CANCELLED VISAS
The 2014 “character test” changes to the Migration Act have seen more than 5,000 foreign nationals deported or marked for deportation due to 12-month-or-longer convictions, The Australian ($) reports. Notably, The Oz’s headline slams “5023 violent migrants” despite 975 being convicted for non-violent crimes.
Long-standing Crikey readers might remember the changes created an ongoing political headache with New Zealand and a High Court challenge over whether Australia could (and this sentence feels just disgusting to write) deport Indigenous Australians.
Peter Dutton is now attempting to capture any convictions capable of carrying a 12-month sentence.
A $3 BILLION AGREEMENT
Scott Morrison and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian will today unveil an almost $3 billion state-federal energy agreement, which the Sydney Morning Herald reports will focus on a massive injection of gas into the state’s grid, infrastructure upgrades, and sequestration projects such as methane capture from landfill and carbon farming projects.
However, at just 17.3% renewables, NSW is a relative late-comer, and it is unclear how the decision to increase gas by almost 60% will affect either coal or renewable generation.
NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN DETAIL
A telescope stationed atop a volcano in Maui, Hawaii has released footage of cell-like structures of plasma on the Sun’s surface — each about the size of Texas — appearing to boil. The ABC reports the telescope has a 4-metre primary mirror (the world’s largest) and captured the historic images from roughly 142 million kilometres away.
[free_worm]
THAT’S WALL, FOLKS
A section of Trump’s border wall between Calexico and Mexicali has just kind of blown over, The Guardian reports, with the 9-metre steel panels no match for gusty winds.
THEY REALLY SAID THAT?
If the President does something which he believes will help him get elected, in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.
Alan Dershowitz
Turns out, when you pick the guy known for defending OJ Simpson, Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein as your impeachment lawyer, you get what you pay for… a riff on the Nixon interview.
CRIKEY QUICKIE: THE BEST OF YESTERDAY
Give ’em nothing, take ’em nowhere: bereft Morrison cannot lead
“It looks like 2020 will be another year of doing nothing. There will be a pretense of action, and copious amounts of marketing spin, but Morrison, the most hollow prime minister in living memory, has nothing, at a moment when the country needs leadership more than at any stage in recent decades.”
Labor’s flag pledge is a poor substitute for progressive thinking
“There was, after the shock election loss, some hope on my part, that Labor might turn things around by having a deep think about what Labor and labour was in 2020, what social class and party was, and what a social democratic should therefore propose.
“Faint hope. They’ve gone for the symbols and gimmicks.”
Biloela family is ‘very worried’ about coronavirus Christmas Island plan
“The family of four who are currently the sole occupants of the Christmas Island detention centre did not know of the government’s imminent plans to airlift and quarantine Australians from Wuhan at the centre until called by Crikey yesterday afternoon.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Coronavirus: Death toll rises as virus spreads to every Chinese region
Attorney-General set to unveil wage theft bill
Bushfire survivors join claim against ANZ for financing climate crisis
Minister flags ‘big opportunity’ in post-Brexit trade deal with UK
How Labor’s top lawyer Mark Dreyfus steered bureaucrats against ex-PM Tony Abbott ($)
Former Labor MP sues Liberal MP Dave Sharma for defamation over tweet
Australian man in Wuhan says many Aussies will stay rather than go to Christmas Island
Co-op bookshop to disappear from university shelves
Australian missionary fights to free her husband from Cambodian prison over charity dispute
News Corp. launches Knewz platform as Google Search alternative
THE COMMENTARIAT
The ‘sports rorts’ affair shows the government misunderstands the role of the public service — Andrew Podger (The Australian): “The government’s defence of Bridget McKenzie and the prime minister’s call for advice from the head of his department reveal a remarkable misunderstanding (or, less surprisingly, a remarkable misrepresentation) of the respective roles of ministers and administrators.”
Aiming for bullseye in trade talks with post-Brexit Britain ($) — Simon Birmingham (The Australian):”A lot can happen in 48 years. It’s far longer than many marriages last. So perhaps it shouldn’t come as a great surprise that on Friday, 48 years after Britain joined the European Economic Community, it will leave the EU.”
Getting down to the business of evolving Australia’s climate policy — Innes Willox (The Sydney Morning Herald): “Scorched by unprecedented bushfires, our nation badly needs a global solution to climate change. Evolving emissions policy, as the Prime Minister has suggested, can deliver a more ambitious, durable and trade-neutral approach, and get investment flowing to the industry and the infrastructure we need for a prosperous future.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Melbourne
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Uni Students for Climate Justice will hold a “city swarm” with protests in unannounced locations across the CBD throughout the evening.
Brisbane
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The independent inquiry into the management of retired racehorses in Queensland will deliver its final report.
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QUT will host an IFE Grand Challenge Future Forum on “Clearing the air: making sense of Australia’s bushfire crisis”.
Adelaide
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It’s day one of the International Space University’s three-day Adelaide Conference.
Perth
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Curtin University’s Curtin Writers Club will launch the third annual edition of their literary magazine Coze Journal.
Australia
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The Productivity Commission will release an annual report on primary and community health, ambulance services, public hospitals and mental health management.
Great Britain
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Britain is scheduled to officially withdraw from the European Union.
Observe that neither morrison nor Border Generalissimo-MP Dutton are even bothering to claim that stripping of citizenship from sole nationals would prevent any future non-Western terrorist attacks, nor is he even claiming that such changes would have prevented any past ones. Nor is either morrison or Border Generalissimo-MP Dutton even bothering to claim that stripping of citizenship from sole nationals is causing any measurable reduction in crime.
Such is the normalisation of abuse of power in the police state – by definition a terror-based injustice-based state – that no-one is even bothering to ask – the fawning and cringing journalists and editors of our Rightist media least of all.