Thanks millions, says Alan Joyce

MILLION-DOLLAR SMILES

Former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce is in line to receive another $6.1 million as a “long-term incentive bonus” on top of the $21.4 million he’s already walking with, bringing his total remuneration during his 15 years at the helm to more than $150 million. The Australian ($) adds that Qantas paid out $1.3 billion in dividends over that time, so Joyce personally got 12%. Cripes. Meanwhile, a quarter of Qantas staff were sacked (including 1,700 illegally) and out-of-pocket travellers have taken to a class action to try to claw back money they spent on flights that in some cases didn’t exist. Spirit of Australia indeed. One Qantas exec described Joyce to the paper as obsessed with money.

Speaking of paydays, the 100 wealthiest schools in Australia made almost $4.8 billion in 2021, according to new Department of Education data — $767 million of it was taxpayer funded and the rest was fees and donations. Guardian Australia reports Macquarie Grammar School in Sydney’s CBD got $59,383 for each student (!!!), or $3.6 million, and the government chipped in $715,778. That the taxpayer is funding these cashed-up schools is absurd, Greens education spokeswoman Penny Allman-Payne said. Meanwhile many people can barely afford to eat, but we’ll keep using the “blunt” tool of interest rates to drive down inflation, RBA governor Michele Bullock has warned via the ABC. She added it’s for our own good. Sure doesn’t feel like it right now.

FUEL FOR THOUGHT

Australia’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart, says the Albanese government should give us a fuel excise cut for December, The West ($) reports, just like former prime minister Scott Morrison did for six months last year. “The government taxes every tank of fuel we use at around 50 cents per litre,” she says, and “millions of Aussies need it more than I’ve seen in decades”. It comes mere days after she expressed concern vulnerable Aussies were falling prey to online scams, as SBS reports. Awww. Thank you, Gina, for looking out for us! In extremely related news, this year was the hottest in 125,000 years, Reuters says, because of fossil-fuel-driven greenhouse gas emissions. Today Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen will reveal a massive expansion of the capacity investment scheme aimed to create enough battery, wind, solar and pumped hydro power to replace coal-fired and thermal power sources, The Australian ($) says.

But is it happening fast enough to make Labor’s ambitious target of 82% renewables by 2030? WA author Tim Winton is not convinced, and has accused fossil-fuel giants of committing a “crime against humanity” in working hard to “hide climate science from the public”, WA Today ($) reports. We need to feel more angry and urgent, Winton says, and “It probably means breaking some shit” — even if it is just conceptions, he qualified. This comes as residents near Perth have been told it is too late to leave amid several torrid bushfires that are “escalating” in severity, Emergency WA warned, as Sky News Australia reports. They are Ashby, Banksia Grove, Jandabup, Mariginiup, Melaleuca, Sinagra and Tapping in the city of Wanneroo and the city of Swan.

UNDER OATH

For the first time, former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann has told his version of events under oath from the night he is alleged to have raped colleague Brittany Higgins, The Australian ($) says. One new thing we learnt is that he was discussing whether then-defence minister Linda Reynolds would get voter cred for having the French submarines built in WA (the state would go on to practically carry Labor to victory last year). It was the first day of his defamation case against journalist Lisa Wilkinson and Ten Network. Lehrmann’s lawyer said his life had been “utterly destroyed” by the network, which didn’t name him in its report and which it says sought a response before televising. One might recall that, separately from this, Lehrmann has also been charged with two counts of rape in Queensland, Guardian Australia reports. He says he is innocent of all allegations.

Speaking of — Gold Coast city councillor Ryan Bayldon-Lumsden appears to be campaigning for reelection despite being charged with murder, Guardian Australia reports. Cops allege he killed his stepfather, 58-year-old Robert Malcolm Lumsden, in late August but Bayldon-Lumsden lawyers will argue the councillor was the victim of domestic violence. He’s been suspended, but Deputy Premier Steven Miles told the paper there’s no law that’d stop him from running. This comes as a former Chinese student known as S151 says new laws imposing a 10pm-6am curfew and tracking devices on people who have already served their sentence is unconstitutional, the SMH ($) reports. S151’s lawyers will argue the rushed-through amendments are at odds with the separation of powers between Parliament and the courts.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

The caretaker of a mobile home park could often be seen reading the newspaper atop his lawn mower in the streets of the small US town of Hinsdale. Geoffrey Holt lived a humble, perhaps even meagre life by any townsperson’s measure but most regarded him in high esteem. He’d taught generations of local high school kids how to drive and was known for putting his hand up for all sorts of odd jobs. He had no children, and didn’t own a car or home — just a trailer with scant furniture and no television. When Holt died earlier this year aged 82, however, his secret fortune of nearly $6 million was bequeathed to the astounded community of 4,200 people. Holt, who had lifelong trouble writing and spelling owing to dyslexia, had studied financial guides and invested very carefully, with his returns growing far beyond his expectations.

