WARRING WORDS
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton snapped at ABC 7.30 host Sarah Ferguson in a rather tense interview last night, news.com.au reports, accusing her and the broadcaster of left-wing bias. Ferguson had asked him if his political momentum was slipping away, prompting the Liberal leader’s well-worn raving about lefty bias. She went on to say Dutton asking journalists if they thought he was a thug, as former PM Malcolm Turnbull had described him on Nemesis, was an “astonishing question for an opposition leader to ask the press”. Dutton tried to justify it by saying he’d known the journalist he’d asked for a long time and that Turnbull’s comment was “a fabrication and a self-serving comment” anyway.
Meanwhile, Defence Minister Richard Marles has been “bickering” with Secretary Greg Moriarty and Chief of the Defence Force Angus Campbell, the AFR reports. They had a meeting last year to discuss the military asking for more money for new weapons — one senior bureaucrat told the Fin, “He doesn’t respect them and they sure as hell as don’t respect him.” Yikes. Marles urged Defence to embrace a “culture of excellence” yesterday, but some sources told the paper he doesn’t even do his paperwork fast enough. From criticism to recognition, and opposition spokesperson for Indigenous Affairs Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has been shortlisted for a national prize for outstanding political leadership, the NT News reports. It’s an independent award that assesses vision, collaboration, ethical behaviour, courage and impact — Price was nominated in the federal category for “speaking ‘to’ and not ‘at’ undecided voters” in the Voice to Parliament referendum, chair Michael Brennan said.
WORK-WEARY
You will shortly have the legal right to ignore after-hours emails and calls from your boss after Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke secured a deal with the crossbench and the Greens. The man has been busy! The AFR reports independent Senator David Pocock confirmed last night he’d back the bill after he wrangled some wider changes to the IR reforms (e.g. you can’t be forced to become an employee if you make more than $167,000 as a contractor). To be clear, Burke qualified, as The Age reports, your boss can still contact you, but if you don’t respond you can’t be punished. Schools are warning parents even teachers have the right to disconnect after 3.45pm, The West ($) adds. To no-one’s surprise, the Australian Chamber of Commerce called the right to disconnect “ridiculous”, Sky News Australia adds, even though France and Germany introduced it ages ago.
Meanwhile, the government owes $15.9 million in refunds to Australians who got their passports late, the SMH reports. The Australian National Audit Office found that people who paid a priority fee and still got a passport late had no way to apply for a refund, and that the passport office hadn’t prepared for the post-pandemic boom of applications even though it was warned. In 2022, it cost $308 to get a 10-year passport and another $225 to get it within two days. From passports to planes now and Qantas has apologised, 7News reports, after a baggage handler appeared to write the word “c**t” on a heavy luggage tag on her bag. Qantas said the staff member, employed by third-party Menzies, won’t work for them again. Illegally sacking 1,700 loyal baggage handlers in the pandemic ain’t looking like such a good idea now…
TAKING A STAND
Twelve staff from the Australian Human Rights Commission (HRC) wrote to its president about their “frustration” about their workplace’s stance on “Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank”, Guardian Australia reports. The letter compared it to stronger statements from the human rights commissioner Lorraine Finlay about Ukraine’s invasion and from other international organisations. Staff said the HRC should call for an immediate permanent ceasefire and an end to occupations, and for our government to observe the Geneva Conventions after the International Court of Justice found Israel is “plausibly committing genocide in Gaza”, as the paper worded it.
Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton blamed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for a Greens motion in an extraordinary display of argumentative gymnastics. Dutton’s rationale was that the PM should’ve been in the lower house to condemn it because the motion was “anti-Semitic”, The Australian ($) reports. To be clear, Greens leader Adam Bandt noted the Palestinian death toll (27,500 people have been killed since October 7, many of them just kids) and called for the Albanese government to stop supporting Israel’s invasion. Assistant Foreign Affairs Minister Tim Watts retorted that the Greens and Coalition were looking to divide the community, as Guardian Australia reports, and noted Hamas still has 130 hostages. Finally, a number plate reading OCT7TH was registered in December last year, news.com.au reports, prompting Road Minister John Graham to call for an investigation.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
It was a normal work day for Vanessa Austin when a stranger turned up at her office in Canada with something that would move her to tears. I’ve been trying to find you, corporate investigator Andrew Medley told her, to give you this. He handed her an aged wallet, which she instinctively opened, peering at the contents. That’s when Austin pulled out her own birth certificate, a document the El Salvadoran woman thought was lost forever. She’d come to Canada when she was just a child, and here were the documents that got her there, stashed in this wallet that she realised had belonged to her mother. Tearing up, she promptly brought the leather up to her nose to breathe in the family history.
Medley had been searching a bathroom for clues when he dug out the wallet jammed into the wall. He took it back to his hotel room and began a side quest to find the owner, reaching out to Austin and her mother on Facebook to no avail. The US man had to go back to Detroit but figured he’d make one last effort, noticing Austin’s workplace was listed on her LinkedIn profile. Her mother had kept these mementoes for a reason, Medley shrugged to the CBC, and he figured it was worth the effort to return it. Austin was moved. Immigrants often leave all these important things behind, she said, and to have a “piece of our history back” was beautiful. She applauded Medley too, saying it’s a reminder that “people are still good enough” to do something for nothing, just because the person will appreciate it.
