THE ABC OF FREE SPEECH
ABC Sydney’s mornings program summer host Antoinette Lattouf is considering her legal options after she alleges she was unlawfully sacked for her views on the Israel-Palestine conflict. The Australian ($) says ABC chair Ita Buttrose received a slew of complaints about Lattouf’s TikTok videos and tweets, including a post of footage purporting to show people chanting “gas the Jews” was not verified, as she wrote for Crikey alongside Cam Wilson. Lattouf also alleged sexual violence was a tool of war used by both Hamas and Israel, and that Israeli children appeared to matter more than Arab ones (some 8,000 Palestinian kids have been killed since October 7, the BBC says, according to Hamas’ government). The paper claims Lattouf was sacked for allegedly not upholding the “ABC’s reputation, independence, impartiality and integrity” and was removed from her post yesterday (she was employed on a short-term contract, The Age ($) adds). As Crikey’s Bernard Keane tweeted, we’re sure the free speech crusaders at News Corp will fire up about Lattouf’s sacking. Any minute now.
This comes as SBS apologised to prominent Indigenous No advocate Nyunggai Warren Mundine after the “taxpayer-funded” ombudsman found a moderator had favoured the Yes campaigner Professor Marcia Langton on the night of the referendum vote, The Australian ($) reports. It found Indigenous host Narelda Jacobs calling her a “national treasure” was not impartial. Mundine has slammed politicians for their “inaction” on Indigenous issues in the two months since the Voice to Parliament referendum failed, Sky News Australia reports. It’s almost as if politicians think Australians aren’t fussed about them acting on Indigenous disadvantage because most of the country voted No, as Mundine and others had advocated for. Well, that’s wrong, Mundine says — the public wants politicians to “do your job”. The solution is “very simple”, he says: if you’re in education, get kids into school; if you’re in economic development, get people jobs. And don’t even think about legislating committees and regional voices, he says. Politicians know best, or something.
TO CATCH A CHIEF
Eva Lawler will be the NT’s next chief minister after the Labor caucus unanimously voted her in, the NT News ($) reports. Chansey Paech will be her deputy, relegating Nicole Manison to the backbench. Manison had intended to run but “decided to support Eva”, she says. So who is Lawler? She’s the treasurer and education minister, territory development minister and also held the infrastructure portfolio until October, but before her career in politics in 2016 she was a teacher and principal in Darwin and rural areas. Her appointment comes after former chief minister Natasha Fyles resigned amid allegations she hadn’t declared a conflict of interest (shares in a mining company while she rejected an investigation into manganese effects on local Indigenous folks).
Speaking of pollie dollars… Liberal MP Jason Wood spent more than $160,000 of taxpayer dollars on printing between July and September last year, The Courier-Mail ($) reports. It’s a dismal figure, Regeneration Media founder Natalie McKenna says, considering organisations are constantly urged not to print or waste paper. It’s just one of some $31 million in expenses claimed by politicians in three months. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spent $684,000, though most of it ($512,000) was spent on his staff’s travel costs. The paper notes Albanese spent just $30,000 on his office administration in 2022 — compare that with predecessor Scott Morrison, who spent nearly four times that at $113,000 in 2022. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton spent $363,000 (including $195,000 on employee travel), the ABC reports. Science Minister Ed Husic and teal independent Kylea Tink probably have swish offices — they both spent around $155,000 on office furniture, as well as rent and utilities.
COLD AS ICE
WA Liberal Senator Linda Reynolds wants to freeze former staffer Brittany Higgins’ assets after Higgins and partner David Sharaz moved to the south of France to start over, The Age ($) reports. Reynolds, who once called Higgins a “lying cow”, is suing them for defamation over five social media posts, Guardian Australia explains, including two from Higgins that said Reynolds had used the press to harass her. The former defence minister wants damages and aggravated damages, as well as two injunctions to stop Higgins from posting defamatory stuff about her. Anyway… Reynolds’ lawyer wrote to Higgins’ lawyer after she heard of reports Higgins had bought a property in France to say they’d be seeking a freezing order if it was true. Meanwhile the defamation case Bruce Lehrmann brought against journalist Lisa Wilkinson and Network 10 has entered its final stage, with closing submissions to take place today and finish on Friday, the Braidwood Times reports.
