LAW AND ORDERS
The WA cops have told ABC to hand over the Four Corners footage of a climate protest at Woodside CEO Meg O’Neill’s lavish Perth mansion, Guardian Australia reports, and several months either side. Will Aunty kowtow? Jesse Noakes hopes not — the media adviser to Disrupt Burrup Hub says he’s facing a maximum sentence of 20 years for refusing to give his sources up. If the ABC “betray their sources”, he says, who could trust it? The episode’s trailer said climate activists are being charged with serious offences in “unprecedented numbers”, with more than 20 directed at Disrupt Burrup Hub. (Four Corners is also in the news after allegations it paid homeless people in pizza vouchers to hang with security guards, the NT News ($) reports, though the ABC flat out denies it).
Meanwhile, Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong has announced Australia will start contributing to the UN’s Green Climate Fund before the end of the year, The Australian ($) reports, following a $3.2 billion pledge from Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and $1.6 billion from US President Joe Biden. Former prime minister Scott Morrison ditched the fund five years ago. It comes as WA is on track for a $6 billion fossil-fuelled surplus because of elevated iron ore and oil prices, The West Australian ($) reports. Countries contain multitudes, it seems… Meanwhile your energy bills increased 11% in 2022-23, according to the Australian Energy Regulator’s latest report, with estimated annual gas bills ranging from $703 in Queensland to $1,647 in the ACT, Sky News Australia says. But the regulator boss says measures such as the energy bill relief fund, the Victorian household energy savings package, the ACT’s home energy efficiency program and the Queensland cost of living rebate were all bringing bills down.
RAISED VOICES
You’ll be hearing from independent Senator Lidia Thorpe, she promised, as The Australian ($) reports, after the No campaigner released a video of a masked man threatening her, burning the Indigenous flag and doing the Nazi salute. Thorpe claims the referendum was “an act of genocide against my people” and blamed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for the video. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton called the video “completely unhinged”. Meanwhile the ABC has a cracking story about a conspiracy theory that the United Nations will control all land in Australia if the Voice gets up. A video of Albanese purposely edited so it appears he “confirms” the theory has been shared on Facebook twice as many times (25,000) as any Yes or No campaign content, the broadcaster says. Dismal.
Some of the wealthiest teal suburbs mostly plan to vote No in the Voice to Parliament referendum, the AFR ($) reports, including independent Sophie Scamps’ Mackellar (54.6%), Kate Chaney’s Curtin (52.5%), Zoe Daniel’s Goldstein (51.6%) and Zali Steggalls’ Warringah (51.5%). Scamps says it’s no wonder, there’s been a “national misinformation campaign”, and Steggall says voters who elected her on a basis of climate change action and integrity find constitutional change too far. Hey, have you seen rapper Adam Briggs’ viral video made with SBS’s The Feed comedians Jenna Owen and Vic Zerbst? Briggs told the SMH ($) he hopes the main takeaway is that people who are confused realise they can just google the proposal on their phones. “It’s not that hard; it’s not that far away. It’s right next to your Uber Eats app,” he says. Meanwhile another campaign is encouraging kids to “groom a boomer” into voting Yes, WA Today ($) reports, a rather on-the-nose slogan, I’d think…
TRAVELLING AUKUS SHOW
The AUKUS nuclear submarine program team has spent $15.2 million on travel in two years, former senator and transparency crusader Rex Patrick writes for Michael West Media. “That’s $633K per month, or $21K per day,” he says, but it’s a drop in the ocean, mind the pun, considering the program will cost $368 billion. It’s the result of a freedom of information request made on behalf of Senator Jacqui Lambie, and comes as the US Congress asked the US Department of Defence about the US national security concerns of transferring Virginia Class submarines to Australia, and pointed out the US Navy is not meeting its own submarine number and availability goals.
To more big bucks now and Victoria Police spent $5.4 million setting up a unit to prepare for the Commonwealth Games, the Herald Sun ($) reports. The paper says the money — about the salary of 80 recruits — included $100,000 to send cops to the Birmingham Games for three weeks, and a week at a workshop on the Gold Coast. Hey, speaking of waste… the SMH ($) reports that in 2003 the average Australian adult had levels of “forever chemical” PFOS in their blood at 20 times the safe level. The paper says the federal government is about to ban the chemical, which is linked to “suppression of the immune system, raised cholesterol, hormone disruption and certain cancers”. Yikes.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
The secret to a long life? Taking the stairs and baked beans. That’s according to Australia’s oldest man, Ken Weeks, who celebrated his 110th birthday yesterday surrounded by loved ones. Weeks told the ABC he has always loved to meander, wander and explore on foot — grandson Jason added that gramps has always lived in homes with staircases and taken them two at a time. His secret ingredient, however, has been a good old can of baked beans for breakfast, a morning ritual for some three decades. When the doting staff at his old folks’ home found out, they sat down and wrote to Heinz. There’s this lovely elderly man, they wrote, who adores your beans and credits them for breezing right past 100. Could we trouble you for a pallet? Management at Heinz was so moved it had a jumbo label made with Week’s smiling mug on it, framed it and posted it to him. He was beside himself.
So what else might elongate a life? A new documentary, Live to 100: The Secrets of the Blue Zones, has a few ideas — Dan Buettner went to places in the world with the highest concentration of centenarians, and found some commonalities. Planting a garden, for one — it gets you out that door each day, creates a sense of purpose, is a source of natural food, and it’s a kind of incidental exercise. Eating a peasant diet that’s 95% from plants such as beans, greens (spinach, kale, chard and collards), sweet potatoes, fruits, nuts and seeds, as well as six tablespoons of olive oil a day, was another cheat code to longevity. Take a catnap in the afternoon, if you can — almost all the people in Ikaria turn in for about 20 minutes a day. Finally, all the blue zones were filled with people who embraced their community, whether it was a walking group, book club, faith-based practice, a weekly potluck dinner or volunteering. “The best longevity hack,” Buettner realised, “is to curate your immediate social circle.” Reader, consider this a sign to send a text to your pal this morning about a catch-up.
