VOICE REFERENDUM ANNIVERSARY
Today marks one year since Australia voted down a proposal to enshrine an Indigenous Voice to Parliament in the constitution. The AAP this morning quotes a spokesperson for the Albanese government keen to claim Labor fulfilled an election promise by taking the voice to a referendum.
“The result was disappointing, but we accepted it. We acknowledge the pain that continues for many First Nations people, and we recognise their resilience,” she said, adding that the government remains committed to the “principles of truth-telling and Makarrata and important work continues at a state and territory level”.
Opposition Indigenous Australians spokesperson Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who fronted the No campaign, meanwhile is quoted as saying the government needs to audit First Nations programs.
“We need to leave the divisive Voice behind us and focus on what is going to deliver practical outcomes for some of our most marginalised Australians,” the newswire quotes her as saying. “Too much money is being poured into programs and organisations that simply aren’t improving the lives of Indigenous Australians.”
On Friday, one of the architects of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, Megan Davis, told the ABC she was open to not proceeding with a vote on the Voice once polls showed it was set to fail. She said it was a tough week for many First Nations people who remain “devastated” by the No result.
The Albanese government suffered a drop in the polls after more than 60% of Australians voted “No” in the referendum on October 14, 2023 and has continued to struggle ever since. A new Newspoll out in The Australian today illustrates that point, showing the Coalition is now leading on a two-party-preferred basis for the first time since Labor came to power.
The paper said the opposition now leads Labor 51-49, with AAP putting it bluntly: “Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s claim that he has never lost a Newspoll has been put to bed”.
The Australian says the polling showed Labor and the Coalition’s primary vote was unchanged, with the latter’s two-party preferred lead not enough to form a minority government, with a minority Labor government still the more likely outcome.
The Newspoll also showed Albanese’s approval ratings falling to the lowest level since he became prime minister in 2022. Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton have the same approval rating, but the PM has a higher disapproval rating.
With every poll now pored over with months till the next federal election, the AFR declared “Economic agenda missing on cusp of election”, highlighting how business and economic groups have called for “more ambitious economic plans to be rolled out by Labor and the Coalition before an election that is due by May 2025”.
Unsurprisingly, the paper pointed out both Treasurer Jim Chalmers and shadow treasurer Angus Taylor defended their economic policies thus far and said there was more to come.
BIRD FLU ‘INEVITABLE’
The ABC led online overnight with the news Elon Musk’s SpaceX successfully launched and then caught a Starship rocket using a giant pair of mechanical arms on a Texas launch pad. The broadcaster’s second main story of the morning was the announcement from the federal government on Sunday that it has set up a $95 million preparation fund as part of a swathe of biosecurity and environmental measures to deal with the predicted arrival of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.
The AAP points out that while Australia is now the only continent without the H5NI strain of avian influenza, Australian farmers have been warned to prepare for its arrival. Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek declared at the weekend: “The awful reality of this disease is that — like the rest of the world — we will not be able to prevent its arrival.”
Health and Aged Care Minister Mark Butler is quoted as adding “there is no room for complacency” when it comes to human infections.
The AFR and Guardian Australia have led overnight on the Queensland election, with early voting opening today ahead of the election on October 26. The former leads on Labor Premier Steven Miles promising to provide free lunches to primary school children if reelected. The paper says the scheme will cost $350 million a year.
Guardian Australia meanwhile highlights Miles has declared he will hold a state plebiscite on Peter Dutton’s nuclear power plans. “The law of Queensland requires a plebiscite if it looks like the Australian government’s going to try to build a nuclear facility,” he told the site, adding: “Depending on how things play out, you could even hold that plebiscite on the same day as the federal election, to save people going to the polls twice.”
Elsewhere in Queensland, the ABC and AAP highlight the pro-Palestine protest held in Brisbane yesterday. The broadcaster said the event was one of the largest protests seen in the city over the past year. Rallies also took place in Sydney and Melbourne and there were no arrests at the Brisbane event, the ABC added.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
Never before heard demos by Jimi Hendrix are being sold at auction next month by the personal assistant to the late musician’s manager.
The Guardian says the newly unearthed master tapes dating from 1968 are up for sale on Propstore in an auction of Hendrix memorabilia. Music consultant Mark Hochman is quoted as saying those who buy the tapes have “the kudos of having your own Jimi Hendrix songs which only you can listen to”.
He added: “These versions have never been heard before, circulated or broadcast and are very different in sound and length to the more common examples. They’re a lot tighter and smoother. You can hear more guitar, which is obviously what Hendrix was famous for. The experts who have visited and heard the recordings all agree that these are far superior to all the other versions of these tracks.”
The Guardian reports the auction will also include Hendrix’s clothing, a note from his record company informing him he’s been evicted from Ringo Starr’s London flat due to complaints from other tenants, pay slips and dry-cleaning bills.
The paper notes that whoever is successful in buying the demos would have to speak with the Hendrix estate about using them and if that’s unsuccessful they’ll just have to listen to the tracks in private at home.