To Reynolds’ home state now, and WA’s rat infestation continues, WA Today ($) reports. That’s RAT — more than 11.7 million expired rapid antigen tests that the state will spend $4 million to dispose of using “sustainable recycling options”, the mid-year review has revealed. It had bought 25 million, or about 41 tests for every person, coming in at an eyewatering $580 million — but 9.7 million were returned to manufacturers. This comes as the government has forked out a $490 million loan for Australia’s first salt operation in decades, the BCI Minerals project. The West ($) reports it’ll create 5.3 million tonnes of salt a year, making us a top-three producer worldwide. It’ll be used to create “aluminium, glass, solar panels, ceramics, paints and plastics”, the paper says.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
An elderly man named Nicolas Puech strolled through the vast gardens of his home in Martigny. One can go many ways in the Swiss city — one road leads south-east to Italy, another goes west into France. It’s from that way from whence Puech came — he was born in a small French commune quite close to Paris to father Francis and mother Yvonne. Her surname was Hermès — of one of the world’s most famous high-fashion empires. It has been a long way up for a brand that began in 1837 as a manufacturer of horse harnesses. But the luxury business was built on the strength of a stitch that could be managed only by hand. Peering across the lush landscaping, Puech pondered on the many forms of beauty that handy work can create in this life.
Or maybe he didn’t. We know very little about the French heir to the billion-dollar business, who never married or had children. He’d always vowed to leave his mammoth 5.7% stake in Hermès to the charitable foundation he founded. But Puech has recently outlined his philanthropic intention to donate half of his $19.4 billion fortune to his gardener and handyman. A Swiss newspaper describes the lucky man as a “servant from a modest Moroccan family”, but Puech reportedly refers to him as his son, and has already begun the process of adopting him. He’s not exactly a kid — he reportedly has two children, who Puech also reportedly thinks of as his own. It turned out to be another bond that began by hand, as Thierry Hermès said — or more precisely, a green thumb.
Hoping your heart is in bloom at this cheery time of year.
SAY WHAT?
My father has been dead for five years so we were understandably shocked and upset. They are obviously using these letters as a catch-all to really frighten some people and many people would just go and pay it. But the letter doesn’t even clarify where the debt comes from.
Canberra retiree
The woman, who asked Guardian Australia to remain anonymous, has been chased by the ATO to pay an outstanding debt from her father’s estate as part of the tax office chasing thousands of historical debts, dubbed robotax.
CRIKEY RECAP
“For Lehrmann’s team, the big challenge is identification. It’s a given that what Network 10 broadcast was defamatory (the rape allegation), but Lehrmann wasn’t named. He has to prove that he was identifiable to the audience from a combination of clues that Ten gave and other information they probably already knew.
“If he gets past that, it’s all about Ten’s defences. The big one, which I expect will determine the case, is justification: truth. If Ten can satisfy the judge on the balance of probabilities that the rape allegation is substantially true, it wins. Fundamentally this turns on the testimonies of Lehrmann and Brittany Higgins, and the judge’s assessment of their credit will be crucial.”
“But new unedited footage unearthed by Crikey, an independent audio report and interviews with forensic audio experts have cast further doubt on whether that specific chant was captured in this footage. Even if these videos don’t depict that chant, it neither proves the phrase wasn’t chanted, nor does it cast doubt on the other (widely reported) anti-Semitic chanting from protesters.
“However, a ‘gas the Jews’ chant is both distinct and significant as that specific language would be likely to reach the criminal standard of threatening or inciting violence against protected groups, according to a briefing reportedly given to the state’s police minister. And the interpretation of the videos will be likely to influence whether NSW Police charge protesters as they have been shown to police.”
