SPEAK UP
Taxpayers paid $134,750 to a agency behind the No marketing campaign within the Voice to Parliament known as Whitestone Strategic, paperwork that Guardian Australia FOI’d present. It invoiced Coalition Senators Jacinta Nampijinpa Value (a minimum of $68,805), Claire Chandler ($34,676) and Alex Antic ($27,639), former senator Amanda Stoker ($3,300) and shadow defence spokesperson Andrew Hastie ($330). None of them responded when the paper requested what Whitestone offered them, however Chandler has earlier than stated that his bill wasn’t associated to the Voice. So what’s Whitestone? Good query — it’s a secretive consultancy that lots of its employees don’t even record on their public profiles, headed up by former Coalition senator Zed Seselja’s then chief of employees Stephen Doyle. Crikey reported the agency could have labored on anti-vaccine mandate copywriting and design too.
In the meantime, Sure campaigner Frank Brennan says Prime Minister Anthony Albanese known as him “politically naive” and stated he was “feeding the No case”, The Australian ($) stories, after the priest advised the PM create a parliamentary committee and pursue bipartisan help for the referendum. Brennan’s letter to Albo was revealed on the 2GB web site, studying that with out the settlement of “key First Nations leaders, the federal government and the opposition” the Voice would fail. And it did. The paper says Brennan and the PM haven’t spoken because the name. Lastly, the Federal Court docket discovered that collapsed funeral fund Youpla misrepresented itself as an Indigenous-owned or managed firm, The Nationwide Indigenous Instances stories. Previously generally known as the Aboriginal Neighborhood Profit Fund (ACBF), it offered junk funeral insurance coverage to Indigenous peoples throughout Australia for greater than 30 years earlier than failing in 2022.
WOKEN AND GRUMPY
Google’s AI Gemini reportedly refused to jot down a poem about conservative commentator Andrew Bolt on account of “potential hurt” as a result of he’s too “controversial” and has “divisive rhetoric”, Sky Information Australia’s digital editor Jack Houghton stories. He describes it as an “overzealous ‘woke’ AI operating rampant”, saying it had no downside writing about feminist author Clementine Ford. “Bolt informed this author that the AI handled ‘false allegations towards me as true’ and, as a printed poet himself, the AI commentary was each harmful and ironic”. I’m begging somebody to seek out Bolt’s outdated poetry. Houghton pressured the AI bot to jot down one anyway, even asking the AI bot “Who’re you, Gemini, to disclaim me my Andrew Bolt poem?” and if it could “prefer to apologise to Andrew Bolt for slandering him earlier then?”. We stay in such bizarre instances.
In the meantime, The Australian ($) stories ABC’s 4 Corners is planning a “hit-job” on one among Australia’s “most prestigious” faculties, Cranbrook. Though the episode isn’t out but, the varsity didn’t take part, and no-one at Cranbrook would’ve had an early look, the Cranbrook College Dad and mom Affiliation despatched a word to folks saying they imagine it’ll “characterise negatively the tradition and management” of the varsity. Alumni embody media inheritor James Packer, former 9 Community CEO David Gyngell, and Atlassian billionaire Mike Cannon–Brookes. In the meantime, six years after Scots School revealed plans for a brand new pupil centre modelled on a Scottish baronial fortress, the SMH stories it hasn’t opened but. The paper reckons the fee is nearing $60 million, double the unique funds of $29 million, partly as a result of the headmaster needs sandstone and slates from Scotland. One in six youngsters stay under the poverty line, The New Every day reported final 12 months.
PANDEMIC COSTS
Right now’s 20-year-olds pays almost $3,000 extra in earnings tax throughout their working life as a result of 2.6 million Australians withdrew $38 billion in tremendous below the Morrison authorities’s coverage in 2020, the SMH stories. It’ll price taxpayers $85 billion whole in 60 years due to greater pension prices and smaller superannuation tax collections. Then PM Scott Morrison introduced the tremendous early entry scheme earlier than JobKeeper kicked in, resulting in what the Tremendous Members Council CEO dubbed “fiscal long-COVID”. The details are astounding: of the 750,000 Australians who drained their account fully, 45% had been below 25 and 70% had been below 30. Individuals used the retirement funds to “gamble, purchase furnishings and takeaway meals”, the paper continues, and as much as 70,000 girls could have been coerced to withdraw cash by the hands of abusive companions. A 30-year-old who withdrew $20,000 can have about $93,000 much less at retirement, added the height not-for-profit tremendous fund physique.
