Mark his words: Latham sued

ONE NATION DEFAMATION

Independent MP Alex Greenwich is suing One Nation’s Mark Latham for defamation, the SMH ($) reports, after he doubled down on a social media slur that Greenwich described as homosexual vilification. Greenwich has also lodged a formal complaint to the NSW Police as well as to Anti-Discrimination NSW. Folks, Latham’s post was such a shameful attack — by a person on the public purse, no less — that I don’t even want to link to it. Latham, who is One Nation’s NSW leader, said he was “not apologising or not backing down”, Guardian Australia reports, even though his federal counterpart Pauline Hanson slammed him in a video and demanded he say sorry. Was that all for show? Latham said Hanson hadn’t contacted him directly about the post.

To another complaint now: Garth Thompson, who led the Save Alice Springs meeting, has lodged a legal complaint with the ABC over its coverage that described a whiff of “white supremacy”. The Australian ($) says he’s talking to lawyers too — he wants articles published to be retracted and a national apology given to Alice Springs, saying he’s “criticised Australia-wide and I’ve copped abuse”. The ABC ombudsman received 18 complaints after the story went live, the paper notes, and the broadcaster re-edited the story. Hey, speaking of Indigenous issues — the ABC spoke to the 11 First Nations MPs and senators to get their view about the Voice to Parliament. It’s really worthy reading for anyone who’s wondering how to vote in the upcoming referendum. But if you want to know what Tony Abbott thinks about it, you may have to ask him — he was blocked from appearing at a key parliamentary inquiry about the Voice, the SMH ($) says, and slammed Labor MPs for gagging No campaign supporters.

DEFENCE AND AI

Australia has one battle-ready submarine and five that need work because of maintenance delays, COVID-19, floods and fires, the ABC reports. Well, we did as of the beginning of this year. Four Corners says the navy insists the six Collins Class submarines have “lethal capability” but it found we’ve fallen short of operational targets for the past two years, including having four vessels available at any one time. To making peace, not war, and the resort where Noosa man Bodhi Mani Risby-Jones stayed must slaughter a goat to make amends for the Queensland man’s drunken rampage. Brisbane Times ($) reports the 23-year-old “struck a security guard before charging at the motorcycle rider, according to police”. Cripes. The cops are yet to decide whether they will charge him for drinking in the Indonesian province, which prohibits alcohol consumption.

To another tool now… and WA has lifted a ban on teachers using ChatGPT, The West Australian ($) reports, though kids still can’t use it. The Education Department says it can be used as a “tool to support quality teaching” even though it acknowledged “bias, misinformation or inappropriate content” in the AI software. Hmm. And Guardian Australia has an interesting story this morning about AI that can detect cancer before doctors can. Basically the algorithm looks at CT scans and identifies cancerous growths not easily spotted by the human eye to an 82% success rate. Not too shabby.

LIBERAL THINKING

A former Morrison-era staffer who worked on our gambling regulation works for an industry body representing Sportsbet and Ladbrokes, the SMH ($) reports. Kai Cantwell was part of then-social services minister Anne Ruston’s team until last May’s election — the paper says he advised on online wagering laws. Now he heads up Responsible Wagering Australia (RWA) — his new gig is “within the regulations”, Cantwell pointed out, as RWA removed itself from the lobbying register (usually advisers can’t work for lobbying groups for 12 months). But independent Zoe Daniel says the whole thing doesn’t pass the pub test. A total of three top Sportsbet staffers were once advisers to Liberal ministers.

