GOOD JOB!
The biggest workplace reforms since the ’70s will become law in a “huge day for working people”, as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese put it. The IR reforms will sail through the Senate after powerbroker independent David Pocock struck a deal with a no-doubt relieved Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke, The Australian ($) reports. Pocock got a review of JobSeeker (he hopes it’ll see the $334.20-a-week payment increase, but Albo didn’t say it would) and the Greens got the enforceable right for parents to request unpaid parental leave. Businesses with 20 employees or fewer can be excluded from multi-employer bargaining now (where the union gets a better pay deal for several workplaces at once), while businesses with fewer than 50 staff will need the union to make a case for it. The AFR declared the reforms the “most union-friendly workplace laws in decades” in a rather on-brand moment.
Staff would be in a panic at recycling giant REDcycle after they were accused of secretly dumping more than 260 tonnes of plastics into a Newcastle landfill, The Australian ($) reports. The paper saw documents that showed Gollans Logistics, one of REDcycle’s NSW logistics partners, making the allegations but REDcycle wouldn’t comment when asked about it. The SMH adds a REDcycle contractor said all plastic bags we’ve dropped off at Coles and Woolworths for recycling have been sitting in storage for at least four years, even though the company only recently ran into trouble. Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission may look into the allegations, which were “concerning”.
COAL DISCOMFORT
Rising coal prices overseas are the main reason our power bills are soaring, the Australian Energy Regulator has confirmed. The regulator oversees the east coast electricity market and is a statutory adviser to the federal government, as The Age reports. Here’s what happened: lots of Australian coal (selling for a record US$400 a tonne) was sold from the spot market amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which happened at the same time as our local coal supply was reduced by wet weather. Treasurer Jim Chalmers has indicated the government will cap fossil fuel prices, and the mining industry is gearing up for a $22 million advertising blitz to stop it (it worked against then PM Kevin Rudd’s resources rent tax). We may not be so easily convinced this time around, however: nearly half of voters who switched to an independent candidate in the May election did so because of climate anxiety, Guardian Australia reports.
Queensland will have 12 coalmines still operating after 2050 when Australia will (hopefully) reach net zero emissions, according to internal government documents, as The Courier-Mail ($) reports. A total of 61 will have closed, but Adani’s Carmichael coalmine will be open until 2071, and two will be until 2099. Cripes. Acting Resources Minister Cameron Dick was like, what are we supposed to do? There’s no other commercially viable way to make steel apart from metallurgical coal (cue the sound of a thousand entrepreneurial pens on paper). Even so, we could still be net zero by 2050 because, in rather specious reasoning, shipping coal offshore counts in their emissions, not ours. Meanwhile in not unrelated news, Queensland’s natural disaster bill is $30 billion (!) since the ’70s with $7.7 billion on February’s flood disaster alone, the ABC reports. It’s the biggest outlay of any state or territory — three times that of Victoria’s.
A LIBERAL EDUCATION
Former prime minister Scott Morrison could become the first MP to be censured by Parliament since 2018, after former High Court judge Virginia Bell’s acidic inquiry into his five secret portfolios — Crikey delves into the key revelations. The consequences of the saga will be discussed in cabinet today, The Age reports — Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he’d been contacted by all sorts of parliamentarians about Morrison’s “usurping of Parliament”. Opposition workplace relations spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said the Coalition would wait and see what happens, though didn’t say it would reject a censure motion per se. So what is a censure motion? It’s a kind of Westminster public shaming, where a minister’s responsibilities to the House are called into question. It’s embarrassing, but wouldn’t force Morrison’s resignation.
