MORRISON ON THE DEFENSIVE AT NATIONAL PRESS CLUB ADDRESS
Prime Minister Scott Morrison addressed the National Press Club yesterday, in a speech designed as a precursor to the upcoming federal election campaign. The AFR reports that Morrison’s speech signalled his intention to “make it all about the economy”, setting a lofty goal of bringing unemployment below 4%. Morrison was hoping to reset the path to his election campaign amid dismal polling that suggests the Coalition will lose the election and Morrison’s popularity is waning. But as Crikey reported yesterday, despite his attempts to set a campaign tone, Morrison was immediately on the defensive after he was hit with a series of disparaging questions from press gallery journalists.
First up, press club president Laura Tingle gave Morrison a chance to say sorry for his various bungles, including his Hawaiian holiday during the bushfires, the vaccine rollout bungle, and lack of supply of rapid antigen tests. It’s well established that Morrison struggles with caveat-free apologies, and he delivered along those lines here. As The Daily Telegraph ($) reports, Morrison did concede that he hasn’t gotten “everything right”. On the pandemic, he lamented that he didn’t put “[the rollout] under military operation from the outset”, the ABC reports. The other large bungle came in the form of a classic gotcha question around the cost of basic items including bread and petrol. Morrison didn’t have an answer. With the cost of living at the forefront of Australians’ minds, and a large part of the Coalition’s platform, the AFR reports that the bungling of the question mostly stands out as a failure by Morrison and his team to sufficiently prepare on key issues.
[free_worm]
BEREJIKLIAN HAS “NO RECOLLECTION” OF LEAKED TEXT MESSAGES
There was more bad news for Scott Morrison coming out of his press club address. Another question referenced a leaked text exchange between former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian where it’s suggested she called Morrison a “horrible, horrible person”. The unidentified Liberal minister on the other end of the exchange is said to have called Morrison a “complete psycho”, as The Daily Telegraph ($) reports. The focus on this exchange continued beyond the address with The Age reporting Berejiklian’s response statement where she claimed she had “no recollection of such messages” but stopped short of denying she had sent them. She further suggested Morrison had her “very strong support”.
As the SMH reports, this latest stoush comes amid already high tensions between the NSW and federal Liberal branches, after NSW Treasurer Matt Kean criticised the Morrison government for failing to contribute to their small business assistance program. And rumours of Berejiklian’s dislike of Morrison are widespread and long reported. All of this bickering right before the upcoming state byelections paints a picture of a not-so-happy family.
“DISTURBING” CULTURE AT RIO TINTO
Mining giant Rio Tinto have released the shocking details of a company-wide cultural review, which found sexism, bullying, and racism run rampant within the business, as SMH reports. The independent report commissioned by Rio Tinto saw former sex discrimination commissioner Elizabeth Broderick survey 10,000 of the company’s 45,000 employees. Bloomberg reports that the survey found more than a quarter of women had experienced sexual harassment and almost half of the workforce had been bullied. Twenty one women reported actual or attempted sexual assault.
The ABC reports that the review was commissioned on the back of the parliamentary inquiry in WA which found two dozen mine site sexual assaults were investigated by police in a two year period. The review also found racism is systemic within the organisation, with Indigenous employees describing the deeply ingrained racism that sees Aboriginal staff denigrated, criticised, and rarely promoted to position of leadership, as the AFR reports. This revelation comes in the wake of the 2020 destruction of Juukan Gorge, which saw Rio Tinto destroy the 46,000-year-old sacred Indigenous site.
In a statement which apologised to staff, Rio Tinto CEO Jakob Stausholm said the findings were “deeply disturbing” and said he felt “shame and enormous regret to have learned the extent to which bullying, sexual harassment and racism are happening at Rio Tinto”, the ABC reports. The BBC reports that Rio Tinto has accepted the report’s 26 recommendations, and would attempt to implement cultural change that would allow for staff to “call out unacceptable behaviours”.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
Crows — especially a murder of crows — are often associated with images of impending doom and death — but today the birds get their redemption arc. As The Guardian reports, the Swedish town of Södertälje has deployed a team of crows to pick up cigarette butts in public spaces. For each butt they deliver to a custom-made depository, the crows receive a small piece of food.
But don’t be alarmed — it’s all very ethical. Christian Günther-Hanssen, the mastermind behind the program, assures us that “they are wild birds taking part on a voluntary basis”. New Caledonian crows are the species considered most up to the task, with research showing they have the same reasoning skills as a human seven-year-old.
Here’s hoping your day is as productive and fulfilling as the crows of Södertälje
SAY WHAT?
I’m not going to pretend to you that I go out each day and I buy a loaf of bread and I buy a litre of milk. I’m not going to pretend to you that I do that.
