MONEY TALKS
Former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins has settled a personal injury compensation claim with the Commonwealth, the terms of which are to remain confidential, says the ABC. The dollar value was not disclosed but earlier reports from The Age said the civil action case in which Higgins intended to sue former Liberal ministers Linda Reynolds and Michaelia Cash as well as the Commonwealth for “sexual harassment, sex discrimination, disability discrimination, negligence, and victimisation” was to the tune of $3 million. News.com.au was ardent to point out that the “multimillion-dollar” deal was “taxpayer-funded”. The decision to pursue compensation coincided with a decision by prosecutors to abort a retrial in the criminal case against Bruce Lehrmann — who Higgins had accused of rape — because of concerns for her well-being, Guardian Australia adds. The case collapsed due to juror misconduct last month. Lehrmann maintains his innocence and is expected to pursue civil remedies of his own for loss of reputation and employment and potential defamation action against the ABC, The Australian, and Network 10’s The Project.
Speaking of defamation, Australian media companies may not be liable for third-party comments on social media posts, Guardian Australia reports. The new “innocent dissemination defence” has in-principle support from the Standing Council of Attorneys-General. If signed into law (and then into effect come 2024), media companies and Facebook page administrators — not the author, originator or poster of the matter — would need a strongly worded email (or something in writing) from a complainant before they could launch defamation proceedings.
POWER TALKS
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is expected to meet a slew of gas industry representatives in Canberra today ahead of Thursday’s parliamentary vote on a price cap and code of conduct, the AFR reports. Greens Leader Adam Bandt will also get a time slot to talk energy relief, adds AAP. Labor’s proposed package involves $3 billion to go direct to low-income households, as well as a one-year $125-a-tonne cap on coal, a $12-a-gigajoule cap on gas, and requirements for gas to always operate at a “reasonable price”. No one is particularly happy. Energy bigwigs say the government is crippling input and output, a point which Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said was only natural for gas companies wanting to maximise their profits. “That’s their job,” but it comes at loggerheads with the government’s job to “protect the Australian people”.
On the other side of the fence, the Greens want more support for relief measures and more investment in the shift away from fossil fuels. That said, they support the bill. Labor is not looking likely to budge in either direction given it probably has the numbers to pass its package without Coalition support. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has not yet revealed his party’s stance — that happens today — but he is expected to line up with fossil fuel executives.
A SORRY BUSINESS
Bali bomber Umar Patek has apologised to “victims and their families both at home and abroad” after his early release from prison last week. The Indonesian militant who also goes by Hisyam bin Alizein is out on parole (and will be until 2030) after serving 10 years of a 20-year prison sentence for his role in the 2002 Bali bombings, the SMH reports. He was a leading member of the al-Qaeda-linked network Jemaah Islamiyah and responsible for making the explosives that killed 202 people, 88 of whom were Australians.
Since his release Patek has been admitted to a deradicalisation program. Indonesian authorities claim he is already reformed and expect him to mentor other militants to “turn away from terrorism”. The Australian government is less convinced by Patek’s plans to open a restaurant and relaunch himself as a family man, says the SMH. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described him as “abhorrent” and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles urged the Indonesians to keep a close eye on him.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
The “baggy green” beret has long been a feather in the cap for Australian cricket players so imagine the horror when stand-in captain Steve Smith appeared on field with his hat in tatters. Perhaps Smith was trying to launch a “distressed” look for Cricket Australia’s spring/summer 2023 ready-to-wear collection, but even by vintage standards, the hat was in an objective state of disrepair. Fans and commentators took to social media to cry murder, denouncing the well-worn look for defacing an “iconic and treasured garment of national pride”. Others implored him to “please do better”. So how did Smith get it so wrong? Rodents done it, said the batsman. As is standard practice, he left the “sacred headwear” overnight in the change rooms during the July Test series against Sri Lanka, The Australian ($) reports. Next day, it had been thoroughly nibbled.
Smith conceded the cap was “falling apart” and assured the paper he had plans to get it fixed this week. Lucky for him, if the baggy green is too far gone for even the most apt of tailors, cricket convention does permit him to get a new one. And he would not be the first. Other Australian cricketers including former Test captain Ricky Ponting tried to ride the treacherous line between retro and rags. Ponting sent his cap in for repair four times and once it returned without a peak. The new look was so triggering that a member of management “threw up when it was unpacked in the dressing room”. Yikes. At least functionally it was still intact. Hark back to 2018 when Cameron Bancroft’s overly “distressed” jockstrap snapped on field mid-match… or so he claimed. Bancroft was later found with sandpaper down his pants in a ball-tampering scandal. Smith was skipper at the time.
I hope you’re feeling confident to exercise a little liberty with your wardrobe today, folks.
SAY WHAT?
She did not know whether she was going to be shot or she was going to be burnt alive.
Ian Leavers
The Queensland Police Union president detailed the horrific experience of 28-year-old Constable Keely Brough as she hid in a flaming field from camouflage-clad shooters. Following a missing persons call-out to a property in Wieambilla, her two colleagues — constables Matthew Arnold and Rachel McCrow — were shot dead. Brough fled into long grass which was then set alight in a bid to “smoke her out”. