s protest at the reception for King Charles III and Queen Camilla at Parliament House yesterday has been leading the news in most places overnight as the royal pair head back to Sydney today, before departing for Samoa tomorrow.
On ABC’s Q+A last night Employment Minister Murray Watt said he didn’t think Thorpe’s demonstration worked to relay her message to those present. “If the idea was to raise the issue with the people who were in the room, I think it failed miserably,” he said. Opposition frontbencher Susan McDonald claimed: “She was grandstanding and that wasn’t a productive way to prosecute the issue.”
Senator Thorpe was escorted from the Great Hall in Parliament House on Monday after shouting “you are not our king” and “this is not your land” at King Charles moments after he sat down after finishing an address. The Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung senator added: “You committed genocide against our people. Give us our land back. Give us what you stole from us — our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people.”
During Q+A, First Nations man Daniel Williams asked the politicians on the show: “What do Indigenous people have left?” adding: “Throughout last year’s Indigenous Voice referendum, the monarchy provided no comment toward the proposal, Indigenous self-determination, or the effects of colonialism linked to their lineage.”
Thorpe also told the BBC after her protest yesterday: “How can he [King Charles] stand up there and say he’s the king of our country — he’s stolen so much wealth from our people and from our land and he needs to give that back. And he needs to entertain a conversation for a peace treaty in this country.”
Further reaction to the protest led the way on The Sydney Morning Herald overnight with the paper quoting former prime minister Tony Abbott as saying: “It’s unfortunate political exhibitionism, that’s all I’d say.” Meanwhile, businessman Dick Smith was more positive, declaring: “I think that’s the wonderful part of our democracy — that she’s not going to be put in jail.”
Guardian Australia leads on Ngunnawal elder Aunty Violet Sheridan, who met the royals as part of an official greeting party, criticising Thorpe’s actions. The 69-year-old is quoted as saying: “Lidia Thorpe does not speak for me and my people, and I’m sure she doesn’t speak for a lot of First Nations people. It was disrespectful to come there and go on like that, there’s a time and place. We have a lot of unfinished business, but I don’t want to be negative. Let’s sit down and talk together, for our next generations to bring healing.”
The SMH’s lead early Tuesday morning was a long recap of the royals’ visit to Canberra on Monday and the different events they attended, with David Crowe declaring the day’s biggest laugh went to Opposition Leader Peter Dutton when he told the Great Hall: “People have had haircuts, people have shined shoes, suits have been pressed — and that’s just the republicans.”
Meanwhile, Guardian Australia chose this morning to reveal its latest voter polling which shows King Charles has a higher job approval rating (50%) than both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (44%) and Dutton (45%).
The site also carries British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s response to yesterday’s protest, after he was asked by the UK press if it was “disgraceful” that Australian politicians were “heckling the king”. Starmer, who when younger called for the abolition of the monarchy, said: “Look, I think the king is doing a fantastic job, an incredible ambassador not just for our country, but across the Commonwealth.”
QANTAS FINE COULD TOP $100M
The Australian Financial Review and Guardian Australia, among others, claim Qantas could be facing a multi-million dollar compensation bill after it illegally sacked hundreds of baggage handlers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ABC recalls the High Court last year ruled Qantas broke the law when it stood down 1,700 ground crew members in August 2020. Yesterday, Justice Michael Lee at the Federal Court in Sydney ruled the airline would be required to pay varying degrees of compensation based on three “test cases”. Three workers were awarded compensation of $30,000, $40,000 and $100,000 respectively for “non-economic loss”.
Guardian Australia, which says the final bill is expected to exceed $100 million, reports Lee ordered Qantas and the Transport Workers’ Union into mediation with the parties, due to report back early next month after using the test cases to inform a total payout. The AFR’s coverage declares “Qantas faces $100m-plus hit for illegal sackings”.
Meanwhile, The Age reports the Labor-dominated joint select committee on social media and Australian society has “backed a levy on tech giants, a new minister for digital affairs and a short-term cash injection to prop up ailing media firms”. The paper said the committee’s second interim report declared forcing the likes of Meta and Google to pay media companies for their content was insufficient and new ways of extracting money from the tech companies were needed.
Guardian Australia says the report claims the government should “explore alternative revenue mechanisms to supplement the [news media bargaining] code … such as a digital platform levy”. The site said the report’s recommendation for a short-term transition fund for news businesses should focus on supporting small, independent and digital-only publishers, as well as those operating in under-serviced communities and rural, regional and remote areas.
Finally, the AAP reports Australians attempting to access pornographic websites and certain online games could be subjected to age tests from next year under proposals seeking public feedback. The newswire says organisations representing industries such as search engines and social media will seek public responses to the Draft Online Safety Codes before submitting the proposals to the eSafety Commissioner.
AAP points out that the results of the government’s trial of age verification technology have yet to be revealed as we also await updates on the proposed social media ban for children.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
A group of friends in England reckon they’ve met up for a drink every Thursday for the last 56 years.
The men, now all aged in their 80s, have been drinking in pubs in Sheffield and Rotherham since 1968, the BBC reports.
Back in the ’60s when they were students, two members of the group, Ken King and Peter Thirlwal, used to grab a drink on Thursdays after playing golf. The tradition stuck and the group grew.