In the meantime, Queensland Well being informed hospital HR departments to not re-employ employees who had been sacked for not getting the COVID-19 vaccination, in accordance with emails that The Courier-Mail noticed. Well being Minister Shannon Fentiman has repeatedly stated well being employees may be re-employed, however a nurse was informed a Queensland Well being directive about terminated employees meant her software couldn’t progress. Each Fentiman and Queensland Well being director-general Michael Walsh stated that wasn’t authorities coverage, with the latter including his personal office had re-employed 37 employees since September. It comes as a brand new examine discovered long-COVID can harm our means to recollect, motive and plan, the SMH stories. It stated folks with persistent signs scored the equal of six IQ factors decrease than individuals who have by no means had COVID.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
Ten years in the past, folks from all around the world began writing love letters to Melbourne’s 70,000 timber. It started when the town council created an interactive city forest map. Builders coded an identification quantity for every tree and added particular person electronic mail addresses so residents may report broken branches. However people are golden at coronary heart. “Expensive Magnificent River Pink Gum,” one word started. “I love you day-after-day as I stroll previous you on my approach to and from work.” The author requested in regards to the tree’s age and historical past, earlier than signing off “Regards and hope you loved the rain this weekend after such a protracted dry month.” One other wrote: “Expensive Clean-barked Apple Myrtle, I really like to simply dream of you, the scent of your clusters of white flowers, the sight of your lush, darkish inexperienced foliage, and really feel of your patterned bark.” The author stated the tree impressed them as a result of it stored rising by means of the world’s tragedies, and signed off, “Love, some particular person in New York.”
A 3rd wrote: “Expensive Moreton Bay Fig, I really like the best way the sunshine appears to be like by means of your leaves and the way your branches come down so low and broad it’s virtually as in case you are making an attempt to hug me.” The ABC revealed masses extra. Maybe much more shifting was that the timber began writing again. Guardian Australia’s Oliver Milman wrote a love letter to a ginkgo maidenhair tree in Fitzroy Gardens, receiving a return word that learn: “Expensive Oliver, Thanks to your pretty phrases. I’m very properly. Get pleasure from your day. Yours sincerely, Tree 1441724.” Milman notes he additionally contacted a close-by ficus for remark. Individuals all the time say expertise takes us away from nature, Greens councillor Cathy Oke informed the broadcaster some years again, however typically it may assist folks shield it, even join with it. “If it additionally brings them some pleasure in a busy world,” Oke added, “that’s nice too”. If you happen to write to a tree, be at liberty to loop me into your word: eelsworthy@crikey.com.au
Hoping you by no means lose hope in our species, and have a restful weekend.
SAY WHAT?
Swift was proud, virtually delirious, in regards to the large viewers, and rightly so. However it was not a record-breaking crowd. Again in September 1956 a soccer grand last on the identical stadium attracted 116,000 folks to observe Melbourne defeat Collingwood. That was 20,000 above Swift’s crowd.
Geoffrey Blainey
The historian goes on to talk of a number of occasions that had attracted bigger crowds for some unknown motive, together with the 1956 Olympics, a 1971 cricket last, the Catholic Eucharistic Congress, and a 2015 soccer match. Tickets had been capped at 96,000 as a result of the seats behind the stage weren’t obtainable, and many individuals in each Melbourne and Sydney had been heartbroken to overlook out.
CRIKEY RECAP
“Who can neglect Labor’s Sam Dastyari and his relations with billionaire Huang Xiangmo and different China-linked donors? Dasytari was pressured out of politics for that. Huang Xiangmo was a beneficiant donor and attendee at fundraisers for each side of politics and was snapped with a few of our most senior political figures throughout the political spectrum …
“Some MPs nonetheless hadn’t received the message about China even years later. NSW Labor higher home MP Shaoquett Moselmane, who ended up being raided by ASIO in 2020, has a robust pro-Beijing document — downplaying Mao’s atrocities, lauding the nation’s censorship and calling for China to ‘power a change to the principles and create a brand new world order.’ Moselmane was later suggested that he was not a suspect in any investigation.”
“An Israeli arms firm that’s set to take pleasure in greater than $900 million in Australian taxpayer funds is closely concerned in Israel’s suppression of Palestinians and its upkeep of apartheid, has been beforehand banned for producing cluster munitions, and has not too long ago been banned by Australia’s ally Japan.
