STEPPING ON THE GAS
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Australia will remain a reliable global supplier of coal and gas, the AFR reports, as well as renewables. He made the comments at the annual dinner of the Minerals Council of Australia. It comes as the government is designing a safeguard mechanism that’ll force the nation’s 215 top emitters to get to net zero by 2050. “There will be assistance or exemption for emissions for those which are trade exposed,” the paper adds, as Albanese says we are responsible only for our own emissions, not the emissions of our export partners, which sounds a little like specious reasoning to me, but sure. The PM continued that we have an “unmatched natural advantage” to be a world leader in the clean energy space, and his government will prioritise “investment”, “innovation”, “courage” and “commitment”.
It comes as the Greens attracted an unlikely admirer yesterday: Fortescue boss Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, Guardian Australia reports. Forrest backed the minor party’s climate trigger bill to block fossil fuel projects moving forward, saying it was the “responsible thing to do” (does it also reduce his competition or am I just jaded?). Of the trigger, Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said yesterday it was crazy to think that a mine or development could get a green light without “any consideration of climate pollution or damage”. Hey, in good green news our electric vehicle (EV) uptake is at a record high — of 95,256 vehicles sold last month, 4.4% were electric (4191), the best monthly result ever, The New Daily reports. If you add hybrids to the mix, one in 10 cars sold in Australia in 2022 are electrified. So what brands are folks flocking to? Tesla mostly — the brand sold 3397 vehicles in August.
OUT DAMNED SCOTT!
Most people (51%) think former prime minister Scott Morrison should resign from Parliament, and a little more (58%) think he should go before an inquiry after his five secret ministries were revealed, according to Guardian Australia. A third of those who say he should walk were Coalition voters. Morrison told Sky’s Paul Murray that he put governing before politics, The Australian ($) reports, and he accepts he paid a “political price” for that (so good governing means keeping the portfolios a secret from your cabinet ministers then?). The poll also found people really don’t have faith in federal Parliament after the Morrison years — it has the lowest level of trust of any institution, with 48% saying they either had a little or none (that’s down nine points since August 2020). It comes after the Labor caucus signed off on the national anti-corruption commission, or NACC for short, which rather fittingly sounds similar to the definition of “narc” as a verb. Implementing a federal integrity body was just another of Morrison’s broken election promises. He blamed Labor for standing in the way; it said his proposal lacked teeth, as SMH reports.
Meanwhile, former Liberal staffer Rachelle Miller has been awarded $650,000 from the public purse following what she described as a “horrendous” experience working for former ministers Alan Tudge and Michaelia Cash, The Age reports. The Commonwealth did not admit liability on behalf of either, but in a mediation paper, Miller alleged Tudge discriminated against her based on her sex and disability (which is related to her mental health, the paper says), while also failing to provide a safe work environment. Miller’s allegations, which were rejected by Tudge and Cash, triggered two inquiries though neither concluded in Miller’s favour.
KUMANJAYI WALKER AND THE WAY FORWARD
The inquest into the shooting death of Warlpiri man Kumanjayi Walker has begun with heartbreaking words from the 19-year-old’s family, the ABC reports. Walker died after being shot three times by NT police officer Zachary Rolfe — who was found not guilty of all charges in March. Walker’s cousin said Walker’s death will stay with his community “for generations”, continuing that “the wails of my family’s cries still haunt me”. She hoped the inquest would forge a better relationship between the police and remote communities, and prevent any family from going through what hers had. Warlpiri elder Robin Granites also uttered a powerful sentence yesterday to the inquest: “We do not want you to tell us what we need … We will tell you what we want.”
The three-month inquest into Walker’s death will hear from more than 80 witnesses and there will be 54 issues examined. Just four days before the hearing kicked off, lawyers for Rolfe asked for 13 of those issues to be removed, including one about whether “systemic racism” played a role in Walker’s death and another about Rolfe’s history of using force in arrests, Guardian Australia reports. Years ago, Rolfe was allegedly violent during the arrests of four Indigenous men, according to evidence released by the NT Supreme Court. The counsel assisting the coroner said it was “a great shame” to hear those objections so late when “so much care” had gone into them to help the community understand Walker’s death, the NT News continues.