The BBC said the size of the gathering has changed over the decades as friends and colleagues came and went. Apparently, the conversation has changed too, with Peter telling the broadcaster: “We once talked about soccer and sex. These days it’s more prostates and pensions.”
Ken also joked that missing the Thursday drinks without good reason these days required a written note of absence.
Rest assured those members of the group who have moved away from the area over the years still get to join in — the men also enjoy a social drink over Zoom once a month.
Say What?
Max hug time 3 minutes. For fonder farewells please use the car park.
Dunedin airport
The airport on New Zealand’s South Island has no time for your protracted goodbyes, thank you very much. Dunedin Airport chief executive Dan De Bono admitted on Radio New Zealand the new signs, aimed at keeping the drop-off locations clear, had “caused quite a stir”.
CRIKEY RECAP
While leader Elizabeth Lee is a moderate, the feeling persists that the ACT Liberals are never more than one step away from declaring the ACT shall henceforth be called Gilead. And while Lee seems perfectly sensible and her concession speech illustrated a rare magnanimity in politicians, the charming photo of her giving the finger to a journalist last week probably didn’t help — indeed, it might have cost her the election.
Still, as both Lee and one of her moderate colleagues agree, the ACT Liberals are still too far to the right for affluent Canberra.
It’s hard to avoid a similar conclusion about the Liberal brand more broadly from Pittwater, where Jacqui Scruby, independent candidate and former adviser to federal teal MP Sophie Scamps, broke the state-level hoodoo on the teals in NSW. The Liberal loss in Pittwater was despite a NSW Labor government that is already tired and sloppy — and noticeably more anti-climate action than its Liberal predecessor.
Australian foreign affairs officials can’t — or won’t — say how many Australians have been evacuated or killed as a result of the last 12 months of war in the Middle East.
Crikey asked the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) for the information on Friday, October 11, and what followed was a protracted back-and-forth of emails, which ended with the department declining to give an answer and refusing to put its reasoning on the record.
Crikey asked how many Australians have died in Israel, Lebanon, and the Occupied Palestinian Territories in the preceding 12 months, and how many had been evacuated from those places in the same period.
The one bit of information that the department decided to provide was this, in the words of a department spokesperson: “As of today [October 15], a total of 3,170 Australians and their immediate family members have departed Lebanon on assisted departure flights.”
While an LNP state victory is all but certain, federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton can take little comfort from a local Labor loss. In short, Queensland isn’t Australia, and Australia isn’t Queensland. Labor, holding just four of the state’s 30 federal seats north of the Tweed, has little to lose. Even a 10-point swing to the state LNP in Queensland means little in terms of the 6.3% swing Dutton needs nationally to form majority government next May.
Facing certain defeat, Labor’s strategy is now to “save the furniture” in Greater Brisbane, including its seat of Waterford, held by high-profile Health Minister Shannon Fentiman, who could easily become Labor’s next leader. If Labor holds much of Brisbane, a relatively inexperienced LNP frontbench still burdened by the 2032 Olympics, the cost of living and youth crime will likely find its first term hard going.
Another single-term LNP government, like Campbell Newman’s between 2012 and 2015, is therefore hardly out of the question.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
US envoy calls spiralling conflict in Lebanon ‘out of control’ (The New York Times) ($)
Harris and Trump locked in dead heat in seven-state poll, with some voters still deciding (The Washington Post)
Central Park Five sue Trump for defamation over debate claims (BBC)
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs named in 7 new lawsuits; other celebrities allegedly involved (CNN)
Bennelong restaurant preps for Jordan Peterson and ex-prime ministers (AFR)
THE COMMENTARIAT
With her protest before the king, Lidia Thorpe bursts the warm bubble of nostalgia around the royal visit — Karen Middleton (Guardian Australia): The “horrors of war, death and needless destruction” prompted the king to also declare that “this moment in our history requires both ancient and new thinking”.
That’s certainly the challenge for a monarch dropping into a faraway, slightly ambivalent corner of his empire, armed with nostalgia, empathy and political optimism as the ties to bind it in place.
Lidia Thorpe burst that warm bubble on Monday, marching towards the stage and yelling for a treaty, as Albanese and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, leaned over to whisper in nearby respective royal ears.
If Thorpe’s protest does nothing else, it serves to remind that while tradition no longer goes unchallenged in this country, sorting out our identity has a long way to go and will be a lot more uncomfortable than one loud, angry voice interrupting a party.
Does Dutton have a glass jaw? — Natassia Chrysanthos (The Sydney Morning Herald): But as an election campaign looms, it is unclear whether flogging the public broadcaster will be the best strategy for a man who wants to be prime minister. This month’s angry interactions could be a precursor of what’s ahead as the opposition leader faces pressure to prove himself, including to the Canberra press pack he rarely fronts.
Dutton has held more than 50 press conferences this year, but fewer than five have been at Parliament House, according to the list of transcripts on his website. His doorstops tend to be low-key, with smaller audiences, in suburban or regional locations.
They’ve been mostly without controversy until now. While Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has copped criticism for tetchy interviews and missteps under pressure, Dutton also appears to be leading with a glass jaw.
