Yes we can

HIGH-PITCHED VOICE

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are warned that this item mentions a deceased person.

Former Josh Frydenberg key adviser Simon Frost is among those in charge of the Yes campaign for the Voice to Parliament, the SMH ($) reports, which will be called “Yes23” (Agree23 might have had a little more of that Kevin07 cut-through, but whatever). Frost is also the former Victorian Liberal Party chief — he might seem an odd choice considering the federal Liberal cabinet is backing the No side, but last we heard those at state level have reportedly been told they’re free to choose, as Guardian Australia says. As chief operating officer Frost will head up a 7000-strong team of volunteers to spread the message about voting Yes in the referendum about Indigenous recognition in the constitution. And it’s definitely revving up — Yes23 director Dean Parkin says there were 100 Voice-related events last week alone, aiming to get the message “out of Canberra and putting it around kitchen tables and barbecues”.

To other Indigenous news and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gave a “eulogy for a giant” at the public memorial for Yolŋu leader Yunupingu, as Guardian Australia reports, calling the elder an “extraordinary Australian, who understood if you want to make your voice count you have to make sure that it is heard”. Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, and US ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy looked on. Yunupingu had a long life of activism, helping create the first bark petition presented to the Australian Parliament in 1963, serving as the chair of the Northern Land Council for eight terms, and being a skilled negotiator with mining companies, politicians and governments. It comes as First Nations fashion collective Ngali has made Australian history as the first Indigenous designer to host a standalone show during fashion week, The National Indigenous Times reports.

WHISTLING IN THE WIND

Former Australian Tax Office worker Richard Boyle says a judge wrongly denied him whistleblower protections, Guardian Australia reports. He’s lodged an appeal against a South Australian decision that rejected his bid to be shielded by the Public Interest Disclosure Act — without it, he faces a criminal trial on 24 charges in October. Among them, the paper says, are charges relating to alleged recorded conversations with colleagues. But the judge said the act only covers a person for giving a public interest disclosure statement and not the information-gathering before that. In his appeal, Boyle argues that interpretation of the act is way too “narrow”.

To another high-profile whistleblower now and Stella Assange has applauded a UK TV premiere of a film about her husband, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who remains in Belmarsh prison. The Independent reports she called the flick, Ithaka, a “hugely significant” moment. It chronicles her and his father John Shipton’s efforts to stop Assange from being extradited to the US. You can catch it on ABC iView. Shipton was hoping US President Joe Biden’s trip to Australia would’ve seen some diplomatic progress on his son’s freedom, as he told the ABC, but the trip was cancelled. Independent Australia notes this week that “Julian Assange has won 24 major awards for journalism and social activism” and yet continues to languish in prison.

OUT LIKE A LIGHT

VIP lounge signs will be banned from all pubs and clubs in NSW, Premier Chris Minns has announced, with a September deadline to remove all external gambling signs such as VIP Room/Lounge, Golden Room and Prosperity Lounge, as well as “images of dragons, coins or lighting motifs”, the SMH ($) lists. It’s all part of the government’s gambling reform package that came after a report found criminals were washing money through the pokies. The NSW government is also putting finishing touches on a panel that will oversee a 500-machine cashless gaming card trial — it fell short of committing to a statewide trial out of concerns for job losses.

Speaking of — the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry reckons the federal government’s “same job, same pay” labour-hire laws will make job shortages worse. Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke says all workers doing the same job at the same site should get the same pay, but some companies use “cowboy labour fire firms that exploit casual workers”, The Australian ($) explains. Last year Burke called it a “rort”, saying miners, factory workers, meat workers, construction workers and retail workers feel ripped off. It comes as the latest Australia Bureau of Statistics data shows 4300 people lost their jobs in April, the ABC reports, and the national unemployment rate rose from 3.5 to 3.7%.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

Regrettably, the news cycle has provided some incredible fodder for parents who love to scold their kids (teenagers, adult kids, it doesn’t matter) about their constant smartphone use. “If you’d only put down that damn phone, you could help me prepare lunch / notice the washing needs folding / finally think about giving me some grandkids,” many a mother has said. Here’s what happened, courtesy of The Guardian: about three weeks ago, a group of high schoolers in Michigan were tumbling along on the school bus home, necks bent at a 45-degree angle as they scrolled, shared, liked, bopped, toggled, clicked and the myriad other functions one performs while transfixed by the all-encompassing smartphone.

Except for one — Dillon Reeves, a Year 7 student who was peering out the bus window absentmindedly. What he was thinking about, we don’t know: the meaning of life? A math test? How miffed he was that his mum wouldn’t buy him a phone yet? Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the bus driver slump, and the bus suddenly jerked out of control. Reeves was out of his seat in a flash, bolted up the aisle and wedged his foot on the brake. He yelled out to the kids to call emergency services, some of whom, bleary-eyed, were still pulling airpods out of their ears. His principal said he could not be prouder of Reeves, while the kid’s parents fondly said the heroism is even more reason to hold off buying him a phone. What gives! Parents, am I right, reader?