“Division and grievance make for great campaign tools but aren’t much chop for governing competently — if that is even your goal. It wasn’t the goal of Donald Trump, or Boris Johnson, or Scott Morrison, whether they were capable of governing or not. They weren’t interested in dealing with the complexity of responding to real-world problems and didn’t view government as a mechanism for achieving public policy objectives, only for delivering for donors.
“The rest was marketing, culture wars, presentation. All got found out by COVID-19, although Morrison’s cavalier, I’m-still-going-to-the-footy approach was overruled by state premiers. Issues within his own control, such as protecting people in aged care, a COVID-19 app, or the vaccine rollout, proved well beyond him. The common factor, however, between Trump, Johnson and Morrison was the focus on marketing and presentation over governing.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Hamas head in Cairo as momentum builds towards new Israel-Hamas truce talks (Al Jazeera)
JN.1 COVID variant: WHO charts its rapid global spread (BBC)
Malaysia bans Israeli-owned and -linked shipping citing ‘cruelty against the Palestinian people’ (CNN)
Poland’s new government sacks state TV, radio and news bosses (The Guardian)
Trudeau says he’s sensed a ‘tonal shift’ from India since US reported alleged murder plot (CBC)
The ‘sausages, messes and holes’ of [NZ] National’s mini-budget (Stuff)
Tesla blamed drivers for failures of parts it long knew were defective (Reuters)
Pornhub, Stripchat and XVideos to be policed under EU’s stringent digital rules (euronews)
THE COMMENTARIAT
A terrorist threat? Possibly, but Benbrika was rightly freed — Rodger Shanahan (The SMH) ($): “Benbrika has been awarded a one-year extended supervision order with 30 conditions attached to it, including electronic monitoring, limits on travel and association with particular people, and publicly speaking on certain subjects. It is less than the three-year ESO sought by the government, which has said it will review the decision before taking any further steps. While being seen to be tough on terrorism may play well to a domestic audience, it is essential in an advanced liberal democracy such as Australia not to lose sight of the principles on which we operate as a mature society, and part of that is an acceptance that it is the job of the legal system to determine guilt and to apply the punishment appropriate to the crime committed. This applies to terrorism offences as much as it does to normal criminal offences.
“Continuing detention orders not only threaten that principle, they simply kick the problem down the road and do nothing to assist in the rehabilitation of allegedly committed ideologues. Indeed, one could argue that in the jihadist milieu, continuing detention enhances offenders’ reputations and makes them potentially more influential. Supervision after release provides strict safety guarantees for the population while denying terrorists the opportunity to burnish their credentials as the ‘oppressed’. Benbrika may have rejected Australia’s liberal democratic society, but if governments want to guarantee the public’s safety from him and his ilk, they must do so without compromising the principles of justice that are fundamental to liberal democracies. At stake is our greater liberty, not only Benbrika’s.”
‘I am your retribution.’ Trump knows what he wants to do with a second term — Thomas B. Edsall (The New York Times) ($): “One of Trump’s most startling proposals is to create a new category of federal employee known as Schedule F. It would eliminate civil service protections against arbitrary firing and other punishments for an estimated 50,000 or more elite federal workers. Their jobs would, in effect, become political patronage appointments. (Trump signed an executive order establishing Schedule F near the end of his presidency, but President Biden rescinded it.) The Office of Personnel Management described Schedule F as directing federal agencies ‘to move potentially large swaths of career employees into a new “at will” status that would purportedly strip them of civil service protection’,
“Experts in federal employment law disagree over whether, in a second term, Trump would have the power to initiate a radical change like Schedule F without congressional approval. Anne Joseph O’Connell, a law professor at Stanford whose research focuses on administrative law and the federal bureaucracy, wrote by email that Trump may have the authority to create a new Schedule F. But she added that the scope of the change in traditional practices called for by the proposal may make it subject to judicial review … The key issue in the case of Schedule F is how the Supreme Court would view such an extreme alteration of federal employment practices resulting from a unilateral presidential decision.”
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WHAT’S ON TODAY
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Festive flick Home Alone 2 will screen outdoors tonight at Cato Park in Stawell.