Meanwhile, SA Liberal Ben Hood has been mentioned more than 100 times in an emerging independent news outlet called The SE Voice… which he helped set up. Crikey reports Hood, dubbed the “Ron DeSantis of South Australia” by fellow Liberal Alex Antic (without the legal action from Disney, one assumes), was once described in the paper as “touted as a frontrunner to fill a Liberal Party vacancy in state Parliament”. His involvement with the paper wasn’t mentioned anywhere in print that Crikey’s Cam Wilson could see, though he notes Hood did mention it in a social post. The paper’s editor defended its independence, saying Hood’s web design company registered the domain and that was it.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

New York, city of dreams, playground for the elite, and at times an eye-rolling utter fixation of pop culture, has a dirty, disgusting secret crawling through the city’s bowels. Well — it’s not a secret to the residents, of course — only to us pitiful, plebeian outsiders who rest our heads elsewhere than the city that never sleeps. See, New York City is run by rats. Rodents are stealing pizza, crashing street parties, dominating the subway, sunbaking in cars, and unnerving pedestrians, as SBS reports solemnly. Indeed there is a record number of rat sightings in NYC right now. So the city advertised for a newly created “rat tsar” role, which required “the stamina and stagecraft … drive, determination and killer instinct needed to fight the real enemy: New York City’s relentless rat population,” who are described as “cunning, voracious, and prolific”.

Kathleen Corradi is the city’s new director of rodent mitigation, which pays a cool $234,565, but she has a tough, ratty road ahead. One New Yorker even fell into a rat-filled sinkhole once. It’s no wonder, then, that anti-rat vigilantes are taking matters into their own hands. Dateline’s Calliste Weitenberg joined The Ryders Alley Trencher-Fed Society (yep — the RATS) for a night hunt — she describes them as “terrier-obsessed dog lovers” who use the canines to eradicate the rodents. It may be a losing battle — two rats can become 15,000 in just 12 months, and besides, is this all really the rats’ fault? PETA spokesperson Ashley Byrne says the problem is garbage — literally. Bags of garbage, mostly food waste, are often left on sidewalks for collection for days. Thus the rodents feast. It’s a two-pronged reminder to all of us — composting our food scraps is very good, while the world’s most enviable city isn’t always so.

Hoping your coffee is hot this morning.

SAY WHAT?

Last year your favourite Fox News reporters were able to attend because they were fully vaccinated and boosted. This year with that $787 million settlement they're here because they couldn't say no to a free meal.

Joe Biden

The US president quipped about the mighty Murdoch payout to Dominion Voting Systems which accounted for a quarter of Fox Corp's $4 billion in cash on hand. Biden wasn’t above poking fun at himself either. He said he believed in the First Amendment and “not just because my good friend Jimmy Madison wrote it”. The founding father died in 1836.

CRIKEY RECAP

The flinty contradiction at the heart of Labor’s support for the RBA review findings

MAEVE MCGREGOR

“It’s confused because it supposes all inflation is driven by demand-side issues when the reality is otherwise, as the link between today’s inflation and supply-side disruptions such as the Ukraine war and climate change attest. Confused, also, because the Reserve Bank is aware it can’t plausibly exert any control over supply-side disruptions, yet its monetary policy furiously pretends otherwise.

“And unsophisticated, because, quite aside from its penchant for invoking the unrealistic spectre of spooky, ’70s-style wage-price spirals despite years of falling real wages, it pays no heed to the indirect and complex impact of raising interest rates on the economy — including, for instance, the demonstrated tendency of monopolists in a concentrated and uncompetitive market like Australia’s to profiteer from the inflation crisis.”

Carlson is as ‘happy as a clam’: live from the audience of Fox News’ Hannity show

ANDREW DODD

“Apart from his still-evident love of Trump, Hannity’s mission is to demonise the left and either bemoan the treatment of the right or, in the case of the next story, trumpet its achievements. The news is that the House has passed a bill lifting the debt ceiling. But the biggest story is that the Republicans have narrowly secured a clause to wind back US$4.8 trillion in federal spending.

“Hannity crosses live to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who is also cheered by the studio audience. Hannity tells the Speaker he’s worried because some Republicans didn’t support the cause and now the bill could be eroded. The Speaker agrees — in fact, it looks like this is what he’s been invited onto the program to do. Hannity urges Republicans to hold the line.”

