PARTY FAVOURS
Victorian Opposition Leader Matthew Guy is catching up with Premier Daniel Andrews ahead of Saturday’s state election and their two parties are neck-and-neck, if you believe a 1000-person poll, that is. The Age reports Labor’s primary vote dwindled by seven points to 36%, the same as the Coalition’s (28% went with minor parties or independents). On a two-party preferred vote, Labor was ahead 53% to 47% — compare that with the 59% to 41% in late October. Why is this happening? Regional voters and outer suburbs in Melbourne’s west were bailing on Labor, one expert said, though several seats are so safe that even a decent swing wouldn’t topple them. It comes as former premier Jeff Kennett told Sky News he regrets not running in the Victorian election — he reckons Andrews is using “hate politics” to remain in power (interesting choice of words considering the week the opposition has had, as Crikey reports — allegations of backing Nazis, gay conversion therapy, Andrews becoming “red mist” and being “hanged”). It comes as Nationals candidate for Narracan Shaun Gilchrist was found dead at the weekend, triggering a “failed” election in the seat (only upper house ballot papers will be counted on Saturday). Gilchrist was facing charges of sexual assault and rape, 9News reports.
To another state election now and Simon Holmes à Court’s Climate 200 is thinking it’ll back up to 10 candidates in the NSW election in March, Guardian Australia reports, including business consultant Joeline Hackman, who is taking on the state’s environment minister James Griffin in Manly. It’d be more than double the number (four) it backed in the Victorian election, but there’s a Coalition to unseat in NSW. Still, Holmes à Court said, the group wouldn’t give a Labor-held seat a miss — take teal Melissa Lowe running against Labor MP John Kennedy in Hawthorn, Victoria, as The Age reports. It’s more about providing a better option for disillusioned electorates, Holmes à Court added. The NSW government is quietly freaking out — not only is there a string of Liberal MPs retiring (David Elliott, Brad Hazzard, Gabrielle Upton, Rob Stokes…) but there are also barely any women — just 10 Liberal women sit in the lower house, of 33 total Libs. Dismal.
BLOOD AND THUNDER
Australians need menstrual and menopausal leave, according to the unions which have been backed by high-profile employment law firm Maurice Blackburn. It should be 10 days a year and enshrined in the Fair Work Act, just like paid family and domestic violence leave, as The Australian ($) reports, though the Australian Workers’ Union, the Transport Workers’ Union, the Rail, Tram and Bus Union and the United Workers Union say they know it’ll be an uphill battle. But pundits argued it was a biological reality for half the population that there is a scheduled painful period every month of every single year for decades — many either use sick leave or push through. Such menstrual and menopausal leave is common elsewhere, such as in Spain (three days a year) and in Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, China and Taiwan, The Oz ($) adds.
Meanwhile, a damning report about Queensland’s police responses to domestic and family violence has found “attitudes of misogyny, sexism and racism” are not only allowed among cops, but acted upon and unchecked, as The Courier-Mail ($) reports. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said she found the report “raw and confronting” but backed “strong woman” police commissioner Katarina Carroll, despite the inquiry pointing the finger squarely at senior leadership, as the Brisbane Times reports. There were 78 recommendations in the report — all were accepted by the government — which followed five months of gut-wrenching evidence. Even Carroll reported incidences of sexual harassment and assault in the 1980s and ’90s. Despite the toxic culture, the report said, many Queensland cops did respond appropriately to domestic violence callouts.
MAN OF WAR
Former PM Kevin Rudd says we have just five years to prevent war with China, the SMH reports. Rudd warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping remains fixated on seizing control of Taiwan, and if he launched a strike, we would follow the US in helping Taiwan defend itself. Rudd described that as a World War II-level conflict. Xi had a fairly cordial meeting with US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the G20 where everyone said they wanted to avoid conflict, but Rudd says it would be a fallacy to assume Xi has abandoned his plan to absorb Taiwan — indeed his rhetoric is, in some ways, more “hardline” than before, Rudd added.