Speaking of Libs to blame, the Victorian party is in damage control after Saturday’s election that saw Premier Daniel Andrews’ Labor government keep power by a comfortable margin, The Age reports. Opposition leader Matthew Guy resigned, so who’ll take up the mantle? Berwick MP Brad Battin told the paper he’d have a crack. He’ll get no competition from former opposition leader Michael O’Brien, nor from health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier, who both said they wouldn’t run. The Nationals were cheering their “best result” since 1943 after winning three seats from independents (Morwell, Shepparton and Mildura) meaning they regain party status after losing it in 2018’s election. The Greens secured a fourth seat after taking Richmond, while two of the four teals backed by Climate 200 may win yet — that’s Mornington’s Kate Lardner and Hawthorn’s Melissa Lowe. There are seven seats to call as of 5.14am AEDT.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
Throwing someone in the deep end is a great way to see how much they grow and prosper. Take Carrot — she was once a goldfish no larger than a finger, but now the gorgeous orange girl weighs no fewer than 30 kilograms. We know this because a British angler named Andy Hackett caught (and released) Carrot this month. Hackett spent 25 minutes trying to wrangle the hefty fish in from Bluewater Lakes in the Champagne region of France. “You’re gonna need a bigger bowl,” was everyone’s first thought, BBC reports. The goldfish was popped in the water by Jason Cowler some 20 years back and has gone from strength to strength ever since (literally). Carrot is extremely hard to catch — she doesn’t come out very often, the fishery manager said, saying she’s “very elusive”.
Honestly, Hackett said, he “never thought I would catch it” and called it “sheer luck” that he reeled her in, as CNN reports. Carrot’s weight actually makes her the second-largest of her type (a hybrid leather carp cross koi carp) to ever be caught. But rest assured there’s no goldfish and bubbly for dinner — the lake has a strict “no retention” rule in place, so after a little bit of medical care, Carrot was released back into her aquatic queendom. The fishery team assured fans on Facebook that Carrot is “in excellent health and condition” and could live for 15 years or more. “Long may her stardom continue,” the team added. Let it be a lesson for all of us that, given the space to grow, we can become something larger than life too.
Hoping you feel the power of your potential today.
SAY WHAT?
[The Liberals] need young people, we need change. We had people representing us … who are all of the past. I’m of the past. Get rid of us!
Ted Baillieu
The former Victorian premier says the party he led should purge itself of rusted-on Liberal veterans like himself and inject some young blood into the mix, otherwise dismal Coalition results — like Saturday’s thumping win for the Victorian Labor Party — will continue.
CRIKEY RECAP
Jordan Peterson reveals details of private conversation with Scott Morrison
“Former prime minister Scott Morrison told controversial media personality Jordan Peterson about his failure to convince other world leaders of his vision for cheap renewable energy and his disillusionment with a major climate summit during a private chat in Parliament House yesterday, Crikey can reveal.
“Peterson, a self-described ‘politically incorrect’ Canadian psychologist, revealed the details of his conversation with the former Australian prime minister in an exclusive, if impromptu, interview at Gate 13 at Canberra Airport on Thursday night.”
Australia is facing the biggest questions in national security and foreign policy since WWII, and they need our attention
“I continue to be worried about the ease (or, in some cases, excitement) with which some public figures talk loosely about the possibility of war. I include in this our alternative prime minister, Peter Dutton, who as defence minister declared it ‘inconceivable’ that Australia would not join such a war — as though we are discussing some minor re-run of Margaret Thatcher in the Falklands, rather than a conflagration that could lead to World War III.
“It may help our national discussion to think clearly about the different war scenarios that go beyond the classical image of a military invasion. One possibility is that China could blockade Taiwan to strangle its economy, either through its now formidable naval assets or the threat of conventional rocket forces …”
‘Sack Dan Andrews’: major and fringe figures descend on Mulgrave to try to unseat the premier
“Last year, psychiatrist Patrick McGorry cancelled a speaking function with the group after it was revealed the group was organised by vice-chair of the Liberal Party’s Higgins branch, Jacquie Blackwell. Another spokesperson for the group, Moran Dvir, is the head of marketing communications for Alfasi Group, which boasts about doing ‘construction, property development [and] equipment hire’ in Melbourne CBD locations.
