Labor stands firm on tax cuts

TAX-ICAN STAND OFF

The Coalition wants to force the Senate to sit without a break ($) until the government’s $158 billion tax cut package has been dealt with, The Australian reports. Labor yesterday announced that it remained opposed to the final part of the three stage plan after showing signs that it may back the full suite.

Senate leader and finance minister Mathias Cormann will put a procedural motion to the Senate to ensure it continues to sit until the three-in-one legislation has been dealt with. Attempts to split or amend the bill will be rejected, forcing Labor to vote for or against the entire plan.

Labor’s shadow cabinet opted yesterday to push for splitting the bill and bringing forward stage two, but made no formal decision as to whether to vote against the entire package if their amendment fails.

MEDIA’S DAY IN COURT

News Corp and the ABC will both challenge the validity of warrants used to authorise recent AFP raids, The Guardian reports. The ABC will ask the Federal Court to declare the raid warrant technically and constitutionally invalid, demanding the return of seized files. News Corp will challenge in the High Court and invite the AFP to confirm that it is discontinuing its investigation ($).

Meanwhile, media companies that were found liable for defamation yesterday over comments posted on their social media pages attacking NT youth detainee Dylan Voller are calling for an urgent overhaul of defamation laws ($). News Corp is reviewing the landmark decision with a view to appeal, The Australian reports, while Nine Entertainment is considering its options. 

‘THIRST FOR WAR’

The US has imposed new sanctions on Iran, Reuters reports, following Tehran’s downing of an unmanned American drone. The sanctions target Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior officials, with U.S. Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin saying they would lock up billions of dollars in Iranian assets. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeted following the announcement, accusing the Trump administration of having a “thirst for war”.

Responses in the US have been mixed after Donald Trump revealed on Thursday night that he had called off a military strike with 10 minutes to spare.

[free_worm]

THEY REALLY SAID THAT?

Earth to Albo.

Josh Frydenberg

The treasurer is clearly pretty proud of this one, repeating it in a tweet and in an op-ed ($) for The Daily Telegraph today (which they then splashed across their front page).

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Tsunami all-clear after magnitude-7.2 earthquake shakes Darwin

Wollongong University intervenes to approve Ramsay Centre western civilisation degree

Workers exposed to unsafe radiation at Sydney nuclear facility

Tories warn of government collapse if Boris Johnson pursues no-deal Brexit

News Corp tabloid the Herald Sun offers journalists cash bonuses for clicks

Turnbull offered me Bishop’s job, but he had no right, says Dutton ($)

Christian fury as GoFundMe axed ($)

Roger Corbett to stay as Tony Abbott campaign autopsy launched ($)

‘Beyond shameful’: Activists dispute Dutton’s medevac figures

Australian Christian Lobby throws $100,000 into new Israel Folau fund

Bernie Sanders announces plan to cancel US student debt

Children of Islamic State terrorists will return to love and rehabilitation, Muslim community vows

Putting more money into inefficient super ‘immoral’, says new minister

Centre Alliance reaches out to Lambie over union-busting bill

Battle for NSW Labor deputy looms as MPs prepare to vote for party leader

Canberra insiders book trouble for Scott Morrison

CRIKEY QUICKIE: THE BEST OF YESTERDAY

Inside the mind of the paedophile priest

Suzanne Smith

Jun 25, 2019

3

“For an isolated child growing up in an abusive household, Catholicism provided Ryan with a haven. The church offered him a structure, a world that made sense, a place with a noble purpose.

Students in seminaries in the ‘60s were taught that becoming a priest takes your being through an ‘ontological change into the divine’. Some offenders interpreted this as giving them more power and entitlement — a ‘messiah complex,’ as canon law expert Kieran Tapsell describes it in Potiphar’s Wife: the Vatican’s secret and child sexual abuse. Others believed it was part of God’s mission to make them better servants of the people.”

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The religious freedom debate isn’t a debate at all

Brian Morris

Jun 25, 2019

16

“Alarmingly, an opposing voice is the crucial element that’s missing from this one-sided campaign for religious freedom. Media outlets are mute and seem oblivious to the 78% of citizens who have stated — in a 2016 Ipsos poll — that they want ‘religion to be removed from the business of government’. Where — during the five years of ramping up this religious freedom mantra — have we heard clear and articulate atheist voices calling into question the excesses of Christian doctrine? Mainstream print and digital media are indeed culpable. They seem to be phased into acquiescence when Christians claim ‘persecution’ by imaginary detractors from the left. The age-old taboo of not questioning religion has been reasserted. There seems to be a predominant view that ‘being more tolerant of religion’ means avoiding even the most basic questions of current Christian motives.”

