Scott Morrison Minerals Council
(Image: AAP/Joel Carrett)

ANTI TRADE WAR

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will today deliver a major speech at a foreign policy forum in Sydney, calling for a truce in the growing US-China trade war ahead of the weekend’s G20 summit in Japan. 

Morrison will set out a more assertive Australian stance and argue that the trade war is causing global collateral damage, The Age and ABC report. He plans to acknowledge complaints on both sides, while calling on the powers to recognise that their conflict will hurt other nations as well as themselves. US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are expected to meet at the G20 to discuss a resolution. 

It comes as the Lowy Institute’s annual survey of local attitudes towards the world reveals Australians losing confidence in Xi and Trump.

PRO REAL WAR

Australia may join a coordinated international effort against Iran, The Age/SMH report, with the government revealing Australia is “in consultation with our allies and partners”. Morrison is expected to discuss Iran with G20 leaders, after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said yesterday he wanted to “build out a global coalition” against “the world’s largest state sponsor of terror” . As papers note, it’s unclear whether he means a military or diplomatic coalition.

Iran has called the US’ latest sanctions “idiotic”, saying they are “closing the doors of diplomacy” between Tehran and Washington. In response, Trump tweeted that an Iranian attack on any US interest will be met with “great and overwhelming force … overwhelming will mean obliteration”.

MEDIA, ASSEMBLE!

ABC managing director David Anderson, News Corp Australia executive chairman Michael Miller, and Nine chief executive Hugh Marks will today launch a united campaign at the National Press Club, demanding greater protections for journalists and whistleblowers. The trio will set out four proposed reforms, including making it easier for the media to contest search warrants, and stronger laws to defend public interest whistleblowers.

Their position was hammered out over the past week, after the government suggested that media organisations put forward a united platform in any debate to change the law, The Age reports.

[free_worm]

THEY REALLY SAID THAT?

I wouldn’t mind betting [that] 43 signatures and the length of the delay in the time it took to get those actually ended up being time that Scott needed to muster the numbers.

Craig Laundy

The former Liberal MP said it was clear that Scott Morrison started counting the numbers before Turnbull stood down from the prime ministership, as Sky News’ Bad Blood questions his account of Turnbull’s exit.

READ ALL ABOUT IT

John Setka could face CFMMEU probe after his day in court

Centre Alliance ready to back full tax plan ($)

Labor opens door to rolling back tax cuts amid internal dissent

Whistleblower hits out at PM’s department over disregard for law

US pushes economics for Middle East peace ($)

NDIS hurdles torn down for kids under six ($)

‘The right thing to do’: Victoria’s public schools to ban mobile phones from 2020

Another 250 e-scooters set for inner Brisbane as second operator approved

Charity watchdog could investigate Australian Christian Lobby over Folau fundraiser

‘Not here to mark time’: Berejiklian to focus on key social issues

Push to decriminalise ice use as bar backs public health approach

Time for super ceasefire, says Combet

Yallourn coal-fired power plant due to shut down from 2029

Big four banks financing companies accused of human rights abuses

PNG Prime Minister calls for Paladin to lose its Manus contract

Make all ‘Dreamers’ US citizens: Biden

CRIKEY QUICKIE: THE BEST OF YESTERDAY

The Marist Brothers and a secret list of 154 accused child sex offenders

and

Jun 26, 2019

1

“To try to comprehend how a single religious order could produce the scale of human devastation revealed at the royal commission, Inq went to Denis Doherty. A former brother now in his 70s living in Sydney, Doherty was a tall, stocky 18-year-old when he first arrived at the large farmhouse known as The Hermitage in the mid-1960s. This teacher’s college, or novitiate, located in Mittagong in the idyllic, misty NSW Southern Highlands, was run more like a boarding school than a vocational training centre. Its prevailing culture was punitive, prone to favouritism and outbursts of violence. Doherty remembers once being grabbed by the ear by the deputy master for failing to sweep his room properly. He said “it was so violent and so sudden” that the incident instilled in him a culture of fear.”

How the media plays Canberra games instead of serving voters

Jun 26, 2019

16

“So the speech is dropped the day before delivery so that the morning editions will carry some detail of it. Better yet, that preview coverage will never be critical. Journalists won’t savage a speech to which they’ve been given a preview because if they do they won’t get a preview of the next speech. They’ll be cut off the drip while other outlets and colleagues that play the game continue to enjoy access. The result is essentially free advertising for the speech, along with, maybe, some discussion of the political tactics involved. But this kind of insider game serves readers and audiences even more poorly if that’s where the coverage ends. AFR readers got yesterday’s preview and then some detailed discussion today. For the readers of the SMH and The Age, that flat preview coverage was all they got. Even the readers of the Oz only got some ideological ranting (OK, that’s pretty much all they ever get, but still). ABC audiences got little or nothing.”

