THE WA OF WAR
The United Nations has been called in to scrutinise why WA child protective services is taking Indigenous children from their families more than any other state and territory, The West Australian ($) reports. The federal government approved the delegation at Noongar advocate Hannah McGlade’s request — it will look at “confronting discrimination and systemic bias in the child protection system” as well as the “root causes” of child removal, such as domestic violence. A report found WA’s Indigenous kids were 16.7 times (!) more likely to be removed than non-Indigenous kids.
To a very different kind of removal now and sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska asked the Federal Court to declare our Autonomous Sanctions Regulations 2011 “invalid” because they’re stopping him from travelling here for his day in court to challenge the sanctions. He can barely speak to his lawyers, he says — one of which happens to be former attorney-general Christian Porter. Deripaska was banned for his Putin ties.
An unnamed French diplomat has called Australia hypocrites for supporting a fresh UN treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons, The Australian ($) reports. We already have the the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the diplomat said, and this fancy new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons undermines it. It also contradicts our relationship with NATO “which is and remains a nuclear alliance”, the anonymous diplomat reportedly said. Meanwhile Nine journalists are salivating at the prospect of getting emails sent by senior Seven Network executives “close to billionaire businessman Kerry Stokes” about their relationship to colleague and probable war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith, the AFR ($) reports. It would be embarrassing, the Federal Court conceded and greenlit an appeal against the order. The key question will be: was Seven (and Stokes personally) overseeing Roberts-Smith’s defamation case, as well as bankrolling it, or was the media baron just the chequebook?
LEARNING CURVES
Too many neurodivergent kids are being booted out of mainstream schools and into “special schools” because teachers don’t want to deal with them. That’s according to the Centre for Inclusive Education’s Linda Graham — Guardian Australia reports the number of special schools is up from 414 in 2010 to 520 in 2022. It’s also driven by parents wanting the best education for their kids, but the Children and Young People with Disability Australia CEO Skye Kakoschke-Moore says kids who go to special schools are more likely to stay segregated as they get older — like “working in low-paying enterprise employment and living in group homes”, the paper says.
Good luck implementing the 222 recommendations of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, independent Senator Lidia Thorpe says — 32 years later we’re still waiting for the 339 recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody to be implemented, The Australian ($) reports. A 2018 review said 64% of them had been, but the Centre for Aboriginal Policy and Research said that was way overshot. Meanwhile some private colleges pay local education agents “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to recruit international students from other education institutions, the SMH ($) reports. It’s called “onshore poaching”, and it’s set to be banned this week because dodgy actors are exploiting loopholes to make money, the Nixon review found.
ARCHER’S POISONED ARROWS
Tasmania’s outgoing attorney-general Elise Archer, who quit the post and the party on Friday amid workplace bullying allegations, might stay in Parliament and kick out her former party, The Australian ($) reports. I may sit as an independent and back a no-confidence motion in Premier Jeremy Rockliff, she told the paper, because of the community support I’ve received. Archer’s poisoned arrow could spark a leadership spill by Liberal MPs to avoid the no-confidence motion, the ABC adds, or it could see Rockcliff call an early election — Rockliff is in minority government after all (just 10 of the 25 House of Assembly seats), and will struggle to get stuff done with what the paper called a “hostile independent” along with the two other Liberal defectors to the crossbench. Is Australia’s last Liberal government about to fall because a woman called the premier “gutless” in a WhatsApp message?
Meanwhile new Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan is launching her new cabinet today. We know Treasurer Tim Pallas is staying put, as well as Transport Minister Ben Carroll’s deputy leadership role. Eltham MP Vicki Ward is new, the Herald Sun reports, and Allan’s Transport Infrastructure portfolio is vacant. It comes as the state’s embattled building watchdog was warned it may have broken the law by using unqualified staff, The Age ($) reports, after an independent investigation of the Victorian Building Authority. Former deputy president of the Fair Work Commission Greg Smith, who led the review, urged then-VBA chief commissioner Michelle McLean to get legal advice to ensure decision-makers had the “the necessary skills and qualifications” to implement the state’s Building Act. Yikes.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
Maybe the hurried commuters flowing into Flinders Street Station notice it, maybe they don’t. The yellowing photo booth with its blue curtain promises “your own photo” in just three minutes, a selling point that meant a whole lot more before the iPhone era. But isn’t that just its charm? The photo booth actually dates back to the 1970s, a sign says, and was owned by a man who dates back a lot longer: Alan Adler, who turned 91 this year, as The Age reports. He’s owned the booth for half a century, and it’s been a bit of a labour of love at times. Adler could sometimes be found tinkering with the booth as the sun rose — he never slept well if it was out of order — though other times it was menial tasks like hanging chemicals and paper or cleaning. He had to: the booth had captured the hearts (and faces) of Melburnians for decades. One of the countless photos was taken in 2018, showing a leather-clad woman in Harry Potter specs smooching a man with a matching chain earring to her — locals Chris Sutherland and Jessie Norman on their first date.
