Tightening the money belt

HOME AND AWAY

Cash handouts to help with the cost of living are little more than “cheap politics and hugely expensive economics”, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will say today in a speech seen by The Australian ($). He says untargeted spending is the “short-term” approach that got us into this situation — Treasurer Jim Chalmers will reportedly add that household payments (using the tax receipt windfall) would’ve added half a per cent to our inflation in the next year alone. Yesterday the Reserve Bank forecasted inflation would climb to 8% by December (up from 7.75%) while lifting the cash rate to a nine-year high (2.85%). And don’t think we won’t do it again, RBA governor Philip Lowe warned. Until our underlying inflation (it’s 6.1% right now) halves to between 2-3%, interest rates will continue to rise. (Our underlying inflation is our inflation excluding the items with the largest price surge and falls, as Guardian Australia explains.) It means we could see rate hikes into 2023, news.com.au adds.

And as the interest rate climbs, the price of houses is tumbling at the fastest rate since the 2008 global financial crisis, the ABC reports, which is either a great thing or a crap thing, depending on whether you’re a part of Australia’s landed gentry. You can get an average house in Adelaide for about $703,000, in Brisbane $818,000 (that’s down 6.2% since peaking in June), in Canberra $991,000, in Darwin $588,000, in Hobart $755,000, in Melbourne $924,000 (that’s down 6.4% since it peaked in February), in Perth $584,000, and in Sydney $1.3 million (that’s down 10.2% since January’s peak). So what does yesterday’s 0.25% rise look like in real numbers for homeowners? If you have a $500,000 mortgage, it went up $74 a month, as per RateCity data. On a $750,000 mortgage, you’re forking out $112 more a month, and on $1 million mortgage $149 more a month. Indeed the total extra dosh homeowners are paying since May is $760, $1140 and $1520 for those above loans, respectively. Cripes.

[free_worm]

COP THAT

Counter-terrorism police have visited the home of an environmental activist ahead of a Sydney protest, Guardian Australia reports, one of 30 people visited by cops in the past week ahead of the International Mining and Resources Conference. Brisbane-based Alister Ferguson, who is on bail after he allegedly took part in a protest with Blockade Australia earlier this year, posted a video of Queensland cops saying they were there at the request of NSW police. They were plain-clothed but armed with semi-automatic handguns, Guardian Australia adds. Ferguson says he had no intention of attending the protest, and told the paper that in 30 years of environmental activism, his arrest and charges earlier this year were the first of their kind. Meanwhile the NSW police watchdog is reopening an investigation into the former top cop Mick Fuller’s undeclared racehorse shares, the ABC reports. The broadcaster revealed in February that Fuller had potentially breached the NSW government’s anti-corruption rules and the police code of conduct — Fuller’s horses were owned in part by “senior police, sporting identities, media bosses and businessmen, including two men who became suspects in criminal investigations”, the ABC lists. Initially, the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) cleared Fuller, finding “no substance” to the allegations — but the new inspector, Bruce McClintock, reckons it needs a second look.

In Victoria now and the information commissioner has received a record number of complaints about Victoria Police’s huge delays in responding to freedom of information (FOI) requests, The Age ($) reports. A new report shows delays had risen from 27 weeks in March to 34 weeks — more than eight months — in September, even though every FOI is supposed to be completed within a month. It’s the result of a staff shortage, the commissioner found, though the act needs reviewing too. It comes as one in seven WA police officers are working more than 50 hours a week, The West ($) reports, amid a dwindling workforce creating an environment of overtime, the union boss said. The recent census also found one in 10 detectives in WA are battling long-term mental health issues.

NUCLEAR FAMILY

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong will sign a deal with Thailand today to counter human trafficking, the SMH reports. She’ll meet with Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and agree to a new training centre to deal with trafficking, which will “develop a cadre of highly qualified and competent government officers”, Wong says. She flew to Thailand on Tuesday after meeting with the Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah in Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of the former British protectorate, on Monday, and she’s headed to Brunei next, Sky News reports. Wong’s fairly successful tour of South-East Asia since May has seen her visit eight countries so far.