Since the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, at least 474 Indigenous people have died in custody in Australia (as of April), the BBC reports. Australia’s First Nations peoples have the highest rate of incarceration of any group in the world. About half of all child prisoners are Indigenous.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
In an incredible tale of survival, a Brazilian man survived 11 days lost at sea by huddling in a freezer, as CNN reports. Romualdo Macedo Rodrigues, a fisherman, was on a three-day trip somewhere in the vast Atlantic Ocean when he noticed what looked like a crack in his boat. Hmm, he thought. That’s not good. When the wild Atlantic started sidling its way into the bottom of his boat, he thought: that’s really not good. It wasn’t long before the Atlantic took the boat for its own, and Rodrigues managed to slide his body into a freezer just in time. He’d noticed it was bobbing on the surface, and prayed the buoyancy would keep him above water. He couldn’t swim. Rodrigues looked out across the endless sea and wondered what would happen next. Suddenly, a disturbance rippled the surface. Several sharks were circling the freezer, but either their curiosity or their appetite was sated, because they swam on.
Rodrigues didn’t dare sleep: “I saw the dawn, the dusk, asking God to send someone to rescue me.” A week passed. Swaying in the ocean current ensconced in the freezer, all he could think about were his children, his wife, his mother and father. The thought of his family gave him hope, Rodrigues says, in a hopeless situation. The Atlantic again began to pool at the bottom of his vessel hungrily, and he used a hand to scoop it out. He was delirious from no water and no food on what he’d later learn was day 11 when he heard it, a motor. He peered across the water, vision fading, and said “My God, the boat” as they raced to save him. God means a lot of things to a lot of people. To Rodrigues “that freezer was God in my life”. Now he’s incredibly grateful to be back with his overjoyed family in his home. “I was born again. I thought I wouldn’t be telling this story, but I’m back here.”
Hoping you feel emboldened to take on your Tuesday.
SAY WHAT?
Serena, I’ve admired her as a player. But I don’t think she has ever admired me … I was at Wimbledon this year and nobody even spoke to me.
Margaret Court
Maybe it’s because the Australian tennis veteran declared it was “sad for children to be exposed to homosexuality”, praised South Africa’s apartheid policy, claimed “tennis is full of lesbians”, called transgender children the work of “the devil”, and claimed the Safe Schools anti-bullying program was controlled by the “gay lobby”. As Russell Jackson writes: “Court is now the principal architect of her own image.” Or put another way, you made your bed — now lie in it.
CRIKEY RECAP
‘A bamboo toothbrush won’t save the planet’: Twiggy enlists cult cartoon Rick and Morty to sell green hydrogen
“In a combination of words that has no right to make any sense, mining billionaire Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest has enlisted the help of Rick and Morty to educate the public about green hydrogen. For those who’ve forgotten, Rick and Morty is a cult cartoon that the most irritating people imaginable made their entire personality for a few months in 2017.
“Fortescue Future Industries, the green energy wing of Twiggy’s Fortescue, has put together a website called What The Green Hydrogen, using the main characters to put forward the idea of renewables. It’s, well, about as strange as it sounds, filtering the surreal, nihilistic aesthetic of the show through PR speak — for example: ‘Before we join forces to save the planet, there’s something you should know about us. We’re owned by a mining company. A really big one. Called Fortescue.”
Biden’s dropped the f-bomb. Now, what do we do with it?
“Well, it finally happened: that most cautious and indirect of modern US presidents, Joe Biden, came, more or less, straight to the flashpoint of modern politics: the f-bomb. ‘It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something — it’s like semi-fascism.’ It’s a rare gift awarded to the US president, the ability to reset global politics with a word or phrase. Biden will be hoping he’s pulled it off this time. Supporters of democracy should hope so, too.
“He followed up his apparently unscripted comments with a major prime-time presentation about the Trumpian threat to democracy. Perhaps fearful he’d drop the f-bomb again, the major networks declined to televise it live. The network’s caution showed the nerve Biden had hit. On Fox, commentators took it as well as you’d expect: “That’s essentially a declaration of war against half of the country. What do we do to them? We kill them,” spluttered Fox’s star Tucker Carlson.”
