NO MAKARRATA COMMISSION
The Australian and the ABC have led their coverage overnight with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese ruling out a Makarrata commission to lead truth-telling about First Nations history. Both point out it had been a Labor election promise, with the ABC saying the government had already allocated $5.8 million towards its establishment. Guardian Australia said Makarrata is one of three ambitions of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, alongside a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous Voice to Parliament, which was rejected in last year’s referendum, and a treaty or treaties.
During an interview with the ABC’s Insiders program at the Garma Festival over the weekend, the prime minister declared: “That’s not what we have proposed. What we’ve proposed is Makarrata just being the idea of coming together.” He later added: “With regard to Makarrata, a Yolngu word — that simply means a coming together after struggle. I’m somewhat perplexed at why people see that as being complex.” Pushed by host David Speers what he meant, Albanese said: “What it means is that this is happening. This is a coming together of people through engagement.”
Uluru Dialogue co-chair Pat Anderson said on Sunday night in response: “Is he [Albanese] rolling back on the Labor election commitment to the Makarrata commission? We understand that a constitutional Voice didn’t get up, but the Australian people didn’t vote on truth or treaty. Makarrata is not a vague vibe or a series of casual conversations. The Makarrata called for in the Uluru Statement is a bricks-and-mortar body and it was a clear election promise.”
Dean Parkin, a key figure behind the Uluru Statement, said: “That was the election night commitment, it was to the full implementation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart and [it] is very, very clear on that point. The first element of the commitment has been carried through, the prime minister has been true to his word on that, and we would say that the remainder of the Uluru Statement from the Heart is outstanding, and it does involve a commission.”
Guardian Australia reports the Albanese government has also been accused of a “total cop-out” and lacking political courage over reports it may not implement a blanket ban on gambling advertising. According to a report by the Nine newspapers at the weekend, the proposal includes a cap of two gambling ads per hour on each channel until 10pm, and banning ads an hour before and after live sporting events. There is set to be a blanket ban on ads on social media and other digital platforms though. Independent Senator David Pocock described it as a “watered down policy to appease the gambling industry”, while crossbench MP Zoe Daniel criticised it as a “half-hearted, half-arsed” proposal.
As Albanese tries to navigate the criticisms this morning, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is attempting a charm offensive of his own with a five-day “rehabilitation tour” in WA which began on Friday. He is quoted in The West Australian as saying: “The more you meet me, the more you like me. Off a difficult state election and a difficult federal election, we have a lot of rebuilding to do in WA. I am here to listen to the people of Western Australia — to make sure we can introduce policies to help this great state grow, not shrink.”
THE RBA, ASX AND ABC
Talking of growth, or more accurately of the fears the US economy may be set for a bumpy time and could bring global growth down with it, the AFR claims the ASX is set for its worst two-day sell-off in two years after jobs data in the US contributed to fears about its economy.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) board is meeting today, and its decision on interest rates is due tomorrow afternoon. The RBA is widely expected to leave rates on hold at 4.35%, especially after last week’s inflation numbers. Plenty was written last week on when any potential rate cut may eventually arrive and if it will come before the federal election. The Sydney Morning Herald today reports the rate of food inflation has now slowed to pre-COVID-19 levels but also highlights the Australian Council of Social Service is arguing the economy and jobs market are much weaker than the RBA believes and therefore it should cut rates now.
Outside of the Olympics coverage, which unsurprisingly is dominating every national news website (as Australia continues to build on its best-ever start to a Games), the SMH has been leading this morning on leaked audio it says it has obtained of ABC chair Kim Williams criticising the organisation’s digital news platforms in an address to Radio National staff last month.
The paper reports Williams lamented the mix of stories and headlines in the ABC’s news feed and the preference for lifestyle stories. “I think people have, in moments of public torment, crisis, division, challenges to leadership, a right to be able to access it from us reliably and immediately, and not to suddenly see a lifestyle story being No.1 or No.2 or No.3,” he is reported to have said. The Australian, as it does most days, also has a piece on the ABC, reporting the broadcaster’s spend on advertising, promotions and audience research is up more than 33% over the last year to $21 million.
Finally, the AAP highlights that a Senate committee will today hear from government departments and aid agencies as part of an inquiry into Australia’s response to the war in Ukraine.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
A teacher in Adelaide received a most unexpected text message from her mother while teaching her Year 2 students the other day — her cat, who went missing some two-and-a-half years ago, had miraculously been found.
“It took me a while to figure out what she [her mother] was talking about,” Guardian Australia quotes Jessica van Niekerk as saying. “I was shocked, to be honest. I looked for months and I always held out a little hope, but in the end I gave up on ever seeing him again.”
The ABC said the cat, named George, had gone missing from his Davoren Park home in Adelaide’s north in March 2022. The broadcaster said George spent the next two years living at an industrial park at Edinburgh, several kilometres from where he disappeared.
Local workers took to feeding him and according to one, Courtney Mincham, found quite a unique place to live. “He was actually living in the drainpipes around our workplace — there’s a bit of a network of them around the area, because he would go through one and pop out the other,” she said.
Courtney one day spotted something wrapped around the cat’s neck and decided to contact the RSPCA, who initially caught George, before one of Courtney’s co-workers unknowingly released him again.