Interestingly, French President Emmanuel Macron has warned us and other Indo-Pacific leaders not to blindly follow the US in a confrontation with China, the Washington Examiner reports, using this kind of convoluted allegory of it being “a big problem for the rest of the jungle”. Macron continued: “You need cooperation of a lot of other animals: tigers, monkeys, and so on.” Umm, sure. Meanwhile the interim report of the Defence Strategic Review, being conducted by Stephen Smith and Angus Houston, has been given to the government, with the final report due in February. The Australian’s ($) Greg Sheridan says the interim report recommends reduced investment in armour — like tanks and infantry fighting vehicles — and with a shifted focus on to maritime, missile and drone risks. In the case of a Chinese attack on Australian soil, “One hundred fast jets to defend the whole of Australia is not remotely excessive,” Sheridan warns.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
A Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton to be auctioned for up to $25 million has been quietly withdrawn just 10 days before it was due to go under the hammer because it had fake bones in it, The New York Times reports. Collectors were holding their breath to bid on the coveted T-rex, named Shen, who was billed as a “museum standard … world-class specimen”. Dinosaurs are having a moment in the art world — this year, Christie’s sold the remains of a raptor for an incredible $12.4 million, which was double what experts thought it would go for. But this month the boss of fossil company Black Hills Institute of Geological Research spoke to Christie’s about this weird feeling about Shen. See, Black Hills own the intellectual property rights of this other dinosaur skeleton that was auctioned — his name was Stan. And when Peter Larson, the company’s president, perused Shen in Christie’s look-book ahead of the nail-biting auction this month, he couldn’t help but notice some similarities.
But it was more than similarities, Larson realised — there was a sameness of details between Stan and Shen, like the distinctive holes in the lower left jaw. He noticed this because the Black Hills Institute actually sells painted plastic casts of Stan’s original skeleton (for the hefty price of about $120,000 each, that is). And in what would be an incredibly lucrative and high-stakes con, Larson was sure Shen’s owner had bought replica bones to supplement the original bones — meaning they would get to keep their dinosaur and eat it, so to speak. “They’re using Stan to sell a dinosaur that’s not Stan,” Larson declared. Christie’s tried to just go with it, initially adding a note that replica bones had been added to the original bones. At first the price range was slashed for Shen, but the scandal proved too great, and it was called off. Larson was triumphant, not because a travesty of fossil authenticity was thwarted, but because he wouldn’t lose money. He was concerned Shen’s buyer would get the right to make Stan bone copies, putting his plastic copies out of business. “It was jeopardising our copyright and our trademark,” Larson declared.
Hoping you can see what’s real today.
SAY WHAT?
I do thank the leader of the opposition for really repeating a question that he answered last week. And I will begin the same way. I’ll tell you what we will do, or we won’t do, which is to stand at a press conference with a microphone making jokes about Pacific Islands drowning.
Anthony Albanese
The PM went for the opposition leader’s jugular after Peter Dutton asked why we had pledged to support a landmark climate fund to help vulnerable nations while the cost of living rises in Australia. Albanese was referring to the time Dutton was unwittingly recorded in Port Moresby joking about “water lapping at your door” to then prime minister Tony Abbott. Albo told Dutton: “You’re better than that. Or maybe you’re not.”
CRIKEY RECAP
The big tech crash: farce in motion, tragedy to come
“It’s new tech, but it’s an old story: over-spending on cheap (usually borrowed) money crashing into a falling stock market and rising interest rates. Toss in flamboyant billionaires who don’t really understand what they’re investing in but who find irresistible the status offered by ownership of the medium.
“We saw an all-Australian production of this movie back in the 1980s when three oligarchs (or would-be oligarchs) overpaid for the three commercial television networks: Frank Lowy at Ten, Christopher Skase at Seven and, most notoriously, Alan Bond at Nine. Within a couple of years, all the networks went broke, leaving old-money Kerry Packer laughing all the way to the bank.”
EXCLUSIVE: Secret internal Twitter notes reveal money-making schemes
“Homer [Simpson is] brought in because he’s ‘an average schmo’ in touch with the true desires of the common folk, but the car is a monstrosity and fails so spectacularly that the company is driven out of business. Which brings us neatly to Elon Musk and his many plans to monetise Twitter.
“After reaching out to a few former insiders, Crikey satirist Tom Red has secured the minutes of a recent ideas jam, proving that there is such a thing as a wrong answer in a brainstorming session …”
‘Red mist’, stolen election claims and an arrest: Victoria’s election campaign takes a dark turn
“The Victorian Liberal Party is becoming increasingly enmeshed with these fringe claims. After being spotted at a protest organised by the Freedom Party outside of Premier Dan Andrews’ office after the release of the Druery video, the Liberal Party’s candidate for Mulgrave, Michael Piastrino, reiterated his calls for the election to be delayed.
