LEAVING NOTHING ON THE FIELD
As the final sitting week of the year enters its last few days, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been telling his MPs he’ll “leave nothing on the field” to ensure Labor wins another majority government next year.
The Australian reports the PM said in his end-of-year address to caucus on Tuesday there would only be a short break over Christmas as he prepares for the upcoming federal election. The paper also highlights that Coalition leader Peter Dutton reckons the government is faltering and making decisions that will make life harder for Australian families.
As we’ve mentioned all week, there’s still A LOT the government hopes to get passed before Parliament rises and The Australian flags Labor MPs have been told there might be an extra sitting day to try and get as much done as possible.
One of the bills the government wants to get over the line is, of course, the social media ban. AAP flags the Senate inquiry into legislation banning under 16s from most platforms, which ran for just one day, has recommended the bill should be passed as the government hopes to get it rushed through despite a chorus of objections.
The Australian says the legislation looks set to pass with Dutton in support of the plans, although it has divided the Coalition partyroom with “Nationals Senator Matt Canavan and Liberal Senator Alex Antic prepared to cross the floor and others reserving their right to do so”. The paper also quotes a Labor MP raising concerns over the speed at which the legislation is being pushed through — though they were not talking about crossing the floor. “It’s the wrong way to go about it. It’s simplifying a very complex issue.”
In addition, the Oz reports Albanese is unlikely to be able to establish an environmental watchdog before next year’s election and he continues to eye a deal with the Greens on his Future Made in Australia agenda.
As flagged in yesterday’s Worm, the government’s controversial migration bills are set to be debated today. AAP says with independents, the Greens, legal experts and human rights advocates condemning the legislation, the government is hoping to use Coalition support to get the bills across the line.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports Immigration Minister Tony Burke has been holding talks with the opposition over the government’s plans to “pay countries to accept convicted criminals it has been unable to deport and revive its travel ban on nations that don’t take back citizens against their will”. The paper explains how the immigration package allows the government to put non-citizens back into detention once another country agrees to take them, and those who do not cooperate with moves to deport them face five years in jail.
More than 80,000 people could be affected by the plans, an inquiry has said, but the Department of Home Affairs claims it will impact around 5,000 people on bridging visas and another 1,000 in immigration and community detention, AAP says.
Immigration barrister Jason Donnelly is quoted by the newswire as saying: “These measures, in combination, raise substantial risks of undermining procedural fairness, individual rights and government accountability.”
CHALMERS URGES CALM
Donald Trump’s latest threat to hit China, Mexico and Canada with new tariffs on the first day of his presidency generated plenty of attention yesterday with the Australian Financial Review leading overnight on the fact the Australian dollar dropped to a four-month low after Trump’s comments while Treasurer Jim Chalmers attempts to calm everyone down.
To recap, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform he would be imposing a 25% tariff on all products from Mexico and Canada, plus an additional 10% on goods from China.
The BBC reports Trump said the tariffs on Canada and Mexico would remain in place until the countries clamped down on drugs, particularly fentanyl, and migrants illegally crossing the border. The broadcaster said he added “we will be charging China an additional 10% tariff, above any additional tariffs” until it cracked down on fentanyl smuggling.
The AFR said on Tuesday the Australian dollar dropped to US64.32c in response — the lowest since early August — before recovering to just under US65c. The paper flagged the Australian dollar “has slumped US5c in just two months, and banks are warning that its future looks bleak”.
Meanwhile, The Age reckons “the Australian economy has been destabilised” by Trump. ANZ chief economist Richard Yetsenga is quoted as saying Tuesday’s events marked “only the beginning” of what could be four years of economic uncertainty.
“This is the United States increasing tariffs on its three largest trading partners. That represents a discrete change in global trade policy,” Yetsenga said. “He [Trump] does take a transactional approach to many things, so this may be the first sense of what we will see under Trump 2.0.”
Responding to Tuesday’s events, Chalmers said: “The incoming US administration will bring a different suite of policies and we’re confident in our ability to navigate that change.
“Our economic plan is all about making Australians big beneficiaries of the shifts that are shaping the global economy. We’re well placed and well prepared to work with the incoming administration in the US.”
Elsewhere, the ABC flags China’s ambassador to Australia said yesterday there was “no reason” that Trump’s second stint in the White House should damage the relationship between Canberra and Beijing.
“There are reasons for us to be responsibly managing relations bilaterally, well enough, maturely enough, so that our two peoples can continue to benefit,” Xiao Qian said. “There is no reason to compromise our respective interests for the sake of a third party.”
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
An editor I once worked with banned coverage of the death of the world’s oldest person, because inevitably the stories never end — there’s always someone who takes over as the oldest person alive.
That’s a fair point, but I think regardless we should pause and reflect on the life lessons John Tinniswood, who passed away on Monday aged 112, had for us.
Tinniswood, from Merseyside, England, previously told the Guinness World Records his longevity was down to “pure luck”, CNN reports.
“You either live long or you live short, and you can’t do much about it,” he said.
As The Guardian points out he also suggested moderation was key. “If you drink too much or you eat too much or you walk too much, if you do too much of anything, you’re going to suffer eventually,” he said.