“Fellow stray catchers on the internet suggested KFC as a way to get back into the trap they’d already escaped from, and so I put a bit of KFC in the trap every night,” she said. George was eventually recaptured and taken to the RSPCA’s animal care centre at O’Halloran Hill where the item wrapped around his neck was found to be a harness and a microchipping check revealed his owner.
Jessica and George were soon reunited. “He’s just as cuddly — the same old George, he jumps up on you … trying to see what you’re doing or trying to pinch your food. He’s back to being his little piggy self,” Guardian Australia quotes her as saying, while 7News said her pupils had “lots of questions and ideas about where he might have gone” when she told them of his adventure.
Say What?
I’d like to congratulate Vladimir Putin for having made yet another great deal.
Donald Trump
The former president and Republican nominee was addressing at a rally in Atlanta at the weekend when he praised the Russian president over the high-profile prison swap involving Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. Politico said Trump asked his rally “did you see the deal we made?”, adding “some of the greatest killers” in the world had been released in the historic prisoner swap last week. “We got our people back, but boy we make some horrible, horrible deals. It’s nice to say we got ’em back, but does that set a bad precedent?”
CRIKEY RECAP
It seems highly unlikely that Babet will ever be reelected, not without another mammoth Palmer spend and another lucky set of preference flows. He is currently quite powerless in the Senate, with Labor able to pass legislation with the Greens and three crossbenchers. But he does have four years left on his six-year term. Could he end up with a more potent balance of power in the next Parliament?
With the crossbench now sitting at a record-high of 20, and 10 crossbenchers with four years left, it looks vaguely possible. But it remains to be seen if Babet would know how to use that power for anything other than mid shitposting, as he heads further down the MAGA mind control wormhole, hoping “the patriarch” will finally notice him.
Nevertheless, Harris’ candidacy has knocked Team Trump sideways, the ex-president responding with his worst, most obsessive bitterness and pettiness, the stuff his base loves but the periphery that he needs to win hates (but will tolerate). The klutzy handling of the response to Harris — personalised, rather than tying her to the Biden administration — suggests that The Donald has now lost his strategic compass, and there is no-one in the campaign to get him back on track.
After all, the 2016 campaign, for all the chaos around it, was focused on one big thing: tying Hillary Clinton to NAFTA, and the globalisation of the US economy in the ’90s, which turned the rust belt into a rust bucket, and, by creating a US-Mexico border zone of industrialisation, turned the stream of undocumented border crossers into a flood. With Trump tasked with selling it in 2016, and his VP choice Mike Pence, the representative of the Republican Party establishment (when it had an establishment) standing there, feet firmly planted, like a bass player keeping the beat, the presidential candidate could go wild.
In the course of reporting this story, Crikey interviewed a nine-year-old and a six-year-old — with their parents’ permission — about what they thought about Runciman’s proposal.
The nine-year-old said she believed six-year-olds were too young to vote: “When you’re six you don’t know what you’re getting into, you don’t understand how serious it is. Maybe it could be 16 or 17.”
The six-year-old, when asked if she thought she and her peers should get the right to vote, replied: “I don’t even know what that is.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Calls for foreigners to leave Lebanon as war fears grow (BBC)
Far-right protesters attack hotel housing asylum seekers in violent weekend (The Washington Post)
Ukraine’s Zelenskyy unveils newly arrived F-16 fighter jets to boost country’s war effort (euronews)
At least 90 killed as Bangladesh protesters renew call for Hasina to quit (Al-Jazeera)
‘It could happen to anyone’: Harry and Meghan discuss dangers of online harm (ITV News)
Harris interviews Walz, Kelly, Shapiro at her home for vice president pick (Reuters)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Even better than gold, these Olympians have shown Aussie girls anything is possible — Shona Hendley (The Sydney Morning Herald): It’s not lost on any parent of girls right now that the overwhelming majority of gold medals won by Australia to date have been earned by young women. Or that as they win across events like swimming, BMX and canoeing, they bring a new generation of kids into sports with them.
Despite the physical, mental and social benefits of sport being well known and well proven, in its 2022 report, Clearinghouse for Sport found only 32% of females will continue participating in sport when they reach the age of 15, compared with 50% of boys.
One of the main reasons for this drop off from girls is a lack of role models, but clinical psychologist Dr Emma Steer says having sight of women at the top of their game, like the Dolphins in Paris and the Matildas during last year’s Women’s World Cup, “is everything”. So much so, that in NSW alone there was an 18% increase in girls taking up soccer in the afterglow of the Tillies’ success.
Albanese’s move to split Asio across two portfolios has laid security and political tensions bare — Karen Middleton (Guardian Australia): This change goes beyond just having a second department involved in warrant authorisation to avoid having one giant department and one single minister checking their own homework and authorising secret activities — arguably an important extra layer of scrutiny in a country that does not aspire to become a police state.
Its impact is potentially more problematic because it means there are effectively now two bosses — one determining the extent of Asio’s powers and the other controlling completely how they are executed. What happens if the new Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke, wants to make a policy change that affects how Asio operates, and Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus doesn’t agree and won’t authorise the agency’s cooperation?
It’s not terribly clear.