Their amorous reverie was cut short by a handwritten note, however, saying the booth would soon be no more. A quick phone call to Adler revealed it was due to be removed because of renovations, but Sutherland couldn’t bear it. His social media post turned into a media storm, and Lord Mayor Sally Capp signed off on its relocation to the nearby pavement instead. It was Sutherland and Norman who stepped in again to help a second time when Adler’s wife Lorraine died and Adler’s health declined. It was fitting, then, that the couple purchased the booth when he decided to retire. We want to keep it going for another 50 years, Sutherland vowed — it’s this thing, using this 100-year-old process, that remains a “part of the fabric of Melbourne”, he said. “There’s a huge element of magic to that.”
Hoping you feel the magic today too, whatever that looks like for you.
SAY WHAT?
There must be a reality in Australia where disabled people are paid a fair pay for a fair day’s work. There shouldn’t be a caveat on the minimum wage that says ‘except for disabled people’.
Jordon Steele-John
The WA Greens senator and disability advocate says the segregation of Australians living with a disability happens from the classroom right into the workplace, declaring “that is lonely, that is abusive, that is unacceptable”.
CRIKEY RECAP
“September 2023: when former boxer, opponent of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament and Nyunggai Warren Mundine’s second cousin Anthony Mundine posted that he wanted to ‘beat up’ Yes advocate Thomas Mayo ‘real good’, Warren posts on X: ‘I want to see that!!!’
“August 2023: Mundine tells the ABC’s Virginia Trioli that he has been ‘driven mad’ by the level of abuse he’s received for his views, and blames Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for ‘opening the door’ to it by ‘attacking’ anyone who opposes the Voice.”
“It now looks passing strange that Pezzullo gave evidence on the need for secrecy in the name of national security when he was so eager to share confidential material — freshly handed to the prime minister and his own minister — with an unelected party machine man and businessman.
“The whole logic of [ACT Supreme Court Justice David] Mossop’s argument to accept Porter’s application, and that of the NSA certificate regime itself, is thrown into doubt by what we now know of Pezzullo’s conduct.”
“That leads [Naomi] Klein to the part of the book that is most interesting because it’s least successful, the point at which the inquiry collapses. [Naomi] Wolf’s wild success in the otherworld, and that realm’s Dionysian, aleatoric progress — essentially its establishment of a continuity with the ’60s spirit that Klein and others have sought a continuity with — has occurred at the same time as the global left has seen its own stagnation.
“The successes in turning global institutions to climate change and the wider structural change that This Changes Everything hoped for have been so mild as to be counterfeit.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
House Speaker McCarthy faces ouster threat for avoiding shutdown (Reuters)
Kurdish PKK party admits to bomb attack on Turkey’s Interior Ministry (euronews)
Autumn heat continues in Europe after record-breaking September (The Guardian)
Slovakia’s populist party opposed to Ukraine aid wins vote (Al Jazeera)
Spain: Nightclub fire kills 13 in Murcia (BBC)
Pro-China candidate Mohamed Muizzu wins Maldives presidential vote (CNN)
THE COMMENTARIAT
In these testing times, our ancestors would show love and compassion — Teela Reid (IndigenousX): “I have been deeply disturbed by the level of lies spread by the official No case, inciting violence and racism by using my personal content to mischaracterise my advocacy, which must be condemned. I am not the only Blak person who has had to endure this kind of attack. Furthermore, while organisations such as the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria have tried reaching out to platforms like Facebook, there has also been virtually no support within federal government or the official Yes campaigns to navigate these experiences. And mainstream media has proven it is a law unto itself; unrestrained, historically unreliable and still lacking forensic analysis of First Nations issues.
“Where there is goodwill among some journalists there is only a surface level understanding about the nuances in our communities. Alternatively, in the extreme shadows of Australian media there is outward peddling to its racist base which is rife with deliberate misinformation and disinformation. Wherever you stand on the Voice, it is so crucial to show kindness. Despite my own reservations on the proposed constitutional amendment that I expressed formally to the Australian government on 17 April 2023, I will be voting Yes. If the Voice does not prevail, I will continue to show up for the love of my people.”
One reason the Trump fever won’t break — David French (The New York Times) ($): “But there’s one last element that cements that bond with Trump: faith, including a burning sense of certainty that by supporting him, they are instruments of God’s divine plan. For this reason, I’ve started answering questions about Christian nationalism by saying it’s not serious, but it’s very dangerous. It’s not a serious position to argue that this diverse, secularising country will shed liberal democracy for Catholic or Protestant religious rule. But it’s exceedingly dangerous and destabilising when millions of citizens believe that the fate of the church is bound up in the person they believe is the once and future president of the United States.
“That’s why the Trump fever won’t break. That’s why even the most biblically based arguments against Trump fall on deaf ears. That’s why the very act of Christian opposition to Trump is often seen as a grave betrayal of Christ himself. In 2024, this nation will wrestle with Christian nationalism once again, but it won’t be the nationalism of ideas. It will be a nationalism rooted more in emotion and mysticism than theology. The fever may not break until the ‘prophecies’ change, and that is a factor that is entirely out of our control.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
-
Armenian-Australians will hold a protest against the mass displacement of more than 80,000 Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh outside the embassies of Turkey, the United States, Russia and Azerbaijan.
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
-
Artist and musician Lonnie Holley will chat and perform at The Wheeler Centre.