New weight-loss drug’s miracle effect is to show how stuffed our pharma system is

GUY RUNDLE

“Ozempic, semaglutide, the miracle weight-loss cure you’ve heard of but whose name you can’t remember. The once-a-week injection (it’s a light prick, like any given senior AMA member) has become the drug du moment, with private doctors besieged by people willing to pay $800 a month for an alternative-use prescription to shake off 10 kilos or so. Demand made the drug unobtainable in Australia for months.

“Which was bad news for people like me, who use it for its intended purpose: type 2 diabetes. We get it on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme at about $60 a month. But there’s very little scope to restrict its alternate use; it’s not a restricted schedule drug like amphetamines, which can be tightly controlled.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

US says China intimidates Philippine vessels in South China Sea (Al Jazeera)

Ukraine says it controls key supply route into Bakhmut (Reuters)

Uzbekistan votes on clause that could extend president’s rule to 2040 (The Guardian)

As battle for Sudan continues, civilian deaths top 400 (euronews)

Epstein’s private calendar reveals prominent names, including CIA chief [William Burns], Goldman’s top lawyer [Kathryn Ruemmler] (The Wall Street Journal) ($)

Hollywood’s film and TV writers could go on strike this week. Here’s what you need to know (CBC)

Keir Starmer stands by Labour’s Sunak attack ad and denies it is racist (The Guardian)

Cuba cancels May Day parade because of fuel shortages (BBC)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Our new king may love Australia more than Australians love him — George Brandis (The Age) ($): “Australians should never underestimate the depth of Charles’ emotional connection to this country. He is, after all, the only sovereign to have lived here — as he did when, as a teenager, he spent a term of his schooling at Timbertop, the rural campus of Geelong Grammar. He is said to have regarded it as the happiest time of his life. It instilled in him a love for Australia which is undimmed after more than half a century. Members of the royal family are, after all, human beings, and it is natural (although they could never publicly say so) for them to develop a greater fondness for some countries than others.

“The late queen mother adored Canada, and went there as often as she could — the Canadian Rockies are said to have reminded her of her native Scotland. The queen always had a special place in her heart for Malta, where she enjoyed her last taste of relative freedom as a young wife when her husband, Philip, was stationed there as a naval officer from 1949 to 1951. Both of Charles’ sons are obsessed by Africa — in Prince William’s case especially Kenya, where he proposed to Kate Middleton, and for Prince Harry, Botswana. Beyond his native land, as those who know him well firmly attest, Charles’ favourite place is Australia. He has visited many times in the years since Timbertop and is always eager to return.”

RBA can’t afford to pause on another interest rate hike — Warren Hogan (AFR) ($): “Some will argue that we shouldn’t be using the current cyclically high and backward-looking core inflation rate to measure the real interest rate. There is merit in these arguments. The best way to think about the current real interest rate for policy purposes is to measure it using the central banks’ forecasts for core inflation this year. For our dollar-bloc peers, real rates on this measure have only just exceeded zero in recent months, with an average real policy interest rate of 0.7%. They all have positive real rates. It becomes clear why the Canadians have paused with their policy rate at 4.5% compared to a core inflation forecast of 4.4%.

“It also explains why the Kiwis have remained aggressive with rate rises right up to the last meeting, given their expectation for inflation of 5% in 2023. Australia continues to be the standout with our policy rate of 3.6% matched to a forecast core inflation rate of 4.3% in 2023. Our real interest rate is 1.4 percentage points below the average of our peers, and it is still negative at -0.7%. I agree that the RBA board should be tightening at a slower pace than other central banks because of the prevalence of variable-rate lending in our economy. But it still must get there. It can’t afford to fall too far behind the game, and we have seen some worrying new developments in the economy since the RBA last raised rates two months ago that suggests the balance of risks to the economic outlook is for a stronger economy than previously thought.”

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WHAT’S ON TODAY

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

• Author Susan Johnson will chat about her new book, Aphrodite’s Breath, at Better Read Than Dead bookshop.

Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)

• Australian Catholic University’s Noah Riseman will speak about the history of LGBTQIA+ service in the Australian Defence Force, at the Hedley Bull Building at ANU.