It comes after Wong abstained from voting on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at the UN in New York, The Spectator reports, in a tentative sign of progress after we voted no for the past five years. It’s a landmark treaty that bans developing, testing, stockpiling, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons — Wong says we remain committed to “the global non-proliferation and disarmament regime”, as Guardian Australia reports, so why did we abstain rather than vote yes? It could be because we see it as fruitless — none of the nuclear weapon states has signed, and it could breach the US alliance obligations because we rely on US nuclear forces to deter any nuclear attack on Australia. So far 91 countries have signed the treaty, but the US, Russia and China are all modernising their arsenals right now.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

Keen golfers know the rule. You have to play the ball where it lands. Wherever it lands. And if you’re teeing off on Christmas Island, you know that means wherever the millions of migrating crabs happen to move your ball to on their way through. Up to a hundred million gorgeous red crustaceans have officially begun their spring backpacking adventure across the little island to the sea, which is just 135 square kilometres in size (!!), as NZ Herald reports. It happens every year as the wet season hits — somehow, incredibly, the crabs sync up with the cycle of the moon to work out when to go. It all starts with the female crabs, who can give birth to up to 100,000 bubs each (ouch). The baby crabs arrive on the island measuring a puny 5mm, so they mostly go unnoticed. They bed themselves down on the forest floor until they’re grown — once the moon crescents, it’s time to head to the sea to spawn themselves.

This Christmas Island crab pilgrimage is actually the largest of its kind on earth, the local tourism board says — indeed revered environmentalist Sir David Attenborough described it as one of the greatest TV experiences in his lengthy career (check out his awe-inspiring segment here). And the island has gone out of its way to accommodate the little clawfoot bathers, even constructing tunnels and bridges specifically for them to travel, including across one of Christmas Island’s busiest roads. Residents are used to road closures and traffic detours around this time of year as a sea of scuttling red critters move as one in front of their eyes. And the tourism board is clear in its instruction to golfers: “Players must treat the crabs as they would any other hazard. They cannot move them.” That usually means a long walk down the beach to find your ball.

Wishing you a little wonder and awe about it all today.

SAY WHAT?

The growth in banknote demand was mostly driven by the higher denominations, highlighting a desire to hold cash for precautionary or store-of-wealth purposes. Cash is increasingly being used for such purposes rather than for transactions.

The Reserve Bank of Australia

That’s a fancy way of saying people are burying cash in their backyards ahead of a looming recession. About two billion banknotes are in circulation after the RBA received fewer than usual in 2021-22, according to the central bank’s latest annual report.

CRIKEY RECAP

‘The great leveller’: Ukraine’s drones a game-changer in modern war

Julia Bergin

Nov 01, 2022

24

“So what about the drones that made it through? Based on open-source intelligence analysis, the seaborne fighters are believed to be unmanned surface vessels (USVs) — similar to the canoe-like contraptions that washed up near Crimea in September. These come equipped with a jet ski engine on the back, a Starlink satellite terminal for remote control, a thermal imaging camera, and contacts at the front to activate a detonator.

“[Travis] Reddy’s read is that someone’s remotely piloting it, ‘looking for the targets of opportunity’, locating a target, homing in, getting close enough, then detonating. From the sky, it was probably a ‘suicide’ drone that flies a ‘one-way mission’. These are the size of a Coke can and operate much like a flying hand grenade, meaning the explosives are embedded into the device. When it detonates, the drone goes down with it.”

---

‘Medicalise everything’: how progressives are implementing neoliberalism on health

Bernard Keane

Nov 01, 2022

115

“This is the deepest underpinning of every public health expert and every health academic, most of whom would probably regard themselves as progressives fighting against predatory, exploitive capitalism: they are serving a neoliberal agenda. Don’t eat too much, don’t drink too much, stay healthy, maximise your economic capacity and your role as a producer and consumer, for the good of the economy. It’s economic puritanism.

“Except the grim truth is that so many of us eat too much, or drink too much, or take recreational drugs, or find other things to consume to numb ourselves, because we find late-stage capitalism so intolerable, because we find the demands to be a perfect worker and consumer and citizen and partner and parent and child too much, because we can’t see the point because the material and mental benefits of all that are illusory and transient.”

---

7 tweets that map a very long few days in Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover

Imogen Champagne

Nov 01, 2022

19

“It hasn’t even been a week since Elon Musk acquired Twitter and already there have been high-profile layoffs, major platform changes flagged and many influential accounts divided over whether they will stay or leave. Here’s what you might have missed over the past five days as told by a handful of tweets.