Hoping you can do likewise today.
SAY WHAT?
I thought there was something uniquely sick in Germany’s culture for that country to fall for the Nazis. Now I see our Greens and feel shame.
Andrew Bolt
The conservative columnist dabbles in a spot of Godwin’s Law, a corollary of which states that if you have to invoke Hitler and the Nazis, you’ve lost the argument.
CRIKEY RECAP
“What have been the worst sectors? Aviation (probably the one industry where even profit denialists admit gouging has driven inflation), banking, child care, electricity (under the failed existing regulatory regime that allows gouging to occur) and food and groceries.
“All of those sectors are marked by high levels of concentration, which Fels argues must be addressed through substantial reforms to competition law — which allows price gouging if it doesn’t fall into specific categories of anti-competitive conduct — and more powers for the ACCC to investigate, name and shame, and prosecute price gougers.”
“Nevertheless, it doesn’t specify what insurrection is, and that leaves a lot of wiggle room. Trump wasn’t actually at the head of the January 6 mob — that would have meant walking somewhere — and he didn’t explicitly urge them to try and violently stop the process of government.
“There’s no evidence either that he actively conspired with the well-developed if addled plans by groups such as the Proud Boys to seize Congress and call for wider insurrection.”
“Liz Truss, who will go down in history as a woman who held on to the office of UK prime minister for a period that was dwarfed by the shelf life of a head of lettuce, has launched a new group to reinvigorate conservative politics — and that’s not even the funny part.
“It’s called PopCon, short for Popular Conservatism and it splintered at the *first* event it held, with two of the billed speakers simply not showing up. That’s kind of the funny part, showing Truss is somehow still improving her skills in self-destruction, a sort of Novak Djokovic of failure.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
EU launches legal action against Hungary’s ‘sovereignty’ law (Al Jazeera)
Israel-Gaza war: Hamas responds to ceasefire offer with 135-day truce plan (BBC)
How a botched impeachment laid bare a GOP House that cannot function (CNN)
Haley vows to stay in race following embarrassing Nevada defeat (Reuters)
Taylor Swift is threatening legal action against a student tracking her private jet (euronews)
For first time in two decades, U.S. buys more from Mexico than China (The New York Times) ($)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Women have been gaslit for so long they no longer believe their own pain — Katy Hall (The SMH): “Ask any woman, and either they or someone they know has experienced this. They present to medical professionals with the hope of having their pain diagnosed and treated, only to be sent away with a sense of uncertainty and confusion. Sometimes it’s big — having period pain so severe it feels as if you might black out being described as ‘just part of being a woman’, only to be diagnosed as endometriosis years later. But it can be small, too — a pharmacist recommending you try yoga to treat migraines instead of taking the medicine prescribed by a doctor, or a nurse asking if you’ve tried taking Panadol when you present to a hospital emergency department in searing agony.
“Through all of this, we’re good sports. We get blood tests and take out private health insurance coverage we can barely afford. We stare at the ceiling while lying on examination tables and submit to being poked and prodded, hoping that the answer to why our body has chosen to betray us or to be disobedient can be easily found. We enrol in yoga classes and stifle the urge to scream when asked stupid questions. We say thank you and accept what we are told (or not told), book in the follow-up appointment and walk back into the world as if none of it has happened.”
How wage rises will change super rules — again — James Kirby (The Australian) ($): “A raft of wage rises across the economy is set to change super settings again, and wage earners are finally going to get a break with the annual amount you can put into super pre-tax set to lift for the first time in three years. After stronger wage inflation figures this financial year, industry analysts now calculate on July 1 the annual pre-tax (concessional) super cap will rise from $27,500 to $30,000. The change is due to inflation indexing. The new setting will bring the amount a salary earner can put into super before tax back where it was eight years ago when the Coalition cut super contribution tax breaks.
“Separately, the higher super ‘contributions cap’ will have a knock-on effect on so-called post tax (or non-concessional) contribution caps, which will automatically lift at the same time — the new cap is expected to be $120,000 a year, up from $110,000. For once, the change means younger salary-earning Australians get an improved super setting. However, it is expected recent CPI movements imply there will be no change for older Australians hoping for expansions in the amount you can have underpinning a tax-free income in super. That cap is expected to remain unchanged at $1.9 million. Why a lift in contribution caps but not in the tax-free thresholds? The answer is linked to the over-engineered tax arrangements in super where contributions caps are linked to wage inflation, specifically the AWOTE (Average Weekly Ordinary Time Earnings) and tax-free thresholds are linked to the more widely used Consumer Price Inflation measure…”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Online
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RBA governor Michele Bullock will speak in a webinar for International Women’s Day hosted by UN Women Australia.
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
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Author Annette Higgs will talk about her book, On a Bright Hillside in Paradise, at Better Read Than Dead bookshop.
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