Say What?
His Majesty, as a constitutional monarch, acts on the advice of his ministers, and whether Australia becomes a republic is therefore a matter for the Australian public to decide.
Buckingham Palace
Officials of King Charles III, who is set to begin his tour of Australia this week, respond to letters from the Australian Republic Movement who have requested a meeting with the monarch, the Daily Mail reports.
CRIKEY RECAP
Australia welcomed 9,400 refugees through resettlement programs in the first half of this year, according to new figures from the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR.
In total, 22 countries reported 85,000 arrivals “through resettlement, community sponsorship and other third-country solution programs” in the first six months of 2024, the agency’s new mid-year report says.
That would make Australia one of the world’s most generous countries when it comes to that specific type of refugee intake — but the figure doesn’t tell the full story, according to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC).
For journalism to survive, it needs to let readers inside the newsroom see the good, the bad and the ugly. I’m as romantic as any editor about our craft, but the future of journalism is not in this conceited opacity in which we laud our access and information. The future is in showing our working. This means substantiating our claims, explaining why we’ve reached a conclusion, giving as much information to the reader as we can (without exposing sources or increasing legal risk) and, yes, admitting when we’ve screwed up.
This is, of course, a tall order. Journalists can be petty, self-conscious sooks, self-valorising as the voice of the voiceless when most of us are impacted by just a fraction of the issues we report on every day. But if we’re not prepared to call out our own mistakes, then we deserve a situation in which our peers do it for us.
Mistakes happen all the time. A news outlet that has never made a mistake, never been sued, or never been the subject of debate has likely never taken the risks it should have on behalf of its readers. In this age, it matters more than ever whether an outlet acknowledges and transparently communicates a mistake, issues a correction, take-down or apology. Readers should hope for transparency, not flawlessness, particularly as we demand it from politicians and the business elite.
First up, if you love and believe in the noble cause of journalism as a profession — leaving aside the questionable historical ethics of many media owners over the years (as Eric Beecher chronicled in his recent book, The Men Who Killed The News), why would you encourage members of that profession to endlessly bag each other publicly?
Do doctors highlight the mistakes of other doctors? Do teachers point to the flaws of colleagues at other schools? Do AFL or NRL stars post videos of their opponents’ errors on Instagram? Is it any wonder that trust in journalists is still down with used car sales staff given the way we constantly attack each other? In 2024, there are more than enough keyboard warriors on social media attacking the quality of our journalists without professional journalists joining the pile-on.
As an industry, we’re now globally burdened with the “fake news” moniker developed over eight years of Trumpism, which has led to violent attacks against individual journalists and media companies. Someone needs to stand up for good journalism. If professional journalists aren’t even prepared to praise or follow up the good work of their competitors, why even mention their mistakes? Just focus on your own job, for goodness sake!
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Musk’s SpaceX catches returning booster rocket in technical milestone (The Financial Times) ($)
UN says Israeli tanks forced entry into one of its positions in south Lebanon (BBC)
US to deploy missile defense system and about 100 troops to Israel (The New York Times) ($)
King Charles leads tributes to former Scotland first minister Alex Salmond (The Standard)
Limp Bizkit’s fraud lawsuit rattles music industry: ‘These accusations are massive’ (The Guardian)
THE COMMENTARIAT
What can the voice’s failure and the past teach us about how Australia can be a nation that embraces progress? Julianne Schultz (Guardian Australia): Political leaders and academics like to point to the Australian Electoral Commission as a model for best-practice democracy, and it does an admirable job, although many Australians are still remarkably ignorant about the political system. To transform Australia there is a need for more energy, more engagement and education, and less room for ignorance and prejudice.
An energetic constitutional commission could do this — appealing like the Uluru statement directly to the Australian people. It is unconscionable to think Australia should be constrained indefinitely by a 19th-century document. A nation without meaningful recognition of the First Peoples and subservient to the Crown; a place where embracing a bill of rights and equal political opportunities for dual citizens are off the table.
A nah, yeah ethos ready to embrace change would make this a much more exciting, prosperous, independent and inclusive nation, a better fit for the troubled 21st century. Like Federation, it will need leaders and people willing to dream.
When things are going badly in politics, even the wins end up feeling like losses for Anthony Albanese — Jacob Greber (ABC): Labor tacticians tried to change the subject by confecting a row over whether the Coalition has any plans to privatise the NBN. The ploy — in the form of “urgent” legislation to ban the sale of the broadband internet provider — appears to have fallen flat. Nobody seems to care, and who would buy it anyway?
By the end of the week, Labor backbenchers pushed the government to set up a parliamentary inquiry into nuclear energy in Australia.
Seemingly aimed at exposing the Coalition’s lack of detail around its plans for the energy source, the move saw the opposition cheer the fact that it creates a public platform for its members to showcase the pros of nuclear reactors.
All of these movements kept the politico-media industrial complex in full swing — frantically going nowhere. Like an interminable Seinfeld episode, sans the gags.
