DUMPED ON
Australia could start taking radioactive waste from the US and UK as early as 2027, Rex Patrick writes for Michael West Media after FOI-ing documents from Defence, which is somewhat at odds with Defence Minister Richard Marles’ insistence that Australia will not be taking US or UK nuclear waste. The ABC continues that a “low-level radioactive waste management” facility is being planned in Perth, with Australian Submarine Agency briefing documents confirming: “All low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste will be safely stored at Defence sites in Australia.” As many as 700 US personnel will head there to look after up to four US nuclear submarines too — there will be fewer British with shorter rotations, however. As for that $3 billion payment we extremely quietly pledged to the US — it’ll be spent on “pre-purchasing submarine components and materials” and “outsourcing less complex sustainment”.
Speaking of military intervention — Queensland’s Cairns is now an island, the ABC says, after it was cut off by floodwaters not seen in more than 100 years. Mayor Terry James called for the military to come in, saying hundreds of homes were flooded and the State Emergency Service was overwhelmed. Myola had a metre (!) of rain in 48 hours, and Black Mountain copped 935mm as the after-effects of Cyclone Jasper (now downgraded to a storm) wreaked havoc. Yesterday more than 10,000 homes in far north Queensland had no power, the Brisbane Times ($) reports. Meanwhile new premier Steven Miles will axe three Olympics-related portfolios, The Courier-Mail ($) reports, and give the 2032 Games responsibility to Minister Grace Grace (no typo). His predecessor, Annastacia Palaszczuk, was her government’s Olympics minister, so it’s quite the turnaround in priorities…
LEADING EDGE
Newspoll’s in — Labor’s ahead in the two-party-preferred vote at 52% to the Coalition’s 48%, The Australian ($) says, after a dead heat in November’s poll. That figure is nearly identical to the vote that won Labor government last May — though the AFR’s ($) poll says Labor would lose if its result was mirrored in an election, so who knows. The Oz continues to find creative ways to frame Opposition Leader Peter Dutton as doing better than Prime Minister Anthony Albanese — today it’s noting that Albanese has a higher net dissatisfaction — though the PM’s approval rating lifted and disapproval rate dropped, leaving him at a net approval of minus eight to Dutton’s minus 11.
Meanwhile The Australian’s ($) Jenna Clarke has compared Nine newspaper editors taking press junkets sponsored by the state of Israel with a paid trip to a movie premiere taken by culture editor Osman Faruqi. Que? “If you are going to be critical of junkets, it’s best not to end up being hypocritical,” Clarke writes. Today’s longest bow goes to… By the way, Crikey continues to update our junket list, published after editors banned staff from working on the Israel-Hamas story if they signed a letter asking media to do better in its reporting of it. Staying on media a moment and Facebook and Google will be forced to cut newer deals with the press to feature coverage on the feed or news tab, The Age ($) reports (remember that clumsy eight-day news blackout in 2021 leading to this code?). Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones says the government will toughen the rules, but tread lightly — in Canada, some attempted strong-arming from PM Justin Trudeau has seen a three-month-and-counting Facebook ban continue to today (Google cut a deal though).
PAY ATTENTION
Qantas is using the “same spiteful tactics” under CEO Vanessa Hudson as it was under her predecessor Alan Joyce, the Transport Workers’ Union says, as it chases hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for 1,700 illegally sacked workers. The airline said it would discuss a settlement ASAP, but the union’s Michael Kaine told The Australian ($) that Qantas told him “we’re not in the territory to settle”. A spokesperson said it hadn’t walked away, and called out Kaine for breaching confidentiality. Meanwhile Australia’s tax ombudsman slammed the ATO’s latest push to chase thousands of historical debts — dubbed “robotax”. Karen Payne told Guardian Australia some down-to-the-wire people could be made homeless because the refunds they were counting on were suddenly snatched away to cover decades-old debts. The paper has spoken to taxpayers who say they can’t even find a paper trail, making them tough to contest.
Meanwhile the NSW Police watchdog says it needs sharper teeth to deal with cases where a person is injured or killed by officers (such as in the case of 95-year-old tasered woman Clare Nowland), the SMH ($) reports. NSW Law Enforcement Conduct Commission chief Peter Johnson told the paper it “can’t investigate at all” because its critical incident function was “ring-fenced” by laws, even though Premier Chris Minns said the public could rest easy knowing the watchdog was overseeing the cops’ internal probe. Meanwhile 2023 was Australia’s deadliest year on roads in more than half a decade, Guardian Australia reports, with the death toll reaching 1,253 (up 6% since last year). We need to get better data sharing between the states and territories, the Australian Automobile Association said, because “the quality of Australian roads, the cause of crashes and law enforcement patterns” could help slow down this deadly trend.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
With a crown jewel-like dome topping a half-moon façade that embraces the Seine, the Institut de France is every bit as pomp as one might imagine for a place that creates language itself. Inside, 40 members — known as “the immortals” — have a singular, centuries-old destiny: to stop the veritable mongrel that is the modern English language from taking messy chomps out of the French one. For instance, an immortal told the French government, do not under any circumstances say e-sports. Instead, when referring to video game competitions, say: jeu video de competition. As for streamers, the immortal added, simply refer to them as a joueur-animateur en direct.
Perhaps the immortals might take a look at the term ChatGPT, the free AI system that upended the dissemination of information when it was launched in November last year. Medium’s Joshua Edward explains: chat means cat in French. When one pronounces the letter G in French, a soft “g” that English speakers use in “massage” is used. The P sounds more like pay, and the T sounds more like tay. Altogether, the AI bot sounds rather like the phrase chat j’ai pété — translating to “cat, I have farted”. My stars. Of course, the more vulgar among us might use another word for cat to describe — ahem — the feminine genitalia (or the hats that were a symbol of protest against one Donald Trump). And, well, the French use chat that way too. Good queef!