“After a very public six-month ‘will he, won’t he’ saga, the billionaire and Tesla CEO officially took control of Twitter on Thursday October 27 2022 in a US$44 billion deal. He announced the takeover in a tweet claiming ‘the bird is freed’ — no capitalisation or punctuation, please — and changed his Twitter bio to ‘Chief Twit’. The tweet has 2.5 million likes so far.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Brazil’s Bolsonaro to accept election loss in speech to nation, says minister (Reuters)

Centre-left government hangs in balance as Denmark goes to the polls (EuroNews)

Italy’s right-wing government to criminalise raves (BBC)

Saudi Arabia, US on high alert after warning of imminent Iranian attack (The Wall Street Journal) ($)

Armenian PM Pashinyan in Iran after meeting with Putin, Aliyev (Al Jazeera)

Early turnout in Israel’s elections appears to be highest in 23 years (The New York Times)

Sandbags at the ready as [NZ] west coast braces for half a metre of rain in 24 hours (Stuff)

Home Office is putting 2.6m EU citizens at risk of removal, court hears (The Guardian)

Taylor Swift makes history as she takes over the entire US top 10 (BBC)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Rishi Sunak’s only been in office for a few days – and the errors are already piling up — Polly Toynbee (The Guardian): “His first great blunder, knowingly done, was appointing Suella Braverman home secretary. What can he have been thinking? What Keir Starmer called a ‘grubby deal’ boomeranged back within days. She will be nothing but trouble, with her unravelling account of her leak to right-wing allies. Her adamant pledge to cut net immigration to an impossible ‘tens of thousands’ shuns facts: more than 270,000 people arrived in the year to March 2022, mainly with visas, while people arriving in small boats are a small but — thanks to the media — disproportionately visible minority … But she will be gone and forgotten soon. Sunak’s dreadful error in refusing to attend COP27 is a far more serious act of political and moral stupidity. The insouciant arrogance of telling Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron that he is busy, as if they had no ‘pressing domestic issues’, ignores how much he needs them.

“He squanders the residual goodwill of the COP26 leadership, the one remaining shard of the UK’s diminished reputation, battered since Brexit by Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Banning the king from COP27 looks clumsy. News that Sunak could make a U-turn dash to Egypt having learnt that Johnson may go looks panicky. If he only stays for a brief grip-and-grin, that too will offend. His downgrading of the climate crisis and removal of Alok Sharma from the cabinet is not just disgraceful, but politically clumsy: he’s been warned that the right in Australia lost power after failing to take sufficient action on the climate crisis. While Sunak opposes onshore wind, with tax breaks for oil exploration, Labour’s green prosperity plan and Great British Energy company to invest in renewables is proving popular and has been spontaneously mentioned in focus groups.”

If walking home from school with his mates is the ‘wrong place’, where is the right place? — Brooke Boney (WA Today): “Yes, people should be taking to the streets. Yes, people should be demanding justice. But when a grown man can allegedly beat a black child to death and the response from law enforcers is that this child was in the ‘wrong place, wrong time’, while he was WALKING HOME FROM SCHOOL WITH HIS FRIENDS, then where is the right place? When is the right time? How many editorials from Stan Grant, from Tony Armstrong, from any one of the incredible Black journalists, speakers or academics is it going to take for you to see us for who we are, to see our children for who they could be? If a Black child can’t walk home from school without fear then this isn’t a civil society. This is lawlessness. This is barbaric. This is shameful.

“There’s nothing that can come from this that feels like justice. There’s no relief or lesson that can be taught after something so horrific. Because there it is for everyone to see and for most to ignore. Fighting or resisting a system that allows this to happen is like swimming against the tide. As someone who is eternally hopeful, it hurts to say this, but it feels futile. What am I supposed to say to young people when I go and talk to them in schools? You can volunteer at the local radio station and offer to mow people’s lawns but there’s still a chance you can allegedly be mistaken for a criminal and bludgeoned to death on the way home from school because you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time? How can we rationalise that?”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)

• Opposition Treasury spokesman Angus Taylor will give a post-budget speech to the National Press Club.

Whadjuk Noongar Country (also known as Perth)

• WA Minister for Regional Development, Agriculture and Food, and Hydrogen Industry Alannah MacTiernan will speak about creating a more sustainable and diversified economy in the Collie region, at a breakfast held by CEDA.

Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)

• Writers, performers, and artists including Maxine Beneba Clarke, Lionel Fogarty, Chloé Hayden, Missy Higgins. Eryn Jean Norvill, Anne Summers, and Clare Bowditch will open the Spring Fling, at Melbourne Town Hall.

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

• Journalist Paddy Manning will chat about his new book, The Successor, at Glee Books.