The law shouldn’t care about the government’s hurt feelings

Jun 26, 2019

12

“Seriously, have you read the search warrant? Famously signed off by a Martin Kane, a registrar of the Local Court in Queanbeyan (apparently every judge in NSW was unavailable), the warrant gave the cops power to take every kind of document, tape and computer record imaginable, so long as it “related to” any one of an extremely long list of things. These included, apart from “The Afghan Files” — the ostensible target of the enquiry — the Australian Army, Department of Defence, Afghanistan, 7.30, and the ABC itself. It was so wide, the AFP could have insisted on slipping the entire building inside a self-sealing envelope and taking it away for fingerprinting.”

THE COMMENTARIAT

Peter Dutton has manipulated the truth so much, how can Australians trust him? – Kristina Keneally (The Guardian): “The beauty of fables is that even though they are incredibly old, many of their lessons still hold true today. None more so than Aesop’s The Boy Who Cried Wolf, written in 600BC. I remember hearing this story as a child, and especially thinking how awful the shepherd boy must have felt when he realised the consequences of crying wolf too many times. Aesop was right then, and he’s still right now. What worries me deeply is the frequency and ferocity with which home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, has been caught crying wolf.”

Nation split on changing relationship between US, China ($) – Michael Fullilove (The Australian): “This year, for the first time in the Lowy poll, climate change tops the list of possible threats. Almost two-thirds of Australians (64 per cent) say climate change is a critical threat to our vital interests in the next decade. The upward trajectory for concern about climate change also continues: 61 per cent of Australians say ‘global warming is a serious and pressing problem’ about which ‘we should begin taking steps now even if this involves significant costs’, a 25-point increase since 2012. The 2019 Lowy Institute Poll has important messages for policymakers in Washington, Beijing – and Canberra.”

Super Netball and Thunderbirds missed a chance with Folau statement – Liz Ellis (The Age/SMH): “Let’s not shy away from it. This whole thing is about homophobia. And that is where my tweet was directed. The statements from the Thunderbirds and from Super Netball did not go far enough, and were not good enough. They could have given Maria her slap on the wrist, but combined it with something so much stronger. To say without equivocation, without weasel words, that homophobia is not welcome in our sport. To me, it was a lost opportunity to say to LGBTQI players, both in the league and in the suburbs, that they are welcome, they are wanted and they are supported.”

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Sydney

  • UNSW students will protest against the recent introduction of trimesters.

  • Prime Minister Scott Morrison will deliver a major foreign policy speech at Asialink.

  • A judgement will be handed down on the penalty in ACCC V Birubi Art PTY LTD, after the company was found to have sold Indonesian-made Aboriginal-design products including boomerangs.

  • Professor Allan Fels will announce regulatory actions being taken to curb “loyalty taxes”—payments being paid by unsuspecting Australian consumers.

  • Police will hold an emergency management exercise at Sydney Olympic Park to test emergency management arrangements in the event of a major flood in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley.

Melbourne

  • The Centre for Urban Research at RMIT will host a two-day “Transformative Urban Governance Conference”, bringing together scholars, activists, practitioners and policy-makers.

  • Boroondara Council will hold a workshop on the effects of Microplastic on the Yarra River, with Dr Nicole Kowalczyk, Yarra Riverkeepers’ Association Education Manager.

  • Victoria Police will hold an information session on careers in policing, includning the recruitment process and training at the academy.

  • CFMMEU union boss John Setka will appear in the Magistrates Court over the alleged assault of a woman.

  • Justice John Dixon will hold a further directions hearing on an application by the DPP to have 36 media organisations and editors found guilty of breaching the George Pell suppression orders, contempt of court, aiding and abetting overseas media in contempt and for publications which “had the effect of scandalising the court”.

Perth

  • Former WA MP Barry Urban will appear in court after pleading not guilty to 12 fraud charges, including five counts of giving false evidence before a parliamentary committee.

Adelaide

  • The South Australian branch of the Australian Fabians will hold a discussion about the future of refugee and asylum seeker policy with shadow minister for multicultural affairs Andrew Giles, Welcoming Australia founder Brad Chilcott, and refugees Arian Rezai and Arefa Hassani.

  • “Paedophile hunter” Rich Warner will have the suppression orders still remaining on his case reviewed in the Magistrates Court.