PM PLACES HIS BET ON ADS
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese thinks betting ads during the footy are “annoying”, but he also finds it annoying that the Coalition did squat about it for nine years, as Guardian Australia reports. (And it’s not just gambling ads — check out Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen’s video asking, and answering, why Dutton didn’t act on nuclear when his party was in government: “Because it’s a very dumb idea.”) It comes after Opposition Leader Peter Dutton called for gambling ads to be banned during the game and an hour either side of it. Dutton said watching sport can feel like a “bombardment”, and just normalises gambling for kids. Could a gambling ad ban become law? Albanese said there’s a review underway, but the paper notes the gaming sector is gearing up for battle.
It comes as Dutton’s suggestion that we raise the income threshold for JobSeekers so they can work more before their payments decrease is described as a “thought bubble with no substantive analysis behind it”, Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth said, as the ABC reports. But we won’t rule it out, Treasurer Jim Chalmers told Insiders in not so many words, saying the government was looking at a raft of measures within and beyond the budget. It seems voters aren’t entirely convinced, according to Newspoll anyway. The Australian ($) says about 41% of 18- to 34-year-olds think the budget will be good for the economy — but just a quarter of 50- to 64-year-olds agree. On whether it serves us, one in five said they’d be better off financially, 36% said they’d be worse off, and the rest were undecided. On matters of leadership, Albanese gained four satisfaction points to 56%, a mere speck in the distance ahead of Dutton’s one-point lift to 29%.
CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME
We’ve got new insight into Governor-General David Hurley and bureaucrat Paul Singer’s involvement in the Morrison government funding the Australian Future Leaders Foundation, thanks to an FOI. It comes from citizen journalist Ronni Salt — an anonymous but popular Twitter commentator who has broken some cracking stories, as Crikey reported last year — and a public servant known as Jommy Tee. “The identities of the authors are known to the editors of this publication,” Michael West Media adds mysteriously. The pair writes that documents show the foundation was never at arm’s length, as Singer told Senate estimates. It got an $18 million grant without a competitive tender under the Morrison tenure — that was scrapped by Labor last year, as Guardian Australia explains.
Speaking of non-partisan scraps — crossbenchers may be able to join the secretive bipartisan intelligence committee, and the Coalition is livid. A seat at the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security (PJCIS) is a hot commodity because the group gets top-secret briefings from ASIO, as Guardian Australia reports. The Albanese government wants to add two to the panel (taking it from 11 to 13) because of its workload — but deputy chair Andrew Wallace reckons it stinks of backroom deals with the independents. Five Coalition members have lodged a dissenting report — the first in 17 years — saying only Labor and the Coalition should get to join.
LEARNING THE HARD WAY
The price of high school has almost tripled since 2003, and preschool, primary and university have all doubled, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Education now accounts for three spots on the top 10 biggest price rises over the past two decades, the SMH ($) reports. That means the cost of high school has grown faster than electricity prices, property rates and water bills, and is only just behind the price rise of tobacco, gas and medical/hospital services. It comes as 46 government and non-government schools in central Australia were given $40.4 million in the budget, creating rather mixed feelings. Yipirinya school’s principal told Crikey it was welcome, but “it costs us $650k a year just to run our buses”.
There was a really nice story over the weekend about Granville Boys High School, once infamous for violence and truancy, turning over a new leaf under a new principal, Noel Dixon. He told Guardian Australia they’ve worked hard to make school a safe and exciting space for the boys, and it’s seen NAPLAN and HSC results improve, as well as school attendance and behaviour. It’s manifesting in other ways too — the school’s Year 12 robotics team won a national competition in December and is headed to the US, and kids are flocking to the barbershop program and bagpipes band. There’s a record number of enrolments for next year — more than 200 for Year 7 alone. It comes as Education Minister Jason Clare (the “boy from western Sydney”) did a sit-down with the SMH ($), but I’m struggling to bring you a top line in the fluff piece, folks. Clare says it’s the “year of ideas” but won’t put a price on any reforms, with “implementation” to happen next year. OK?
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
A quote often misattributed to F Scott Fitzgerald, but actually probably written by screenwriter Eric Roth, begins: “For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, start whenever you want … I hope you see things that startle you.” A 99-year-old woman named Annie Duplock has done just that, achieving her lifelong dream of having several extremely sharp knives thrown at her, the BBC reports. The little old lady, ensconced in a sensible sky-blue cardigan and propped up by a walking cane, walked on to the stage to the screams of the crowd on Friday. A knife-thrower, wearing a red silk shirt with a ponytail nearly down to his butt, promptly draws her profile with blades thrown at the board behind her, in a heart-stopping video you gotta see to believe.
Duplock worked for the circus some 30 years ago, putting up posters to advertise the show in her local area of Sharnford, Leicestershire. When she saw the familiar posters around her neighbourhood last week, she immediately rang her daughter and urged her to contact her old boss, Zippos Circus founder Martin Burton, about her lifelong dream. Burton listened to Duplock’s daughter’s impassioned request for someone to throw daggers at her elderly mum and was like, OK! The 99-year-old was ecstatic. She figured it was the perfect way to ring in her centenary in three months, and you couldn’t wipe the grin off her face as the spectacle unfolded. “I’ve always wanted to have knives thrown at me!” Duplock said. “I’m ready for the next one.”