“Piastrino also praised the Freedom Party and has been campaigning alongside its candidates during the election period. This candidate’s increasingly close relationship with a fringe political party comes as the Victorian Liberal Party faces criticism over candidates with links to extreme organisations and comments. The party’s state director, Sam McQuestin, also claimed the state’s election commission had made a “serious, deliberate, and unprecedented interference” into the election …”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Three killed in Turkey after rockets fired from Syria (Al Jazeera)
Indonesia quake kills more than 160, search for survivors continues (Reuters)
World Cup: Iran team decline to sing national anthem in apparent support for domestic protests (EuroNews)
Shamima Begum trafficked by IS to Syria for sexual exploitation, tribunal hears (BBC)
No intelligence briefing happened on Chinese funding of [2019 election] candidates: Trudeau (CBC)
Belgium needs more incinerators to burn seized cocaine (The Guardian)
New Zealand Supreme Court rules voting age of 18 is discriminatory (BBC)
THE COMMENTARIAT
It’s not just Qatar hoping we now ‘put politics aside’. It’s the hypocritical West, too — Nesrine Malik (The Guardian): “On the face of it, the frenzy around this tournament has been the rare triumph of a human rights issue ‘cutting through’ to the public. There’s just something about how the bid came about that put people off: it looked like money bending the world to its will, with the event being held in winter — in the middle of the European football season — and the use of cheap, exploited labour to build the facilities. Recent headlines including a World Cup ambassador describing homosexuality as a ‘damage in the mind’ and the sight of a Danish journalist being forced off air while broadcasting in a public space, seemed to confirm all this. High-profile footballers such as the former Bayern Munich and Germany player Philipp Lahm have said they will not be attending, while the Lionesses’ captain, Leah Williamson, has said she hasn’t ‘any interest’ in such a compromised contest. Major European cities including Barcelona and Paris are not broadcasting matches in public places, and David Beckham, an ambassador for the event, came under intense pressure to withdraw from the proceedings.
“But there is something counterproductive and lopsided to the protests: the focus on the actions of sporting figures, players and even viewers seems off when Qatar only managed to manoeuvre itself into this prime position by soliciting the support of powerful states that have fast-tracked its passage into polite society. It is armed to the teeth by the UK, Europe and the US, and is a joint venturer in monumental, lucrative financial and real estate transactions on European soil. The state of Qatar is the 10th largest landowner in Britain. Since it won the right to host the World Cup, it has been granted billions of pounds of weapons sales licences, including sophisticated surveillance equipment, by Britain.”
Why Xi bullied Trudeau but flattered Albanese — Peter Hartcher (The SMH): “The dragon’s fiery blast — the ban on political contact, the trade sanctions, the insults, the reckless military challenges to Australian navy and air force craft, the 14 demands on Australian sovereignty — only hardened Australian resistance. Canberra didn’t passively resist Beijing but actively armed against it. The Morrison government’s decision to order long-range cruise missiles and to negotiate the AUKUS agreement are just two examples of a forceful response that was supported by both main political parties. But why was he rebuking Canada’s prime minister in front of the TV cameras at the same forum, a moment that was watched avidly on video worldwide? …
“Xi’s complaint of supposed leaking was nonsense. It’s standard practice in many countries — including in China and the US — for officials to give reporters a rundown of leaders’ meetings after the fact, often on a ‘background’ or non-attributable basis. The reprimand was a calculated part of the campaign. Xi hadn’t even granted Trudeau a proper meeting at the G20. Denied a formal, bilateral meeting, their first conversation was merely an informal chat for maybe 10 minutes at the welcome reception, with both men standing. In fact, Albanese, standing nearby, briefly interrupted them to tell Xi he was looking forward to their upcoming sit-down meeting. It was that informal.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
-
Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe will speak at the CEDA annual dinner held at the Grand Hyatt.
Larrakia Country (also known as Darwin)
-
Anti-fossil fuels protesters will gather outside NT Parliament House to call on the NT government to drop their support for Barossa offshore gas, Beetaloo fracking and the Middle Arm petrochemical hub.
Yuggera Country (also known as Brisbane)
-
Author Anne Casey-Hardy will chat about her book, Cautionary Tales for Excitable Girls, at Avid Reader bookshop.
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
-
Author Robin Allison will chat about her new book, Cohousing for Life, at Glee Books.
-
Origin Energy’s Frank Calabria and PwC Australia’s Fiona McIntyre will speak about the energy transition at a CEDA event.
-
World Trade Organization director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala will give the 2022 Lowy Lecture at Sydney Town Hall.
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
-
Murray-Darling Basin Authority chief executive Andrew McConville will speak to the National Press Club.
