TEEN CHARGED
The 16-year-old who allegedly stabbed Sydney bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel has been charged with terrorism, the ABC reports, an offence that carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Officers from the Joint Counter Terrorism Team spoke to him at a medical facility where he is recovering from severing his finger during the alleged stabbing. He was refused bail and will appear at a bedside court hearing on Friday. Guardian Australia notes Emmanuel has “criticised Islam and the prophet Muhammad in public sermons”. It comes as Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones wants to force social media companies to fund local journalism in the wake of rampant misinformation turning a “horrific week into something diabolical”, SMH reports. “Without journalism, God help us,” he said.
Meanwhile, Queensland Police Service’s (QPS) Detective Superintendent Benjamin Fadian tagged officers in Facebook posts about pornography, masturbation and sex toys, Guardian Australia reports. He also tagged someone in a screenshot of a news article about a law student being jailed after hitting a sleeping girl with his penis — the paper notes he was working in the ethical standards command at the time, which investigates complaints against police. Another post shared “every year since 2021” by QPS’s Brad Rix showed a wrinkled International Women’s Day banner, reading “could have ironed it”. When The Guardian put comments to both men, their profiles were locked. Speaking of — the ABC reports this morning that QPS together with Queensland Health “missed” an opportunity to get help for Bondi Junction killer Joel Cauchi who “fell through the cracks”, according to a neuropsychiatrist.
PAYING FOR IT
The states and territories have backed the Albanese government’s “world-leading” legislation that will make buying vapes only possible at a pharmacy with a prescription from a GP, Guardian Australia reports. The statement, cosigned by Health ministers — who are all Labor bar Tassie — says if vapes are touted as a therapeutic good that could help smokers quit, then they should be regulated, not sold next to chocolate bars near schools. One in six high school students and one in four young Australians aged 18 and 24 vape now, the first time our teen smoking rate has risen in decades — it’s amazing everyone fell for it again after the huge anti-tobacco push post-2000. The opposition and Greens haven’t said whether they’ll support the bill yet — it was introduced to Parliament in March.
Speaking of school — Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is expected to change the rate and timing of the HECS indexation due in June, the SMH reports. Indexation rose 7.1% (!) last year driven by the cost price index, but some say it should be determined by the wage price index when that is lower. It comes as Guardian Australia’s education reporter Caitlin Cassidy caused a bit of a stir on X/Twitter yesterday by revealing her $106,000 HECS debt, which has increased by nearly $7,000 despite her already paying back $12,000 since 2020. Of 251 replies, several asked what she studied, with one person noting the debt was the same as their paediatric oncologist partner’s — Cassidy lists her degrees as “Bachelor of Arts in Politics & Creative Writing, a Masters in Global Media Communication at Melbourne University, and a Graduate Diploma in Journalism at RMIT” on her LinkedIn profile.
SAFE AS HOUSES?
A Supreme Court challenge this week in WA seeks to bar the Department of Communities from making kids homeless through either eviction or termination of fixed-term tenancies in public housing, The West Australian ($) reports. A mother is seeking a review of her no-grounds eviction because it could stop her reunification with her kids — similarly, her barristers say the department should never evict when it means kids become homeless. The paper explains most public housing occupants are on rolling leases, but communities will use six-month leases for people with bad tenant history.
Meanwhile, it’s never taken longer to get planned surgery in our hospitals, the Australian Medical Association warned — an average of 49 days for operations. The report card also found the number of people who were helped within four hours of presenting to emergency was 56% in 2022-23, The Australian ($) reports, down 5% from the year before. The AMA cited chronic disease, as well as lacking primary-care access and disability/aged care support as reasons the system is at “breaking point”. And Australia is suffering from “a crisis of male violence” against women, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said. The Age reports 24 women have been killed by men this year alone — including in the town of Ballarat, where three women were killed by men in two months.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
It’s 2006, and kids in an English class at Xavier High School in New York are in various states of comatose, dimly aware of their teacher’s voice keeping time with the metronomic click, click, click of the ceiling fan above. “And that’s your assignment,” Ms Lockwood finished, a slump of heads snapping to attention. “Sorry?” one brave kid ventured. “To write a letter to your favourite author,” the teacher repeated patiently. Scrambling with pen and paper, the students began talking over each other. Shotgun J. K. Rowling! Pff, George R.R. Martin is way cooler! Does anyone know if Tolkien’s still alive?! One kid decided to write an earnest letter to Kurt Vonnegut, even inviting him to visit the school. Weeks passed and not a single author wrote back, as HuffPost tells it. The kids laughed it off superficially, no doubt slightly crestfallen.
Until a letter arrived from Vonnegut. He thanked the kids for writing to an “old geezer” who “resembled nothing as much as an iguana”, causing disarmed laughter for the advice ahead. The writer and humorist continued: “Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow”. Start immediately, Vonnegut told them sternly — write a six-line poem about anything, but don’t show it to a soul. Once you have perfected it, tear it up into “teeny-weeny pieces” and distribute them across several bins. You’ll find you have already been rewarded, he said. “You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.”