Scott Morrison
Scott Morrison’s pre-election campaign address to the National Press Club was full of zingers, making it hard to pick just one for today’s Say What? But when answering the admittedly cheesy question about the price of a loaf of bread and a litre of petrol, the prime minister was left looking unprepared and badly briefed.
CRIKEY RECAP
Press Clubbed: Scott Morrison’s everyman act cops it from journalists
“Today he rather glibly outlined his vision as creating a country where Australians can live the life they choose for themselves and make their own way.
“Of course, Morrison could well get away with all that nothingness if problems were getting fixed. His National Press Club address spent a lot of time trying to make excuses for why those fixes didn’t happen. The press pack just wasn’t buying it.”
Morrison’s cash splash for aged care workers is a stunt, and an insulting one
“Meanwhile Morrison is refusing to support the union-employer backed value of work case before the Fair Work Commission that would substantially increase aged care workers’ permanent and ongoing pay.
“The prime minister’s refusal is in direct defiance of the recommendation of the aged care royal commission, which found what so many other reports and inquiries have found for more than two decades: the only way to address the crisis in our aged care workforce is to value it more by paying workers more.”
Note to Labor: beware of a desperate PM, he may invade the parts you can’t seem to reach
“The truth is that conservative parties have always been better positioned to play this sort of game, for the simple reason that, since the advent of high capitalism and a full franchise, their success has depended on persuading a section of the working class to vote against their own specific interests.
“The convoking of imperial pride, of national loyalty, of abstract notions of duty was always campaigning with an offer of the imaginary — it’s just the imaginary was real. In the 1920s, the UK Tories slogan was simply ‘For King and Country’, and not much else was required.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Trump had role in weighing proposals to seize voting machines (The New York Times)
The deadly battles that tipped Myanmar into civil war (BBC)
New York Times buys Wordle (The Wall Street Journal)
Victorian IBAC was warned someone will die (The Australian) ($)
US and Russia spar over Ukraine crisis at UN Security Council (Al Jazeera)
Rio Tinto report finds ‘extremely disturbing’ culture of sexual harassment and racism (SBS)
Tory MPs are frogs in boiling water amid Johnson’s ‘partygate’ defence (The Guardian)
Charlotte Bellis to ‘continue to challenge’ government over rights of Kiwis overseas (NZ Herald)
Amnesty accuses Israel of apartheid, is labelled anti-Semitic in return (CNN)
Reserve Bank to wrap up $350b stimulus program this month as economy beats forecasts (ABC)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Election’s not over yet, but Morrison may need another miracle — Chris Uhlmann (The Age): “If Labor can make this election a referendum on the pandemic and pin the federal government as the sole source of all misery, then all Albanese needs to be is benign. And, given the Coalition’s entire 2019 campaign was built on Scott Morrison, the loss of trust in him is a body blow.
“For the Coalition to win this race it must salvage what credit it can from the handling of the pandemic and get voters to focus on the future. It must frame Albanese as a threat to recovery. It must hope that the conservatives traditional equity — economic management — still holds in the shadow of a trillion dollars of debt and deficits that stretch over the horizon. And it will want, but may not get, a fight on national security.”
When aged care workers earn just $22 an hour, a one-off payment won’t fix the wage problem — Hal Swerissen and Stephen Duckett (The Conversation): “The need to improve pay and conditions, training and career paths for aged care workers has been recognised for years. A workforce strategy was prepared in 2018 and a work value case for aged care workers was lodged with the Fair Work Commission in 2020. The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety reinforced the importance of addressing these issues.
“But in practice, little has been done. Pay rates have not been increased. Personal care workers are not required to have formal aged care qualifications or to be registered. Career paths have not been reformed. And employment standards to prevent casualisation and job insecurity have not been introduced.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Eora Nation (also known as Sydney)
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Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe will deliver an address to the National Press Club at a special edition in Sydney.
Australia
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Cupid’s Undie Run have launched their month-long campaign to raise money for the Children’s Tumour Foundation. Fundraisers will go for a run in their knickers at their chosen time this month, in support of families impacted by Neurofibromatosis (NF).
Poor Gladys – she used to have such gold standards – where does her memory, go every potentially embarrassing now and then?
And poor Scotty, again? This time he’s been caught on camera and tape with a whole lot of the (turning) press in the same room – they can’t all have ‘misheard/misinterpreted’ him not saying what he did, for posterity again?
Oh what wonderful dreams/predictions he’s been having, again – with an election suspended in his ether, again
Maybe this time they’ll come true even? …. But, given his form, I’ll bet against that, again
Did she think she was still in ICAC hearings?
And isn’t it nice that the media-sanctified Matt Klean-Coal has picked a slight with Scotty’s gang? …. With, I believe, a by-election looming in his state?
Is the NSW treasurer the best Liberal in the county or is he the only one with a conscience?