COALITION RAMPS UP TAX, DRAMA
Scott Morrison has promised to bring his $158 billion income tax cut package to the Senate this week.
With parliament to sit tomorrow for the first time since the election, The Age reports that Morrison will press the issue throughout the week, while The New Daily reports that Centre Alliance could pass the entire package in exchange for plans to bring down gas prices.
Meanwhile, Morrison has dismissed calls to comment on his role in the 2018 leadership spill as “ancient history”. The launch of Niki Savva’s book ($) Plots and Prayers today threatens another week of internal drama, including new allegations that Tony Abbott backed Peter Dutton with the belief that Dutton would lose the election and help hand the party back to the former PM.
KERRY STEALS LOGIES
Legendary journalist Kerry O’Brien has been inducted into the Logies Hall of Fame with an impassioned defence of the ABC and call to action on the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Denouncing consistent cuts to the ABC as “driven more by a desire to punish and an ideological obsession”, O’Brien also called for the Uluru Statement to be implemented during the current term of government, and for greater journalistic integrity across climate change news.
Hard Quiz host Tom Gleeson took out the Gold Logie following an irony-tinged campaign, accepting the award with a cynical, somewhat controversial speech targeting Australian media.
TRUMP MAKES HISTORY
Donald Trump has become the first sitting US President to enter North Korea after extending an invitation to Kim Jong-un via Twitter to meet during the G20 summit. He has since asked Kim to come to the US “when the time is right”.
The Guardian reports that, barring a tense physical exchange between US reporters and North Korean security guards on the southern side of the demilitarised zone, Trump had positive meetings with both Kim and South Korean president Moon Jae-in after denuclearisation talks stalled earlier this year.
[free_worm]
THEY REALLY SAID THAT?
I’m in a tricky spot. Because I like it and I hate it at the same time.
Tom Gleeson
The Hard Quiz host pokes fun at his Gold Logie, before ripping it to shreds for 8 minutes.
CRIKEY QUICKIE: THE BEST OF YESTERDAY
Great disappearing act: ABC to shutter public access to thousands of regional stories
“Just two weeks after WIN announced the closure of four of its regional newsrooms, the ABC will this weekend shut down its public website for ABC Open, a platform for community-led regional and rural stories, encouraging users to use Instagram and the ABC My Photo platform instead.”
Setka saga puts social policy mess front and centre
“Well it’s pretty safe to say that there’s not much left of Victorian Labor’s violence-against-women image and politics after the latest twists and turns in the Setka saga. John Setka’s wife — high-powered labour lawyer Emma Walters — has revealed that she was the woman Setka had been convicted of harassing in an evening of calls and texts. The subsequent interview managed to undo just about everything Labor and violence-against-women activists have been trying to insist upon for years.”
Hong Kong response shows Australia won’t keep China in check
“Australia’s muted response to continuing, massive anti-Beijing protests in Hong Kong has so far been understandable. After all, it was the Coalition government that failed in a 2017 attempt to ram through exactly the sort of extradition treaty with China that triggered the massive protests against the Hong Kong government’s capitulation to Beijing.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Australian mother makes urgent plea for Government help from inside Syrian al-Hawl detention camp
‘All hands on deck!’: World’s central banks join RBA’s plea for government help
Tiny nations challenge Australia’s carbon ‘carryover credits’
Disgraced former top cop Terry Lewis regrets ‘co-operating’ ($)
‘The agenda was too big’: Anthony Albanese wants to remove LGBTIQ references from policy
Australia wants to sell HSC, VCE to the world
Snowy seeks to ramp up the grid ($)
Forty two per cent of Territorians may not be here in two years
Outrage as NSW government delays state’s Modern Slavery Act
‘This will always be a protest’: New York marks 50 years since Stonewall
THE COMMENTARIAT
Acting on Iran has painful shades of joining the US in Iraq — Tony Walker (The Sydney Morning Herald): “Here’s a word of advice to Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Unless he wants to risk a smudge on his reputation of the sort that accompanies John Howard to this day: don’t get involved in conflict with Iran beyond limited naval engagement in a Gulf peace-keeping role.”
After defamation ruling, it’s time Facebook provided better moderation tools — Fiona R Martin (The Conversation): “After a NSW Supreme court judge ruled this week that Australian publishers are liable for defamatory comments on their Facebook sites, it’s clear that page owners need to get serious about social media management. The ruling suggests that operators of commercial Facebook pages may need to hide all comments by default so that they can be checked for defamation before they are seen by the public.”
The Daily Telegraph celebrates 140 years: Campbell Reid reflects on the biggest stories of his time ($) — Campbell Reid (The Daily Telegraph): “Of all of them, it had to be this one. The moment when you are telling a story that is changing the world. That night went by in a blur. Our presses were already running, so Australian newspapers were probably the first in the world to be printing the story of the 9/11 attacks as they happened.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Melbourne
-
The Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network will hold a Trades Hall public forum during the latest round of negotiations for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), with speakers including ACTU President Michele O’Neil, ahead of protests tomorrow.
Perth
-
Dark Emu author Bruce Pascoe will deliver the 2019 Barry Andrew Memorial Address on “Learning to Love Your Country” at The University of Western Australia.
South Australia
-
Teachers will strike across the state with the AEU citing, amongst other issues, an “inadequate” funding offer to help schools cope with students needing special support.
Australia
-
Flag raising ceremonies, speeches and other events will be held across the country to mark the opening day of NAIDOC Week.
London, England
-
Day one of Wimbledon.
How about some mention of the enormously powerful role of the corporate mainstream media in moulding our views on this issue?
“The Australian” and the corporate media generally have put great effort into convincing us that we should have tax cuts for the rich, paid for by tax increases for the non-rich. Indeed their fury at not immediately getting the tax cuts they expected is obvious.
Naturally the people who own the media and the politicians are in the top 1% of income-earners, so they make sure the politicians and media they own are On Message. Naturally, too, that top 1% makes sure the models and the learned reports say what they want us to hear – or the people creating them don’t work in this town anymore.
As with “economic growth”, “tax cuts” benefit only the über-rich. Ask the AFR; in an article in May ’19, it wrote “You may remember all the glowing predictions made for the December 2017 tax cuts by congressional Republicans and the Trump administration: Wages would soar for the rank-and-file, corporate investments would surge, and the cuts would pay for themselves.”
“The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has just [researched] that the cuts have had virtually no effect on wages, haven’t contributed to a surge in investment, and haven’t come close to paying for themselves. Nor have they delivered a cut to the average taxpayer.”
Nor have we seen any significant discussion on the cuts these tax giveaways will inflict on services. Forgotten ambulance-ramping at hospitals have we – and morrison’s determination to maintain abbott’s massive cuts in health and education payments to the States?