WOULD-BE NSW LIB COUNCILLORS COULD SUE
The NSW Liberals have announced that upon reflection they will not be taking legal action against the state’s electoral commission after missing the deadline to nominate over 100 candidates for September’s local government elections. The Sydney Morning Herald quotes the party as saying it had received advice from senior counsel and “having given consideration to that advice the division will not be taking any legal proceedings”.
Instead, the AAP reports some of the candidates whose nominations were not submitted last week are considering suing the party over the debacle. Lawyer and former Waverley mayor George Newhouse said: “The candidates have lost their application fees and the chance of earning their councillor fees for four years. Many of the people we have spoken to have made donations and paid for campaign materials.” On Tuesday, before the party’s statement, Newhouse suggested any class action could depend on the NSW Liberals’ own potential legal action. The Australian reports former Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott has called for the exit of NSW Liberal president Don Harwin, saying his position was “untenable”.
In federal politics, the ABC highlights new laws are set to be introduced by the Labor government today under which MPs could be fined up to 5% of their salary, kicked off powerful parliamentary committees, and even suspended from Parliament for bad behaviour. The Sydney Morning Herald says the long-delayed Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission will have the power to investigate allegations of breaches of parliamentary standards. Minister for Women Katy Gallagher is hoping to have the scheme in place from October if cross-party support is achieved.
The ABC writes the government has committed $3.8 million in initial funding for the commission. The Age quotes Gallagher as saying: “We’ve been working hard to put the systems in place so that people can raise workplace complaints, and when complaints are substantiated, that both staff and parliamentarians are held to account for their behaviour.”
On that theme, Guardian Australia reports teal MPs have spoken out against recent behaviour during question time, especially that of opposition MPs. “It’s been a disappointment to witness the often unnecessarily aggressive behaviour by Coalition members in the chamber, including shouting over the top of people who are speaking rather than respectful debate,” Mackellar MP Sophie Scamp said.
Analysis of figures from the speaker’s office suggests there have been 198 ejections during the 47th Parliament as of yesterday: 161 from the Coalition, 36 from Labor and one from the Greens.
Elsewhere, the AAP highlights Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence commissioner Micaela Cronin will today release the first annual report tracking the progress of the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032 at an address to the National Press Club. It will then be tabled in Parliament.
Also in the news, the ABC points out potential embarrassment for Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek at an upcoming international summit as the government’s plans to overhaul the nation’s environmental laws have been delayed yet again. The broadcaster states Labor is struggling to secure support for its “Nature Positive” laws. The Global Nature Positive Summit is happening in Sydney in October.
Despite the sluggishness, The Australian and AAP have confirmed the country’s biggest solar farm has been approved. The SunCable Australia-Asia PowerLink is set to have enough power for three million homes following its development in the Northern Territory.
OBAMAS HEADLINE DNC
The second day of the Democratic National Convention is taking place in Chicago, with former US president Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama the star attractions following outgoing President Joe Biden’s farewell speech on Monday evening. The Washington Post reports a source familiar with the Obamas’ speeches claims Barack’s will “affirm why Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are precisely the leaders the country needs right now,” while Michelle’s “will lay out how Kamala Harris is ready to lead our country forward and turn the page on fear and division”.
The New York Times says it is Obama’s job at the convention to “separate Harris from the Biden years, while making the case that she was central enough to the Biden administration to slip seamlessly into the job”. Reuters quotes Obama advisor Eric Schultz as saying: “president Obama believes this is an all-hands-on-deck moment” and that the 63-year-old would join the Harris election campaign in the coming weeks, especially in the battleground states.
The Hill reports Harris travelled to Milwaukee earlier for a rally in the swing state of Wisconsin and is set to return to Chicago in the evening. Her husband, Doug Emhoff, is among the speakers at the convention on Tuesday.
Earlier, Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling revealed 13 protest-related arrests were made on Monday, The New York Times highlighted. The Washington Post picked up on Snelling revealing at least 3,500 people had gathered in the city’s Union Park on Monday, with protests expected outside the convention for the rest of the week.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
Licking icy poles in science lessons should be in the national curriculum in England, scientists have said.
The Royal Society of Chemistry, Institute of Physics, Royal Society of Biology and Association for Science Education have come up with a series of suggestions for reforming the primary school curriculum in a bid to reduce inequalities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education, The Guardian reports.
The Press Association said the scientists believed the new curriculum should offer “essential experiences” to help children to relate to scientific concepts. The list of experiences includes playing musical instruments, planting vegetables and eating icy poles.
Aylin Ozkan, a teacher and education policy specialist at the Royal Society of Chemistry, is quoted by PA as saying: “One of the recommendations for chemistry is that by the age of 11, all children should start to understand how temperature works and how heating and cooling can change things. What better prop is there for a teacher to help explain this than an ice lolly?