A major US city can’t give its citizens drinkable water. Is the US a failed state?
“It has now been roughly a week that most of the city of Jackson, Mississippi, have gone without access to drinkable water. Taps dribble out brown water that remains undrinkable after it’s boiled — and that’s if anything comes out at all. This is the culmination of years of a neglect-induced water crisis for the 80% Black population, and a clear example of where wrecking crew politics logically ends up.
“The National Guard has had to bring in pallets stacked with bottled water; while this time we were spared the billionaire autocrat tossing out essentials to citizens like a game show host — as happened after Puerto Rico was devastated by a hurricane in the Trump years — it nonetheless has the hallmarks of a failed state. Indeed, imagine the furrowed-brow, paternal-concern coverage these events would get in The Washington Post and elsewhere if they had happened in Haiti or Cuba …”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Kenya’s Supreme Court upholds Ruto’s win in presidential election (Al Jazeera)
Chile says ‘no’ to left-leaning constitution after three years of debate (The New York Times)
Liz Truss: a quick guide to the UK’s new prime minister (BBC)
Manhunt continues for two suspects after Saskatchewan stabbings leave 10 dead, 15 hospitalised (CBC)
China puts 65m people into semi-lockdown ahead of party summit (The Guardian)
Israel says ‘high possibility’ its army killed Shireen Abu Akleh (Al Jazeera)
Germany to delay phase-out of nuclear plants to shore up energy security (The Guardian)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Peter Dutton finds a target for his troops to aim at — Simon Benson (The Australian) ($): “Anthony Albanese has sought to build on the political success of his jobs and skills summit with the claim that it was a sign of a changing mood in the way politics was conducted and a platform for future wage and cost-of-living relief. Peter Dutton is having none of it. The opposition leader on Monday used the first question time of the second sitting fortnight to draw industrial relations and union thuggery into an inflation counter-attack against the government ahead of more mortgage pain likely to be delivered on Tuesday by the central bank.
“While the Coalition has little to cling to considering its electoral predicament as revealed by the latest Newspoll, and demonstrated by the subdued performance in Parliament, Dutton has at least found a target for his troops to aim at. And he is being aided in this venture by the unions, with admissions by the United Workers Union that Labor’s favoured multi-employer bargaining model would assist in industry-wide strikes. This is a legitimate line of attack for the Coalition while it fends off Labor’s accusation that it was a decade of Coalition government that had led to the economic challenges that the new government is now faced with. While not the main game, the industrial relations landscape is a feature of the cost-of-living and productivity debate that is now about to get more serious for the Albanese government.”
A prime minister must get the big calls right. On the cost of living crisis, Truss got it badly wrong — Gaby Hinsliff (The Guardian): “It should have been Liz Truss’s moment of triumph, her chance to bask in the glory of a whooping crowd. Yet victory, when it came, felt curiously flat. Gone was the bouncy, confident, shoot-from-the-hip Truss who emerged over two long months of hustings, after a wobbly start. When Britain’s new prime minister rose to the lectern to embrace a narrower win over Rishi Sunak than expected — narrow enough to make you wonder if he could even have won, had he played it differently — the old, slightly flat, stilted speaking manner was back. In Truss, that’s a sure sign of nerves. Perhaps only now does she feel the weight of what lies ahead.
“When loyal Tories struggle for nice things to say about Boris Johnson, they often fall back on claiming that at least he got the big calls right. That cliché may be hard to square with the chaotic reality of his time in office, but they reach for it because the absolute minimum expected of a prime minister is that they inspire confidence in a crisis. When the proverbial hits the fan, we all have to hope their gut instincts will be right, whatever else we disagree with them over. What’s unusual about Truss is that her first move on taking office will effectively be to acknowledge that at the start of her leadership campaign she got the big call wrong.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Online
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Guardian Australia’s Sarah Martin and Essential Media’s Pete Lewis will discuss the fortnight’s political news in a webinar for The Australia Institute.
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
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Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen, architect of the Paris Agreement Laurence Tubiana and former UN secretary-feneral Ban Ki-moon will speak about climate change action at the Better Futures Forum.
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Author Jay Carmichael will chat about his new book Marlo at The Wheeler Centre.