Hoping you feel young at heart, and have a restful weekend.
SAY WHAT?
And I have never forgotten this simple thought: if the 1967 referendum had happened three years later, I wouldn’t have been able to leave Australia without permission; maybe I wouldn’t have won Wimbledon. But the ’67 referendum did happen. We did it then, let’s do it again.
Evonne Goolagong Cawley
The Wiradjuri woman and former tennis world No. 1 added that “all this noise and nonsense is designed to frighten people into saying No”, and that she had seen it before with Mabo and the Stolen Generations apology: “But history proved them wrong, so I’m asking you to keep your eye on the ball and to focus on what really matters.”
CRIKEY RECAP
“I challenge Yes voters to condemn Parliament when it tries to water down the (already non-existent) powers of the Voice in its founding legislation. Or begins defunding the Voice, ignoring its advice, or trying to silence or control the Voice. This is what successive governments have previously done with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peak bodies, community-controlled organisations and National Aboriginal Congress.
“I ask you to demand more when Parliament inevitably says that while it hears our concerns, but it doesn’t have the levers to make that change, as it’s the states’ responsibility — and there’s no action. I ask you to see through the media’s strategy of pitting Blackfullas in the Voice against one another, to divide and conquer our people.”
“McCarthy played chicken with the Democrats, gained some points and concessions, then swerved sideways at the last second. Not good enough for the traitorous cohort, it seems, who wanted a kamikaze head-on. So the eight, who form a mere part of the Trumpist ‘freedom caucus’ have destroyed a leader who gave them practically everything they wanted.
“The result, a house without a leader and no simple path to choosing a new one, is unprecedented for the United States. Even in the country’s first seven decades, before the current party system stabilised, the speaker remained inviolate, a figure hanging between partisanship and sovereignty. Together with the unprecedented multiple prosecutions of former president Donald Trump, it marks as great a dividing line in the history of the republic as any since the Civil War.”
“This compares favourably with countries such as the United States, where polarisation, especially between political camps, now pervades virtually all aspects of society. Australians may have their disagreements, but only 9% of us see the country as very divided. It also means No voters believe Australia to be considerably more divided, and Yes voters believe the country to be substantially more unified, than Australians do on average.
“These perceptions vary among different demographics. Younger participants see more unity in Australia. In contrast, voters over 55 see more division. Employment status also plays a role: those in paid employment see considerably more unity than those without employment. This is especially true of retirees — who are also likely to be older, of course. Similarly, residents of capital cities see more unity than those outside them.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Iran authorities deny arresting mother of Armita Geravand (Al Jazeera)
France to begin pulling out troops from Niger this week (The Guardian)
Biden to build new border wall touted by Trump, in policy reversal (Reuters)
At least 50 people killed in Russian strike on village in east Ukraine (euronews)
Then vs now: Here’s how much has changed for [NZ] first-home buyers in two years (Stuff)
Pierre Poilievre’s inner circle divided over how to tackle gender issues, sources say (CBC)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Dutton wants Indigenous programs audited. The irony? That’s what the Voice does — Waleed Aly (The SMH) ($): “But this is a difficult argument for the Coalition to sustain for two reasons. First, it has long supported the idea of a Voice, provided it is in legislation rather than the constitution, and a legislative Voice has just as much chance of being elitist as a constitutional one. And second, this passion for localism seems oddly sudden. If we’re witnessing a travesty, to whom would that travesty belong if not Dutton’s own colleagues who were in charge of spending that money for so long?
“But the context leading up to this week suggests a more troubling answer. Somewhere amidst the array of tangential arguments surrounding the Voice, the idea took root that governments across Australia spend more than $30 billion a year on Indigenous Australians. The figure isn’t so much a lie as it is misleading. It gives the impression of being the amount spent on programs exclusively for Indigenous Australia, but actually, only about $6 billion answers that description. The rest — outlined in a 2016 Productivity Commission report — is simply the Indigenous share of government spending on all Australians on things like health and education.”
Indigenous Voice to Parliament will fill long silence in our constitution — Robert French (The Australian) ($): “There are some simple propositions about the Voice. The first is that it is created as an act of recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples ‘as the First Peoples of Australia’. The text of the amendment makes clear that the act of recognition is based upon their historical status and not on the ill-defined concept of race. The support for constitutional recognition expressed by Warren Mundine and others on the No side of the case is plainly not based on race. If constitutional recognition is not based on race but on the historical status of First Peoples, how can it be said that recognition by creation of the Voice is based on race …
“Thirdly, the composition, functions, powers and procedures of the Voice will be determined by Parliament. The government has set out essential design principles that it would propose to the Parliament. They include membership of the Voice to be chosen by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples from every state and territory, including remote community representatives. Fourthly, as an advisory body there is little or no scope for successful litigation associated with its work. Neither Parliament nor the executive can be legally bound by the constitutional change to do what the Voice may suggest. It is also highly unlikely that the constitution would be interpreted as requiring the executive government to take into account representations from the Voice as a condition of the exercise of executive power. Fifthly, Parliament can regulate the ways in which the Voice can communicate to the executive and the Parliament.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
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ABC’s Graham Creed will talk about his new book, Weatherman Goes Bush, at Better Read Than Dead bookshop.
Yuggera and Turrbal Country (also known as Brisbane)
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Author Laura Jean McKay will talk about her new book, Gunflower, at Avid Reader bookshop.
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
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Assistant Minister for Treasury Andrew Leigh will speak at the Australian National University about how COVID changed data.