The paper said Tinniswood managed his own finances and kept up with the news every day. His family said in a statement: “He was intelligent, decisive, brave, calm in any crisis, talented at maths and a great conversationalist. His last day was surrounded by music and love.”
Say What?
This word captures what many of us feel is happening to the world and to so many aspects of our lives at the moment.
Macquarie Dictionary
We’ve flagged previous words of the year in the Worm and today it’s Macquarie Dictionary’s turn — the dictionary has declared “enshittification” its word of 2024. The dictionary defines the word as: “The gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking.”
CRIKEY RECAP
Australia’s teen social media ban won’t require TikTok or YouTube to stop children from using their algorithmically driven short-video platforms, significantly undermining the government’s major motivations for the policy.
Experiments by Crikey show that TikTok and YouTube Shorts users are algorithmically recommended videos by both platforms without needing to log in — meaning that these services won’t be affected by the Albanese government’s bill which seeks to regulate only logged-in users.
Among the government’s justifications for a blanket ban on children under the age of 16 using social media are fears about the impact of social media algorithms on young Australians.
Nonetheless, by stymieing much of Labor’s housing agenda for the past two years, the Greens can rightly feel it’s mission accomplished. Their goal, like it or not, has been to delay or prevent the government from doing anything noticeable to address housing affordability, such as encouraging the construction of more housing or reducing migration, enabling the Greens to campaign against Labor at the election for failing on housing. You can object to the ruthlessness of the Greens’ tactic, but not the electoral calculation behind it, or its success. A last-minute backflip to allow two relatively modest additions to the policy suite on housing won’t do anything to change those political dynamics. Labor will continue to denounce the “Greens political party” (drink!) as obstructionist and “the party of protest”, but there’s no denying the Greens’ success in preventing reform on housing.
To be fair, Adam Bandt might have pushed the whole charade a bit too far, though, when he declared he would “take the fight to the next election, where we’ll keep Peter Dutton out and then push Labor to act on unlimited rent rises and tax handouts to wealthy property investors”.
Keep Peter Dutton out? The Greens? Consider the seats the Bandt has explicitly said the Greens will target at the next election: Sydney, Macnamara, Wills, Cooper, Richmond. All Labor seats. The Greens will keep Dutton out by… taking seats off Labor. Makes sense. The entire Greens project is to take seats off Labor, understandably. The extent to which a hard-left party cannibalises the vote of a notionally left party, however, matters little to the electability of a right-wing party, beyond the extent to which it makes it easier for the right-wing party to become the largest grouping in Parliament and thus best-placed to form government.
Asked by Spencer to first identify themselves on a political sliding scale of 1-10, with 1 being nominally left and 10 being nominally right, Aly opened proceedings by saying he liked to think he exists “on a third axis … I’ve previously argued in print that left and right are meaningless terms”.
“I would, however, say I’m contractually obliged to be a 5,” he joked.
Lehmann, however, was more forthcoming, describing herself as “probably a seven”, later describing herself as “centre-right”. It was in contrast to Kelty, a key figure in the establishment of the Keating-era Accords, who said he stopped referring to binary left-right scales “when he was 13 or 14”. Kelty went on to describe himself as “unashamedly socialist”.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Eight men detained over suspected Laos methanol poisoning that killed six backpackers (ABC)
Netanyahu urges cabinet to approve ceasefire with Hezbollah (The New York Times) ($)
Five survivors rescued day after tourist boat sank in Red Sea — as search for missing ‘intensifies’ (Sky News)
Fugitive on FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list arrested in UK (CBS News)
THE COMMENTARIAT
What has happened to gambling reform under Labor? It’s simple — the government has been cowed by vested interests — Tim Costello (Guardian Australia): I had a visit on Sunday this week from a secondary school teacher who was asking how he can help his students who are all underage and who have sports betting apps and accounts.
He is distressed that they have absorbed the gambling ad message and that their passion for sport is expressed through gambling.
I assured him that given Labor and the Coalition would legislate a ban on social media for 16-year-olds they cannot enforce, it was surely a fait accompli that we would see a gambling ad ban which they can enforce.
Exactly the same anxiety that parents feel about social media, they feel about gambling ads grooming their kids. Just a few hours later I saw the news that the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, seems to have squibbed any gambling ad reform at all.
I was profoundly shocked. A year ago, I had witnessed the emotion of the PM when he spoke at Peta Murphy’s funeral and I had been assured that Labor would honour her groundbreaking legacy on gambling reform. I honestly believed that.
Mr Trump, do you realise how much the world has changed since you were president? — Thomas L. Friedman (The New York Times): President-elect Trump, you may think that your second term will be judged by how many tariffs you impose on China. I beg to differ. When it comes to US-China relations, I think your legacy — as well as President Xi Jinping’s — will be determined by how quickly, effectively and collaboratively the United States and China come up with a shared technical and ethical framework embedded in each AI system that prevents it from becoming destructive on its own — without human direction — or being useful to bad actors who might want to deploy it for destructive purposes.
History will not look kindly on you, President-elect Trump, if you choose to prioritise the price of toys for American tots over an agreement with China on the behaviour of AI bots.