Wishing you some quick thinking today too, and a restful weekend.

SAY WHAT?

I think we need to take a step back to pull out our smelling salts and say, look, the postponement of a presidential visit in the scheme of all this is quite small.

Kevin Rudd

Don’t look too hard into US President Joe Biden’s raincheck on coming to Australia, the US ambassador says. Not exactly sure what the smelling salts metaphor means.

CRIKEY RECAP

Voice to Parliament: the brains behind the No campaigns

CHARLIE LEWIS

“Within a year of losing his seat, [Gary Johns had] become a senior fellow at conservative think tank the Institute of Public Affairs, and he was president of another conservative think tank, the Bennelong Society, dedicated to Indigenous Australian affairs. It is one of the many conservative think tanks championed by hard-right businessman Ray Evans, which helped shape decades of debate around Indigenous affairs (as well as climate change and industrial relations).

“In the past decade, Johns has been a prolific author on Indigenous affairs for hardline conservative publisher Connor Court with titles like Aboriginal Self-determination: The Whiteman’s Dream (2011), Recognise What? (2014) and No Contraception, No Dole: Tackling Intergenerational Welfare. The Turnbull government made Johns head of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Deutsche Bank to pay $75m to settle lawsuit from Epstein victims (Al Jazeera)

China, birthplace of the COVID pandemic, is laying tracks for another global health crisis (Reuters)

Spain, Sweden and Belgium: the European countries setting new wind and solar records (euronews)

Events marking Queen Elizabeth’s death cost the public £161.7m, figures show (The Guardian)

[Canada’s] Alberta Premier Smith breached Conflicts of Interest Act, says ethics commissioner (CBC)

Death toll mounts in Italy’s worst flooding for 100 years (The Guardian)

New glimpse into documents case suggests a fateful new reckoning is looming over Trump (CNN)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Our real tax problem is the unfair burden on the worker — Waleed Aly (The Age) ($): “All of which leaves critics of the tax cuts with their original arguments. Among the most common of which is their cost, which the Budget Office has just increased to $313 billion over a decade. But the trouble with these arguments is they tend to overstate the cost. Break down the way these tax cuts work, and nearly half of them go to people below the highest tax bracket. They start at an annual income of $45,000, and take effect in earnest around $60,000. The average salary for nurses and teachers in Australia is a little above $80,000. I doubt most critics of stage three tax cuts — myself included — want those tax cuts to be denied. And that’s to say nothing of tradies who, according the Australian Bureau of Statistics, average just shy of $90,000.

“Of course, once you start making exceptions, the cost of stage three begins to shrink. How much it shrinks depends on where you’d like to draw your line of sympathy, but either way, quoting the full cost is a tad disingenuous. That’s especially true if you’re comparing a decade to a single year. A $313 billion tax cut for the wealthy sounds scandalous compared to the $14.6 billion cost-of-living package announced in the budget. But actually, the tax cuts going to those on more than $180,000 cost about $9 billion in the first year, well short of $14.6 billion. They won’t reach such a level for a full five years. You’re still welcome to find that a scandal. But it’s probably a less gnarly one.”

Vic Bar should stick to facts not leap on PC bandwagon — Henry Ergas (The Australian) ($): ” ‘It was wrong on the arrival of Europeans for Australia to be declared terra nullius,’ wrote Matt Collins KC on these pages earlier this week. And even worse, he said, that ‘legal fiction underlies our nation’s founding document, the constitution’. Of course, Collins — a respected former president of the Australian Bar Association — is hardly alone in excoriating terra nullius. For Stan Grant, it is ‘what haunts us’, a ‘law of whiteness’, installed at European settlement, ‘that anyone who did not worship Jesus Christ was less than human’, while Noel Pearson claims it lay at the heart of ‘the terrible ideology’ that ‘underpinned [the] vehemence [of] the Australian colonial project’.

“But those contentions bear little relation to historical reality. Thus, as the University of London’s Professor Andrew Fitzmaurice, the leading authority on the legal foundations of European colonisation, recently noted, ‘no such doctrine known as terra nullius was employed to discuss empire prior to the late 19th century’. And Bain Atwood, professor of history at Monash University, has echoed Fitzmaurice’s assessment, concluding that the contention the British government relied on terra nullius to claim possession of New Holland is unfounded. To say that is not to deny there was a doctrine, commonly referred to as the doctrine of occupation, that could legitimate the acquisition of ’empty’ territory. But as Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780) noted in his influential Commentaries on the Laws of England, that doctrine only provided a legal basis for claiming ownership of land that had literally not been occupied by anyone else.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

• NSW Minister for Planning Paul Scully, Campbelltown Mayor George Greiss, and Investment NSW CEO Katie Knight are among speakers on “Future Cities Campbelltown”, a Committee for Sydney event at the Campbelltown Catholic Club.

Yuggera and Turrbal Country (also known as Brisbane)

• Brisbane Airport Corporation’s Raechel Paris, Hyzon Motors’ John Edgley, and Deloitte’s Georgine Roodenrys are among speakers at the Climate and Energy Forum at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.