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What is left in the wake of a mining bonanza?

Patrick Marlborough

Jun 25, 2019

16

“Now I can drive half an hour up and down the coast in either direction and see the skeletal totems that warn of the mining boom’s false promise. Empty housing estates, ghost micro-suburbs, and ghastly boutique apartments — half empty or reverse mortgaged, rotting along the coastlines like washed up whale carcasses. My hometown, Fremantle, is stuck between its pre-boom bucolic miasma and a post-boom yuppie avalanche. To a lifelong observer, the town’s homeless population seems to be slowly surpassing its (already high) pre-boom numbers, returning to the east side’s empty outdoor malls as its retail sector disappears into dust along with the boom’s disposable income.”

THE COMMENTARIAT

The reason Australia doesn’t have nuclear power: the workers fought back – Jeff Sparrow (The Guardian): “Despite the best efforts of Queensland conservatives, Australia will not go nuclear. The former chair of Uranium King, Warwick Grigor, says flatly: ‘No one is going down that path in the foreseeable future.’ Even industry boosters see nuclear power stations as feasible only if the government introduces, um, a carbon tax, a proposal to which the culture warriors would react like vampires to garlic.”

Queensland deserves payback for handing ScoMo federal election win ($) – Graeme Haycroft (The Courier-Mail): “It’s time for the Queensland LNP to assert its authority and urge the Prime Minister to give more Queenslanders seats in federal Cabinet. Queenslanders lifted the Coalition from a losing position to a stunning victory by winning 40 per cent of the seats in the so-called miracle election. Yet we ended up with only 20 per cent of the seats in Cabinet.”

Why have we stopped spending? The answer is not in the bag – John Birmingham (The Age/SMH): “It could be the punitively inequitable structure of the tax system that allows billionaires and multinational companies to pay no tax at all, while still putting their hands out for enormous deductions and write-offs while millions of mug punters struggle daily through cities with decaying infrastructure and vanishing services.Or maybe the lack of wages growth and a decades-long transfer of wealth from those same mug punters to the owners of super-yachts and luxury properties might have something to do with a less than frenzied retail sector.

Still, you know, plastic bags.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Canberra

• Shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers will deliver his first major speech since taking on the role after the election at the National Press Club, arguing the economy is ‘floundering’ on the Coalition’s watch.

• New members of the House of Representatives will come to Canberra for a two-day orientation seminar, with Speaker Tony Smith and the Clerk of the House David Elder introducing them to the procedural and administrative aspects of their new roles before the 46th Parliament opens next Tuesday.

Melbourne

• The Melbourne Press Club will host a ‘Defending the Whistleblowers’ forum, with a panel including ATO whistleblower Richard Boyle, crossbench senator and whistleblower advocate Rex Patrick, and journalist Adele Ferguson, who broke the ATO story.

• Governor of Victoria Linda Dessau AC and her husband Anthony Howard AM QC will host a reception to celebrate the community in Melbourne’s North, with more than 900 guests from a range of diverse backgrounds.

• Hacker Steven Oakes will be sentenced after pleading guilty to insider trading, unauthorised access to data, and destruction of books required by ASIC, after hacking into the systems of Port Phillip Publishing.

• Former AFL footballer and coach Mark “Bomber” Thompson will appear in the Magistrates Court, ahead of a contested hearing over drug trafficking and possession charges.

Sydney

• Religious leaders will hold a press conference, as they issue an open letter signed by more than 150 leaders calling on Prime Minister Scott Morrison to recognise Australia’s “moral responsibility to avoid climate catastrophe”.

• Mathew Flame will appear in Central Local Court, accused of the bashing death of Angry Anderson‘s son Liam.

Adelaide

• Colin Humphry, a convicted paedophile detained indefinitely after being ruled unwilling and unable to control his sexual urges, will appeal in the Supreme Court.

Brisbane

• Former Foreign Minister and deputy leader of the Liberal Party Julie Bishop will address the QUT Business Leaders’ Forum about her personal leadership journey and key learnings.

Townsville

• The Oceania Area Championships in Athletics will be commence.

London

• Closing submissions will be heard in the coroner’s inquest into the London Bridge terror attack.