GOING TO HIS HEAD
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has rebuked Foreign Minister Julie Bishop by expressing support for a potential expansion of Australian spy powers and, through a separate but not unrelated power grab, potentially jeopardised a facial recognition scheme with the states.
The Australian ($) reports that, by claiming there is a “case to be made” in giving the Australian Signals Directorate monitoring powers usually reserved for ASIO/AFP officers with warrants, Dutton has contradicted Bishop’s claim on Sunday that there is not a “national security gap” that needs fixing.
And according to The Guardian, Dutton, who already has unprecedented discretionary powers over immigration and leads the new Home Affairs super-ministry, has also drawn criticism from the Victorian government with a bill that provides “significant scope” to expand Home Affairs’ new facial recognition powers even beyond what the states agreed to in October.
SECTION 44 ‘BROKEN’
The chair of Parliament’s joint standing committee on electoral matters, set up by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull into the ongoing dual-citizenship crisis, has labelled the provision broken and believes it should be overturned via a national referendum.
The Age reports that Liberal Senator Linda Reynolds — who leads the inquiry into the provision that cost eight MPs their jobs since 2017 (and still threatens up to four more) — believes that the cleanest way to fix the issue is to remove the antiquated dual-citizenship exclusion, which can only happen through a referendum. While Reynolds has only expressed her personal view, her comments increase the likelihood of the committee recommending a referendum on the provision, which could be tied to the next federal election.
ISLE OF WALLABIES
An orphaned red-necked wallaby has been rescued in the Isle of Man, an island in the Irish Sea, which, given its location between England and Ireland, is not typically known for Australian marsupials.
The BBC reports that the seventh-month joey was found by hikers beside its dead mother, who brought it to their local vet. Reportedly, a pair of wallabies escaped from a local wildlife park 50 years ago, and now more than 100 can be found across the Manx countryside.
THEY REALLY SAID THAT?
In summary, the BCA created a front group, called it a community organisation, kept the BCA name off of it, and then used this front group to run political campaign in a state election.
Kristina Keneally
The Labor Senator picks apart the Business Council of Australia’s latest “grassroots campaign initiative” and possible meetings with notorious data mining firm Cambridge Analytica in a multi-part Twitter thread.
CRIKEY QUICKIE: THE BEST OF YESTERDAY
“Unusually, the polity is currently all on the same page on the regulation of financial services. The government admits it should have called the royal commission earlier. The penalties for breaching corporations law are to be strengthened. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is recognised as gutless. The regulation of financial advice, and the role of the big banks in the provision of advice and wealth management services, is agreed to have been inadequate.”
“It’s been exactly one year since The New York Times set up an Australian bureau in Sydney. And almost as long since some Australians began grumbling about it. Grievances — mostly from local journos on social media — include perceptions the NYT is needlessly explaining Australia to Australians, engaging in parachute journalism, and not employing enough local journalists.”
“Welcome to May Day, that annual occasion in which the abundance created by all history’s workers is acknowledged, the living labour of the many is upheld as the ongoing source of all value, and the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) writes an unreadable pamphlet.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Mark ‘Bomber’ Thompson arrested, charged with drug trafficking, possession
Emmanuel Macron to sign pact targeting cyber war ($)
Manison partly blames ‘southern-centric Australian Government’ for NT’s budget blowout ($)
Victoria state budget: A five minute guide
Work-for-the-dole CDP scheme a costly failure that’s harming people: report
Carbon price repeal an own goal: Wong
ABC censured for calling Tony Abbott ‘most destructive politician’
Sue Hickey surprise new Tasmanian speaker ahead of government-endorsed Rene Hidding ($)
Treated like any other accused: George Pell’s life of extremes
Record heat for Australia in driest April for 21 years
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Melbourne
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The Melbourne Press Club will host Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas after he yesterday handed down the 2018-19 state budget.
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C2, a major business conference founded by Cirque du Soleil and Sid Lee, will announce Melbourne as its official Asia-Pacific headquarters. Government ministers John Eren and Philip Dalidakis and City of Melbourne lord mayor candidate Sally Capp will attend, with a ball-pit reportedly set up for photo opportunities.
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RMIT University will present the first of three “Global Business Innovation Conversations”, a research-driven series discussing new technologies within health, manufacturing and finance sectors.
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Olympic Gold medallist Alisa Camplin-Warner will hand over a $200,000 cheque and celebrate raising over $2 million for the Royal Children’s Hospital, in honour of their son, Finnan Maximus Camplin-Warner, who died from congenital heart disease at 10 days old.
Sydney
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First Nations elders will call on the NSW Parliament to release Indigenous prisoners jailed for non-violent crimes, following new “Fighting in Resistance Equally” data showing the extent to which Indigenous people are over-represented in jail.
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Parliamentary inquiry into religious freedoms will begin its Sydney hearing.
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Parliament House protest against public money — $3.8 billion flagged by the federal government — to encourage Australian companies to export more armaments.
Perth
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Australia’s oldest scientist, 104-year-old Professor David Goodall, will fly to Switzerland in order to electively end his life.
Brisbane
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Dozens of cyclists will stage a 10-minute “die-in” on the busy Vulture Street, in a protest designed by local Greens councillor Jonathan Sri to highlight road safety for cyclists.
Adelaide
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A house standing committee will hold public hearings on the management and use of environmental water.
Christchurch, New Zealand
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Paul Clifford Hibbs will be sentenced for ripping off clients, many elderly, to the tune of $17.5 million.
Jerusalem, Israel
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Former Melbourne school principal Malka Leifer will face the Jerusalem District Court for a hearing related to extradition. Victorian Police want to bring the 54-year-old, who was arrested in Israel in February and successfully appealed against her release to home detention, back to Australia to face 74 charges of child sexual abuse.
THE COMMENTARIAT
The Captain Cook statue is a warm-up for a populist election campaign — Jack Latimore (The Guardian): “Earlier this week a beleaguered prime minister and his federal treasurer provided us with an illuminating glimpse of the kind of populist campaign they intend to orchestrate between now and election day. Forget meddling in state affairs along heavily racialised lines of law and order. Hysterical fear-mongering over ethnic gangs was merely an amuse-bouche. Now mains is under the lamps, waiting to be carved: its meat most powerful at the heart.”
AFL’s sexual harassment woes a symptom of wider malaise — Kristen Hilton (Sydney Morning Herald): “This week, the Australian Football League has come under fire for its handling of a sexual harassment claim involving Fremantle Football Club’s coach. Problems of responding to workplace sexual harassment are by no means limited to high profile organisations such as the AFL – we know harassment and discrimination can happen in every workplace and at every organisational level, and we know it often goes unreported. What is clear is that we need to start talking about best-practice responses, and we need to support organisations who are grappling with these questions.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
I’m glad to read the north island getting its due international recognition. The BBC states that wallabies ‘are native to Australia and Tasmania’.