Hoping you have time to rhyme, and have a restful weekend ahead.
SAY WHAT?
That’s obviously an issue for the prime minister.
Peter Dutton
The opposition leader said earlier this week he supported Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s “generous offer” of extending citizenship to Frenchman Damien Guerot — known as #BollardMan — but wasn’t moved to suggest it for injured Pakistani security guard Muhammad Taha too. Albanese confirmed yesterday Taha would be offered citizenship.
CRIKEY RECAP
“Without the reformed environment protection laws, the strengthened safeguard mechanism — the government’s main plan to drive down emissions from large polluters — will not work properly. This is because environmental law needs to be amended so greenhouse gas emissions from new coal and gas developments are reported on and tracked.
“In fact, without the national environmental standards — which the federal Environment department dubs the ‘centrepiece of our reforms’ — the whole package of reform seems toothless. Labor’s failure so far to deliver on its promise puts its goals of ‘no new extinctions’ and a ‘nature-positive’ future for Australia at risk.”
“A current and a former Tourism Australia employee told Crikey one of the people who was fired was a senior staff member who worked out of offices in Australia. The other two sacked employees were more junior and based in China, the sources said. Crikey contacted both junior ex-staffers for comment but didn’t hear back.
“Tourism Australia refused to confirm or deny that the senior employee was one of the people let go, citing Privacy Act obligations, but acknowledged it has a new staff member acting in that role and said it plans to recruit for the same role ‘in due course’.”
“The paper’s reporting of the 1989 tragedy at Hillsborough football ground, during which 96 people were killed and dozens badly injured, however, might be its lowest point. In the aftermath of the tragedy, The Sun ran a story under the headline ‘The Truth’, quoting a police officer who claimed Liverpool supporters had stolen from and urinated on victims as they lay dying, and beat up “brave cops” trying to help.
“It emerged in 2012 that they were sent by a Sheffield news agency, White’s, and quoted by The Sun almost verbatim — at which point the paper issued an apology. The Sun is still boycotted in Liverpool.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
German far-right politician on trial for alleged use of banned Nazi slogan (Al Jazeera)
Iran sanctions: US and UK extend measures against Tehran (BBC)
Kenyan military chief dies in helicopter crash, says president (CNN)
Google fires 28 employees who protested its cloud contract with Israeli government (CBC)
Lawyers select 12 jurors to serve in Trump hush-money case (Reuters)
Risk of bird flu spreading to humans is ‘enormous concern’, says WHO (The Guardian)
Polish man arrested on suspicion of spying in Zelenskyy assassination plot (euronews)
Housing market slumps as mortgage rates top 7% (The Wall Street Journal) ($)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Ethnic tensions will complicate the Albanese government’s multicultural policy reform — Michelle Grattan (The Conversation): “Sometimes calls for action may be warranted, but often they’re little more than a knee-jerk response — and can open other debates (for example, over the justification for censoring certain images but not others). The challenge for political leaders is not just dealing with the immediate increasing threats to cohesion but with longer-term policy. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese recently flagged, when he met a Jewish youth group, that the government planned to appoint an envoy against antisemitism (a post existing in other countries) and a matching envoy against Islamophobia. There’s no timetable for these appointments.
“Looking to the future, what’s unclear, given the present tensions, is the likely trajectory of Australia’s multiculturalism. Will the strains worsen, seriously fracturing society? Or will they ameliorate in the years to come? Multiculturalism is likely in transition, but what will be its pathway? And what are the political implications? Labor is particularly worried about the erosion of its support among Muslim voters in Western Sydney seats. The cat was belled on the suburban multicultural vote in 2022, ironically not by a Muslim candidate but a Christian of Vietnamese heritage. Dai Le, whose family fled the Vietnam war, seized the previously safe Labor seat of Fowler in Sydney’s outer south-west.”
The fantasy of reviving nuclear energy — Stephanie Cooke (The New York Times): “So far most of this remains in early stages, with only three nuclear reactors under construction in Western Europe, two in Britain and one in France, each more than a decade behind schedule. Of the approximately 54 other reactors under construction worldwide as of March, 23 are in China, seven are in India, and three are in Russia, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The total is less than a quarter of the 234 reactors under construction in the peak year of 1979, although 48 of those were later suspended or abandoned.
“Even if you agree with [former Biden administration climate envoy John] Kerry’s argument, and many energy experts do not, pledging to triple nuclear capacity by 2050 is a little like promising to win the lottery. For the United States, it would mean adding an additional 200 gigawatts of nuclear operating capacity (almost double what the country has ever built) to the 100 gigawatts or so that now exists, generated by more than 90 commercial reactors that have been running an average of 42 years. Globally it would mean tripling the existing capacity built over the past 70 years in less than half that time, in addition to replacing reactors that will shut down before 2050.”
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WHAT’S ON TODAY
Yuggera and Turrbal Country (also known as Brisbane)
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Author Nikki Mottram will talk about her new book, Killarney, at Avid Reader bookshop.