He was extremely smart, his sister said, wise enough to invest in telecommunications before the advent of the mobile phone. But not even his best friend Edwin “Smokey” Smith knew about Holt’s multimillionaire status until pretty recently. “He seemed to have what he wanted,” Smokey shrugged. And what he wanted in death, evidently, was to give back to his town — after chatting it over with Smokey, Holt wrote a will that stipulated all his millions would go to Hinsdale’s education, health, recreation and culture sectors. There’s talk of upgrading the old town clock, restoring old buildings and setting up an online driving course, as well as a generous grant program for local biz. One thing’s for sure, town administrator Kathryn Lynch vowed, we’ll be as frugal as our hero Holt was.

Hoping you have everything you need today.

SAY WHAT?

Let’s end the electric vehicle subsidies to the rich and use that to help the poor pay for that petrol to get to and from work and drop the kids off at school. I think that would be a much better spending of public money.

Matt Canavan

The coal-loving Nationals senator says now is not the time for emission-free vehicles, even though the planet is careening towards a deadly 3 degrees of warming and transport emissions make up a fifth of Australia’s total CO2.

CRIKEY RECAP

Gaza can only be understood as the triumph of Zionist fascism

GUY RUNDLE

“The Jewish people’s real historical status as victims has essentially made possible a sort of historical wormhole in which Israel’s wanton destructiveness, now permitted to no other settler movement, is left morally unexamined and infinitely permitted.

“The brutal exterminism of the 1930s is delivered up to us fresh. Its perpetrators claim exception, an excusement from all means-ends moral assessments, on account of their victim status. Zionists become, paradoxically, the only people left permitted to act like Nazis.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Ex-Obama adviser says more Palestinian kids should die in Islamophobic rant (Al Jazeera)

Myanmar fighting at its worst since 2021 coup, says UN (The Guardian)

Popular shortbread recipe caught up in Meta’s ban on Canadian news (CBC)

Warren Buffett donates $870 million to charities ahead of Thanksgiving (CNN)

Sam Altman to return as OpenAI CEO after his tumultuous ouster (Reuters)

Press freedom campaigners urge Ireland’s Sinn Fein to stop suing critical journalists (euronews)

THE COMMENTARIAT

West slides into abyss of intellectual decay — Peta Credlin (The Australian) ($): “This backsliding into moral relativism and self-loathing in the struggle between a death cult and a law-abiding nation-state reflects the wider intellectual and cultural confusion afflicting free Western countries such as ours. The recent rush by big business, sporting and cultural organisations — and even law firms — to endorse, sight-unseen, an Indigenous Voice showed a glaring inability to make the necessary intellectual distinction between wanting a better deal for Aboriginal people and entrenching race in our constitution. It was the triumph of feel-good politics over careful judgment.

“Likewise, the inability of institutional leaders, including many in a medical profession pledged to ‘first, do no harm’, to distinguish between sympathy for confused teenagers, conditioned to think that they might be trapped in the wrong body, and automatic agreement to irreversible life-changing drug and surgical treatment, is another key example of virtue signalling over rational thinking. Still, the widespread display of moral equivalence between a death cult and a democracy; and, even worse, the preference for Hamas with its indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, over an Israel trying to avoid civilian casualties while fighting a mortal enemy whose whole modus operandi is to use civilians as human shields, is an altogether more serious failure.”

Albanese’s honeymoon is over. Here’s how he can keep the romance alive — Nick Dyrenfurth (Brisbane Times) ($): “It will need to take a few considered risks leading up to the 2024 federal budget in May, namely with a big-bang policy reset pivoting to the economy. Albanese might learn from Howard, whose first-term honeymoon came crashing down as it was beset by multiple ministerial resignations and scandals. Going into the 1998 election behind Labor in the polls, Howard embarked upon the GST debate, which very likely saved his government. It gave him something to campaign on, and it sharpened the distinctions between his government and the opposition. Tweaking the stage three tax cuts could be Albanese’s GST moment. It is good politics and good economics for three reasons: it is fiscally prudent in constrained times, it will not add to inflationary pressures, and is fair and equitable.

“The experience of Rudd should be equally instructive to Labor this time around. The collapse of the Copenhagen climate talks in 2009 discombobulated Rudd and, in their aftermath, he ditched the government’s signature emissions trading scheme. Following the coup against him in 2010, Labor was unable to properly campaign on its stewardship of the economy through the global financial crisis. For Labor, it isn’t time to panic — yet — and there can be no repeat of the Rudd years. The ending of political honeymoons can presage more drastic deterioration in marital relations or act as a circuit breaker. In this, Albanese would be wise not to underestimate Peter Dutton.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Online

• Plastic Free Foundation’s Rebecca Prince–Ruiz, CSIRO’s Deborah Lau, the University of Newcastle’s Thava Palanisami and the Australia Institute’s Nina Gbor will talk about whether recycling is a form of greenwashing in a plastics webinar.

Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)

• The Unissued Diplomas exhibition’s Yana Mokhonchuk, sociologist Olga Boichak, journalist Galyna Piskorska and artist Stanislava Pinchuk will speak about Ukrainian resistance at The Wheeler Centre.

Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)

• The Insurance Council of Australia’s Andrew Hall will speak about insurance becoming more expensive at the National Press Club.

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

• Author Natali Pearson will talk about her new book, Belitung, at Glee Books.

• Drop In Care Space’s Sonny Jane Wise will talk about their new book, We’re All Neurodiverse, at Better Read Than Dead bookshop.