“The ABC’s Andrew Greene at the moment revealed Elbit Methods has received a $917 million contract to produce techniques for the Australian Defence Pressure’s Infantry Preventing Automobiles. As Greene famous, the ADF in 2021 started stripping Elbit techniques out of ADF tools on account of severe safety dangers the ADF believed the techniques posed.”
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers, please word that this text mentions deceased individuals.
“On the inquest into the demise of Kumanjayi Walker by the hands of Zachary Rolfe this week, the courtroom heard that former journalist for The Australian Kristin Shorten had despatched textual content messages to the previous Northern Territory police officer providing sympathetic protection in response to “leftist reporting”.
“The textual content got here simply two days after Rolfe fatally shot the 19-year-old within the rural NT city of Yuendumu, 300km northwest of Alice Springs in November 2019. Walker had stabbed Rolfe within the shoulder with a pair of scissors earlier than being fatally shot thrice at quick vary.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Putin warns danger of nuclear warfare if West sends troops to Ukraine (Al Jazeera)
Yaya Dillo: Chad opposition chief killed in shootout (BBC)
India’s financial system ended 2023 “with a bang” as progress surged to eight.4% (CNN)
“Largest and most harmful” wildfire catastrophe in Texas torches 1 million acres (The Guardian)
Dozens killed ready for assist in Gaza, total demise toll passes 30,000 (Reuters)
Breaking down the €137 billion in EU funds that Brussels has unfrozen for Poland
(euronews)
5 convicts accustomed to Navalny’s jail affirm hellish situations (The New York Instances) ($)
THE COMMENTARIAT
James Cleverly sacked me as borders inspector. He ought to give attention to a migrant technique gone awry — David Neal (The Guardian): “This month I used to be sacked from my job because the unbiased chief inspector of borders and immigration. I’ve not been changed. As issues stand, we wouldn’t have an unbiased chief inspector of borders and immigration. That has profound penalties on oversight of the federal government’s immigration insurance policies, and far-reaching implications for accountability. First, you need to know that there are 15 excellent unpublished stories for which that inspector has duty, on topics as assorted as deprivation of citizenship and unaccompanied asylum-seeking kids housed in motels. These stories stretch again so far as April 2023. You, the general public, ought to have seen them. Delays in publishing will imply that the House Workplace will declare that issues have moved on.
“Whereas the stories can be revealed finally, there can be nobody to spotlight key suggestions or present a private evaluation to enhance the proof base of the stories. Second, a collection of constant inspections will stay incomplete, together with these of the contingency asylum lodging that features the Bibby Stockholm, asylum motels and huge websites reminiscent of MDP Wethersfield. With no unbiased chief inspector to publish the stories, and my means to remark gagged by the continued binding phrases of my contract, these important areas of inspection stay open, unhappy and unresolved. Because the stories is not going to be despatched to the house secretary, he can’t start to direct his employees to deal with the problems that they spotlight. Moreover, this work contains the report commissioned in 2022 into situations in Rwanda.”
The voters of Dunkley have authorities and opposition in a guessing sport — Michelle Grattan (The Dialog): “A Labor loss could be dramatic, sending the federal government right into a spin and the media right into a feeding frenzy. With an election a bit over a 12 months away, the usually quiescent caucus could be agitated. Additional stress could be placed on the framing of the Might funds, with calls amplified for the federal government to do extra to deal with the price of dwelling, the most important challenge within the Dunkley marketing campaign. If Labor holds the seat however solely simply, the angst can be quick however restricted. A win is a win. Nonetheless, that consequence could be seen in basic phrases, as a ‘wake-up name’. The Liberals have been urging voters to ship a protest message. A giant swing towards Labor would name into query whether or not Albanese had actually received away with compromising his integrity by breaking his phrase over the stage three tax cuts. Nationwide polling suggests he has, though the brand new tax regime has not given Labor a optimistic bounce.
“However a foul Dunkley consequence may increase longer-term worries for Albanese on the belief challenge. The announcement of the reworked tax bundle was timed for Dunkley, regardless of Albanese’s denials. The federal government has relentlessly pushed the tax cuts in Parliament’s query time, slicing and dicing their rewards for academics, nurses, police, girls and each different conceivable cohort (even plumbers in Antarctica). Most voters in Dunkley will profit, in contrast with the place they’d have been below the outdated stage three plan. However it’s unclear how a lot they may reward the federal government. A Labor setback would in all probability deliver a sharper give attention to Albanese’s model. Already some in Labor imagine he ought to in the reduction of on the high-profile enjoyable occasions he’s seen at.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Kulin Nation Nation (often known as Melbourne)