“Essential experiences like this promote learning on a personal level, so we believe they should be part of the curriculum. It’s a cheap solution, and will allow children the opportunity to develop their scientific confidence whatever their background — this is exactly what curriculum reform should be aiming to do.”
The UK government launched its curriculum and assessment review last month and it is set to be published next year.
Say What?
[There are] others who are feeling a little bit ripped off because supporting him over the years has come at the direct cost of supporting other athletes.
Katherine Bates
Yesterday we highlighted Australian cyclist Matthew Richardson’s decision to switch allegiances to Great Britain. Today comes the reaction. Bates, a Commonwealth Games gold medallist and Olympian, told the ABC Sport Daily podcast there would be “a lot of people this morning who just can’t believe it [Richardson’s decision]” and others who felt “let down because they were blindsided by it”.
CRIKEY RECAP
Foxtel CEO Patrick Delany has gone into damage control over an image of him performing a Nazi salute, meeting with a Jewish community group and apologising in an all-staff email.
Jewish and diversity groups have criticised the former Fox Sports CEO’s gesture as “deeply concerning” and an example of “toxic workplace behaviours”.
On Sunday night, Delany sent an email to Foxtel staff apologising for the gesture, which he made in the mid-2010s, largely reiterating the statement he gave to Crikey in response to our initial exclusive reporting on the leaked image.
The current argument over Labor’s Future Made In Australia Bill has some high stakes — more than just Labor’s dream of returning to the glory days of Australian manufacturing, or its political strategy of posing as the party of making things here at the next election.
The fund — which the government says totals over $22 billion — could become the biggest pork-barrel in political history in the wrong hands, with only a fairly flimsy “National Interest Framework” to protect taxpayer interests.
The PsiQuantum deal, which saw $900 million committed to a US company by the federal and Queensland governments, amid extraordinary secrecy and no rationale or cost-benefit analysis, could be a glimpse of the future under the bill — complete with Labor-connected lobbyists smoothing the way for the deal.
“I’m not convinced that complete prohibition works,” Government Services Minister Bill Shorten told the ABC’s Q+A as justification for Labor’s all-but-confirmed decision to water down restrictions on gambling advertising, which were recommended by the party’s own inquiry.
Apart from displaying his lifelong talent for sincerely believing whatever it is his leader says at the time, Shorten appears to be in a shrinking minority of people who believe the government’s proposal is adequate.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
12 killed in Israeli strike on Gaza school (al-Jazeera)
King expresses ‘sympathy and empathy’ on Southport visit (BBC)
Five-time Olympian cyclist found dead in Las Vegas after choking on food (The Guardian)
Queen Elizabeth II said Donald Trump was ‘very rude’ (Daily Mail)
Woman believed to be world’s oldest person dies aged 117, her family says (Sky News)
Disney reverses course on bid to block wrongful death lawsuit by widower who had Disney+ (CNN)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Biden’s long goodbye — Karen Tumulty (The Washington Post): But having finally reached an obstacle he could not overcome — the toll that eight decades on Earth has taken on him — Biden might actually be able to deliver on a promise he made four years ago: to be the bridge to a new generation of leaders.
Biden’s legacy now hinges to a great degree on whether Harris wins in November.
If she does, he will go down as one of the most successful one-term presidents the nation has seen, a figure whose achievements will include expelling Trump from the Oval Office and, by his self-sacrifice, preventing him from returning to it.
But if the Democrats lose in November, much of the blame will fall on Biden for failing to recognise the peril of running for a second term at his age.
Putin is paralysed in crisis — again — Jamie Dettmer (Politico): However, another possible explanation is that Putin is once again demonstrating how he can become paralysed in a crisis, even disappearing from public view — a characteristic that’s previously drawn comparisons to Joseph Stalin, who retreated to his dacha and remained incommunicado when German forces blitzed their way into the Soviet Union in 1941.
The parallel was first drawn by Putin’s Muscovite critics during COVID-19. Holed up in his Novo-Ogaryovo estate on the outskirts of Moscow, Putin was largely absent as the capital city battled to curb the spread of the deadly virus, with Mark Galeotti, an analyst at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute, noting his trait of letting “certain serious challenges become someone else’s problem.”
And this may well explain a pattern that’s emerged when man-made or natural disasters have struck on Putin’s watch. In 2000, he was vacationing at his residence in Sochi when the nuclear submarine Kursk sank in the Barents Sea. He eventually met with the relatives of the 118 victims as a media storm erupted over his absence — and the meeting did not go well. Then, in 2018, he was criticized for a sluggish response to a massive shopping mall blaze in the Siberian city of Kemerovo that left at least 64 dead, 41 of them children. After the disaster, he was accused by bereaved families of repeating the same mistake.
