HOME AND AWAY
Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong will fly out today bound for Israel and the West Bank, as well as Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, to meet with government officials and the families of victims of both Israeli and Hamas violence. The Australian ($) reports Wong won’t be visiting the sites of the October 7 massacre, however, because of time constraints (the kibbutzim is 90 minutes from Jerusalem). But she should, former Rudd-era minister and Labor Friends of Israel co-founder Mike Kelly reckons, to be exposed to the “brutal, sadistic savagery and genocidal regional Islamist agenda of Hamas”. Meanwhile, Labor MP Julian Hill says we should ban Australians from funding internationally illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Guardian Australia says, after a briefing paper revealed the “rapid expansion” including shootings and burning homes. The UN confirmed 300 Palestinians — including 79 children — had been killed in the region since October 7.
Staying overseas a moment and Denmark officially has an Australian head of state before we do. ABC reports Tassie’s Princess Mary and Prince Frederik X became queen and king of Denmark overnight after former Queen Margrethe II, 83, abdicated. She’d previously sworn she’d never step down and is the first Danish monarch to do so in 900 years. So why’d she do it? Maybe her back surgery, or maybe it was to squash rumours of an alleged affair. Frederik was snapped with Mexican socialite Genoveva Casanova in November, news.com.au reports, though they could just be friends. Here’s a weird fact: all seven royal families in Europe date back to this king known as Gorm the Old, circa 936, as the SMH delves into.
GAME, SET, TAX
The Andrews government bailed Tennis Australia out with up to $63 million in taxpayer dosh, The Age reports, months before the sporting body’s $62 million surplus. The state government also forgave a $40 million loan in February 2021 — together it covered Tennis Australia’s “entire pandemic-related losses from 2021 and 2022”, the paper notes. The bail-out came four months before the record-smashing 2023 Australian Open — Tennis Australia needed to pay its bills after the tournaments during the pandemic had left it skint, according to documents obtained via a freedom of information request. Speaking of tennis, Serbia’s Novak Djokovic survived a scare against Croatia’s Dino Prižmić, 18, last night in their nailbiting four-hour opening round match of the Australian Open, The Australian ($) reports, in a story that mentions the up-and-comer’s “tight shorts”. Umm, OK? News.com.au has a rather more demure roundup of day one.
Staying in Victoria and federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says preselected Liberal candidate for Dunkley, Frankston Mayor Nathan Conroy, is a “champion,” Sky News Australia reports. Conroy will face Labor’s Jodie Belyea after the death of Labor’s Peta Murphy prompted a by-election. Dutton went hard on the cost of living, saying PM Anthony Albanese promised the cost of electricity would fall $275 some 97 times, but that it was up 23%. No mention of Dutton and the Coalition voting against December’s energy price relief legislation that promises price caps that are set to slash bills by $230, as Guardian Australia reported. Meanwhile, the debate continues to swirl about July 1’s stage three tax cuts — even though they’re legislated and the Albanese government has repeatedly confirmed them. Labor knows they’re bad, economist Greg Jericho says, with 70% of its own voters and 66% of Coalition voters opposing them in their current form. But it’s unlikely Albanese will break that election promise, he adds.
KEEPING UP WITH JONES
The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Reserve Bank of Australia and Australia Post are among a huge list of agencies that had sensitive data accessed by a Russian-linked ransomware group in April last year, The Australian ($) reports. And not just them: the list continues with the ABC, the ACMA, the ACCC, the AEC and the AFP, as well as the departments of Education, Employment, Finance, Foreign Affairs and Trade, Home Affairs and Treasury. The list was revealed four days before Christmas after the government finally caved to a slew of freedom of information requests. BlackCat/ALPHV allegedly broke into the servers of Australia’s largest commercial law firm HWL Ebsworth, downloading some 2.5 million documents that included legal advice, medical information, and “issues relating to national security and law enforcement”.
To a rather different allegation now and broadcaster Alan Jones has cancelled his flight home from London and has no plans to return to Australia, the SMH reports. Jones travelled to the UK before Christmas following allegations he assaulted several young men during his career, which the conservative shock-jock denies. Jones was supposed to return to his gig at the oft-described “outrage network” Australian Digital Holdings TV, Kate McClymont writes, but is instead being supported by its cofounder Jake Thrupp, 26. Staying on conservative Australia a minute and books from “the classics department of the dissident right” Imperium Press have either been removed or reviewed by Booktopia, Guardian Australia reports, including essay collections edited by an Australian white nationalist. The publisher told the paper its books offer a “historical default” worldview.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
Eyebrows may have been raised when 75-year-old Rodney Holbrook swore to friends and family that someone was breaking into his shed and cleaning it up every night. The retiree knew it sounded a little bit fanciful, but the facts were the gosh darn facts: every morning, the objects the US man had expressly left on his workbench the day before had been carefully packed away into a nearby box, as The New York Times tells it. At first, it was just bird food and nuts, but then it was clothes, pegs, cups and cable ties that were being organised. The mystery consumed Holbrook day and night. Nothing was being stolen, after all — just, well, decluttered. He had to get to the bottom of it.
So the wildlife photographer set up a night vision camera. It would capture the culprit, he figured, and perhaps even shed some light on the odd motives of such a courteous cleaner. Barely catching a wink, Holbrook leapt from bed to retrieve his camera at dawn, settling in to watch the footage. All was still, and then a tiny mouse crept into the frame. It scurried over to a cork, picked it up and dashed over to the box. Plonk. Perhaps uttering an exasperated sigh, maybe even a small squeak resembling “I have to do everything around here”, the mouse grabbed a wooden peg to repeat the move. Holbrook couldn’t believe it. It’s possible the mouse is just hiding some nuts in the box, of course. But Holbrook prefers to think of him as a mousy assistant.