Hoping the smiles come easily today.
SAY WHAT?
Look Tony, what are the odds of a prime minister being drowned or taken by a shark?
Harold Holt
Talk about jinxing yourself — the former prime minister was talking to his press secretary, Tony Eggleton, who was worried about Holt’s penchant for swimming. Yesterday marked 56 years since Holt was presumed drowned off Cheviot Beach on the Mornington Peninsula. His body was never found.
CRIKEY RECAP
“And what about access for the disabled? Does Qantas support any reforms that would see an end to Qantas wheelchair-using passengers being dropped from their wheelchairs and being forced to crawl to their seats, or forcing passengers to stay on a plane and go back to where they came from because Qantas refuses to disembark them at their destination, breaking customers’ wheelchairs, leaving passengers on planes because they can’t get their wheelchair, or threatening disabled customers with the AFP if they complain?
“Again, nothing to see here. There’s no need for any reform, and existing exemptions for airlines need to stay in place. Any changes should recognise it’s all very expensive to transport people with special needs …”
“Rubbish, all of it. First, all we know as fact is that someone recorded Zwier and Sharaz talking and that the recording ended up in the hands of Sky News’ Sharri Markson, who put it to air. We don’t know who made it and it’s silly to speculate — as it is to insist there’s a direct link with Lehrmann’s barrister Steve Whybrow asking Higgins the following morning whether anyone had given her advice about her evidence.
“Second, as should have dawned on anyone vaguely familiar with this case, it is never possible to declare with absolute confidence that any act constitutes a crime. Yes, there is an offence (in NSW, as in all other jurisdictions) covering the recording of a private conversation without the consent of all parties to the conversation.”
“Analysis of the [Australian Jewish Association] videos by verification experts at RMIT CrossCheck found a number of signs that suggest audio was edited. This review seen by Crikey notes that the audio is often out of sync with the video, that a section of audio was repeated during a clip, and that some audio was repeated while different clips were being shown.
“These suggest that additional editing was done beyond splicing different video clips together. RMIT CrossCheck’s analysis by itself does not confirm or debunk whether the chant was heard during the rally. However, it does cast doubt on the AJA video’s credibility as the sole source of these claims.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
‘Nonsense’: Putin rejects Biden claim that Russia plans to attack NATO (Al Jazeera)
France calls for immediate Gaza ceasefire (BBC)
More than 60 people drown in migrant shipwreck off Libya, UN says (CNN)
[New Zealand] govt pledges more repeals as Parliament enters final week, mini-budget to be unveiled (NZ Herald)
Trump repeats ‘poisoning the blood’ anti-immigrant remark (Reuters)
UK parliamentarian admits she lied to media about pandemic contracts (The Guardian)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Anthony Albanese denounced Scott Morrison’s secrecy — but now he’s perpetuating it — Paul Karp (Guardian Australia): “A blanket exemption for anything said at [the cabinet office policy committee, or COPC] — regardless of whether its dominant purpose was to go to cabinet — puts the invisibility cloak over any old hare-brained scheme or try-on. Under Morrison, a body designed to help Australia recover from COVID ended up advocating for a gas-led recovery. With a public policy pedigree like that, who knows what other gems of policy development are contained in the COPC minutes?
“There is an easy shortcut out of an appeal: the department or prime minister have a power under the FOI Act to set aside or vary a decision, which I have now asked them to do. In many respects Albanese has been forensic about prosecuting the governance failings of his predecessor. Calling a royal commission into robodebt and the Bell inquiry into the multiple ministries were both no-holds-barred pushes to get to the bottom of what was going on. Yet the prime minister’s own department is an accessory after the fact to a scheme Albanese said was ‘designed to avoid’ FoI law. I don’t know why this particular stone remains unturned. The fact Labor doesn’t have cabinet committees of one is not enough to ensure it never happens again. This is a double standard that must end.”
Why eliminating Hamas offers best chance at peace in Mid-East — Simon Birmingham (The Australian) ($): “The cowardice of Hamas in targeting Israeli civilians in Israel is compounded as it hides behind Palestinian civilians in Gaza, ruthlessly exposing them to death as human shields. Hamas tactics also complicate Israel’s war effort, resulting in errors such as the shooting of three hostages by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Friday night, which followed the ambush and killing by Hamas of nine IDF personnel in Gaza 48 hours earlier. Spending last week in Israel, listening to survivors, relatives of victims, responders, academics and representatives of both the Israeli government and Palestinian Authority, has only reinforced to me that Israel’s defence of itself in the face of such evil is no less than Australians would expect of our own government if we found ourselves in such circumstances.
“Yet the Albanese government last week inexplicably voted at the United Nations for an unconditional ceasefire, in a motion that failed to even mention Hamas, let alone condemn its atrocities. Such a ceasefire would enable Hamas time to regroup, rearm and repeat the most appalling atrocities against Jews, Israel and humankind. The exact repetition of the barbarism the Hamas leadership has publicly committed to inflicting again and again. While amendments to the resolution may have been supported by Australia to add the condemnation of Hamas and recognise the atrocities of October 7, they were not only inadequate but also defeated. By not remaining resolute and insisting on the removal of Hamas, the Albanese government demonstrated a lack a strength. Labor’s weakness stood in stark contrast with our AUKUS allies.”
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WHAT’S ON TODAY
Yuggera and Turrbal Country (also known as Brisbane)
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Queensland Theatre’s Lee Lewis, and writer/producer Elle Croxford will speak after a performance of The Sentimental Blonde at Queensland Theatre.