Wishing you the courage of Annie Duplock today.
SAY WHAT?
It’s outrageous that the state is putting children in solitary confinement and then acting surprised when it pushes children over the edge.
Rosa Hicks
The Break the Cycle founder was astounded when WA Premier Mark McGowan doubled down on labelling incarcerated children, many of whom are Indigenous, as engaging in a “form of terrorism” after a riot at Banksia Hill prison. A class action on behalf of 500 current and former young inmates alleges mistreatment akin to torture, including long spells of solitary confinement.
CRIKEY RECAP
“Doctors will be astonished to learn that Dutton was championing his record as health minister; back in 2015 he was notoriously voted the worst health minister in 35 years. Nonetheless, he also committed to restoring mental health cuts to the ‘Better Access’ program that Labor’s Mark Butler has surprisingly implemented. He made special mention of the need for better dementia care. These are real policy commitments that should be taken more seriously by covering media.
“Dutton pivoted on welfare, fudging the issue of raising the base rate of benefits and instead proposing a policy increasing the income threshold for jobseekers looking to work part-time. The irony here was delicious: after a decade of beating up on welfare recipients, suddenly Dutton wants to free up their ability to seek extra work.”
“In this connection, Drumgold pointed to the ‘really strong passion’ with which police expressed their views, and the unusual attendance of superintendent Scott Moller at his second meeting with police in April, which he believed, whether ‘right or wrong’, was designed to exert pressure on him to accede to the view of police that the case was weak.
“Beyond this, he said the highly unorthodox decision of a senior ranking police officer to provide defence with an unredacted brief of evidence, contrary to usual practice and mere days after Lehrmann was charged, sounded further alarm. The unredacted brief contained several protected confidences, including unlawfully obtained counselling notes of Higgins, and a strongly worded summary of police doubts as to Higgins’ credibility.”
“Anti-vaccine supporters of a woman denied a place on the heart transplant list over her unvaccinated status are fundraising to send her overseas for a transplant despite her quickly deteriorating health. Vicki Derderian has been on life support since her heart failed in 2020. She claims her refusal to take a COVID-19 or flu vaccine meant she has been denied a place on the heart transplant list.
“Her high-profile case has become a cause célèbre of the anti-vaccine movement and has featured on mainstream media platforms such as the Today breakfast program and 2GB’s Ben Fordham Live. Alfred Health has said that vaccination status is one factor in the decision about whether to list a patient for transplants.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Prominent Sudanese singer Shaden Gardood killed in crossfire (Al Jazeera)
Thai vote counting shows ex-PM’s daughter in lead (BBC)
Thailand’s opposition opens up big election lead as army parties slide (Reuters)
Sweden’s Loreen takes Eurovision trophy for second time (BBC)
Russia may have just lost four aircraft in one day. Here’s what we know (CNN)
UK home secretary accused of breaching barristers’ code over ‘racist’ language (The Guardian)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Why is the Liberal Party in the doldrums? It’s a question of geography — George Brandis (The SMH) ($): “The Liberal Party is today less representative of metropolitan Australia than it has ever been. Add to that the proportionately larger influence within the Coalition of the National Party — whose electoral base has held firm while the Liberals bled marginal seats in the cities — and the opposition today is overwhelmingly a party of regional voices.
“This is evident in the makeup of the Coalition leadership. Not one of the six who occupy leadership positions comes from Sydney or Melbourne. The largest city represented in the leadership group is Brisbane (Peter Dutton’s electorate, Dickson, is on Brisbane’s northern outskirts). The two Senate leaders (Simon Birmingham and Michaelia Cash) come from the smaller capital cities (Adelaide and Perth respectively).”
The four big investment calls facing our super funds — Jonathan Shapiro (The AFR) ($): “Australia’s $3.4 trillion pension system, the fourth-largest in the world, has been the subject of intense fascination from overseas asset managers eyeing a commercial opportunity. But they’ve tended to share a common lament: our super funds can be stingy when it comes to paying high fees, even if they’re associated with strong performance, while any strategies that don’t fit neatly into a particular asset class aren’t worth the hassle.
“While some foreign funds may have pared back their Australian marketing efforts, super funds have done just fine in what has until recently been a favourable backdrop for stocks, bonds and private assets. But as market conditions change and our superannuation system grows ever larger, super funds and other large asset owners will encounter more constraints and tougher choices. How they position themselves for the next decade will have multibillion-dollar consequences for members. Fund managers that can’t win mandates off the super funds may decide the opportunity is to bet against them.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Online
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Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen will speak about the energy transition in a webinar held by CEDA.
Yuggera and Turrbal Country (also known as Brisbane)
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Author Loraine Peck will speak about her book, The Double Bind, at Avid Reader bookshop.
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Former justice of the High Court of Australia Kenneth Hayne and Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous at UNSW Megan Davis will talk about the administrative and constitutional law implications of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, at Banco Court.