“Shadow Pandemic Victoria’s posts were shared by Australia’s best-known anti-vaccine group Reignite Democracy Australia. Liberal candidate for Mulgrave Michael Piastrino has appeared in Shadow Pandemic Victoria’s comment section asking for ’15 more people’ to work with him. Piastrino has previously called for the election to be delayed …”
THE COMMENTARIAT
We’re nowhere near prepared for next climate disasters — Greg Mullins (The Age): “My decades of confronting devastating bushfires and other disasters often proved extremely difficult and dangerous, but — until recently — never felt outright impossible. Most Australians have the ashes of the Black Summer imprinted into their memories. That was when we crossed a line into the unknown. I experienced it first hand, facing walls of flames raging and spreading so fast that we often had no chance of catching up. And even when we did, conditions were often so intense that it took everything just to ensure our own survival, with fire-generated storms creating conditions few firefighters had ever experienced.
“Sadly, many people didn’t make it, including fellow firefighters, and thousands of families became homeless. Then we lurched straight from unprecedented hot, dry, windy conditions driving jaw-dropping mega-fires to flooding rains of incredible intensity. The sheer volume of extreme weather records that have fallen in the past 12 months — across Australia and globally — is shocking. From Lismore to Lahore to London, extreme weather records have been broken on every continent on Earth. We’ve entered a frightening new era of climate-driven ‘unnatural disasters’. And to put it bluntly, Australia’s disaster planning, management and recovery systems are regularly overwhelmed.”
Blockchain may have a green future regardless of crypto — Gillian Tett (AFR): “This month might not seem the perfect moment for an institution such as Goldman Sachs to be championing the benefits of ‘blockchain’ or ‘tokenisation’. After all, these buzzwords first shot to fame in the cryptocurrency sector, which has lost two-thirds of its value during the past year. And the recent implosion of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX empire is likely to leave many traditional financiers shying away from digital assets — if not deriding them as a fraud. Yet when green activists, politicians and scientists assembled at COP27 this month, Rosie Hampson, an executive director at Goldman Sachs, was happily talking of both.
“The Wall Street bank has joined forces with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Bank for International Settlements and other financial institutions, to launch a capital markets initiative known as ‘Genesis’ (a name it unfortunately shares with the struggling crypto broker). This Genesis aims to use blockchain and digital tokenisation to help investors who buy climate-related bonds track the associated carbon credits in real time … This did not cause a splash at COP. No surprise, perhaps. Many green activists hate the concept of blockchain technologies, since early iterations of this guzzled energy. And the type of young(ish) anti-establishment evangelists who have rushed into cryptocurrencies generally dislike the idea of central bank involvement. But investors should take note.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Morocco stun Belgium in another World Cup 2022 shock (Al Jazeera)
Giant wind farms arise off Scotland, easing the pain of oil’s decline (The New York Times)
Clashes in Shanghai as COVID protests flare across China (Reuters)
GOP governor calls Trump’s dinner with a Holocaust denier and Kanye West ‘very troubling’ (CNN)
Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen quits as party chair after local elections (BBC)
Arms made at pace ‘highest since Cold War’ as Europe’s east aids Kyiv (EuroNews)
Trudeau government unveils long-awaited plan to confront an ‘increasingly disruptive’ China (CBC)
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
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Former UK Minister of State Anne-Marie Trevelyan will speak to the National Press Club.
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Australia-Taiwan Business Council’s Ching-Mei Maddock, Monash University’s Lennon Chang, and ANU’s Brendan Taylor will chat about Taiwan’s security, cyberattacks, disinformation and business, in a talk held at the Australian Centre on China in the World.
Yuggera Country (also known as Brisbane)
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Authors Cass Moriarty and Garry Disher will chat about the latter’s new novel, Day’s End, at Avid Reader bookshop.
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Writers Julie Dickson, Leila Lois, Maki Morita, Olivia Muscat, Amarachi Okorom, Arty Owens, Christy Tan, and Mason Wood will speak at The Next Big Thing, held by The Wheeler Centre at the Moat.