Folks, it’s great to be back with you after the silly season. Hoping you help someone out in some small way today too.
SAY WHAT?
So you’re getting this furious race to destroy the planet. The first one in before the planet dies is going to make the most money.
Andrew Forrest
The now renewable-focussed mining billionaire flew a helicopter over WA’s coast to slam Woodside’s $18 billion Scarborough gas export project as a “carbon dioxide bomb”.
CRIKEY RECAP
Gina Rinehart tried to censor Crikey articles using ‘ridiculous’ trademark request to tech companies
“A mining company run by billionaire Gina Rinehart says that trademark complaints filed against Crikey which led to the temporary censorship of this outlet’s critical coverage of Australia’s richest woman were erroneously filed by a third party on its behalf as part of its efforts to stamp out fraudulent advertisements.
“Private Media, the publisher of Crikey, The Mandarin and SmartCompany, has been the subject of repeated intellectual property complaints on behalf of 150 Investments Pty Ltd, a company that’s directors include the mining billionaire. These complaints led to at least one article between temporarily taken offline by Amazon …”
“By Sunday afternoon we’ll know who the Liberal Party will nominate as its challenger for the Victorian seat. Three candidates are up for preselection that day, Crikey understands: Frankston Mayor Nathan Conroy, former local state MP Donna Hope, and former local state parliamentary candidate Bec Buchanan.
“A fourth candidate, David Burgess, is understood to have dropped out of the race. A Victorian Liberal source told Crikey Conroy, a three-term mayor, and Hope are seen as most likely to win the nomination [Ed note: Conroy did win]. Dutton, the opposition leader, is not expected to weigh into the process.”
“It’s now more expensive than renewables, Australia has a decades-long ban on it, and its key international example touted by the Coalition was scrapped, but that hasn’t stopped growing cries from conservatives about nuclear power entering the energy mix on the nation’s path to net zero by 2050 …
“In November, however, conservative SMR [small modular reactors] dreams were dashed here and abroad when a US developer binned a project widely touted as kicking off the new nuclear era. NuScale Power said it had failed to attract enough utility customers for the controversial power source to proceed — but it had also nearly doubled in cost (from US$8 billion to US$14 billion), suffered a five-year time delay, and its power generation capacity had been slashed by a third.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
The dark underbelly of Pakistan’s male body image revolution (Al Jazeera)
Namibia criticises German support for Israel over ICJ genocide case (BBC)
Scores of hostages released from gang-controlled prisons, Ecuador government claims (The Guardian)
Can electric vehicles handle northern B.C.’s -30 C temperatures? (CBC)
Taiwan’s new president faces tough time with China pressure, no majority (Reuters)
Frederik X proclaimed new king of Denmark after his mother Queen Margrethe II abdicates (euronews)
THE COMMENTARIAT
I ask you to consider what it is that we are celebrating on Australia Day — Jenna Woods (The West) ($): “After all, January 26 was not marked as a national holiday until fairly recently, having been established in 1994. The true marker of progress is not the date of Australia Day, but the content of it. I find myself questioning what is actually being celebrated? What is it to be Australian? Is it only our colonial past that is to be honoured? Who is included in that and who is not? For me, these questions take us beyond questioning the date to questioning the very core of our national identity. To understand what it is that we are celebrating, we must first truly understand who we are as a nation. Without doing so, Australia Day manifests as a rather superficial national party, characterised by alcohol, barbecues and fireworks.
“… It’s simple human nature to want to highlight the good and conceal the bad. It is far easier to think of the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their parents as a distant event. It is far more comfortable to think of the 1905 Aborigines Act, which removed Aboriginal peoples’ autonomy over their own employment, property ownership, freedom of movement and association, finances and even marriage, as a well-intentioned but poorly implemented idea of some long-dead early settler. Many find it both confronting and distressing to know this is not the case. The 1905 Act was only dismantled in the mid-1960s. Many of the missions where Stolen Generation children were taken remained operational for more than a decade after this.”
How I learnt to love Novak Djokovic, the greatest of all time — Nick Kyrgios (The SMH): “Novak is the best player to ever wield a tennis racquet – something I did not believe a few years ago. If you came to me and asked who, in their prime, I would want playing a set for my life, it’s Novak. There’s just no longer a GOAT conversation to be had. The question that remains, in my mind, is who would you prefer to watch play? That’s an entirely different debate. If you’re asking me who the prettiest player to watch and the most naturally gifted, I think most people will tell you the answer is Roger Federer. But that is what makes what Novak has achieved and still accomplishing so crazy. He’s had his struggles, especially early in his career.
“But physically and mentally he has made changes to his game and adjustments to his life that have been incredible and taken him on this journey to be the best we’ve ever seen. He’s had to work for everything. He has been able to get out of himself what Roger was born with, and found a way to do it better. You don’t have to like him, but how do you not respect the amount of work he has done and the commitment he has shown to be the best? I was one of those who didn’t like him. I wasn’t a fan of the way he sometimes carried himself on the court. When he wasn’t as strong-minded or physically capable early in his career — taking those toilet breaks or calling for the trainer … it didn’t sit well with me and I was quite honest about my feelings towards him for a long time in my career.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Yuggera and Turrbal Country (also known as Brisbane)
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Urban planner David Mepham will speak about his new book, Rethinking Parking, at Brisbane Square Library Tiered Theatrette.
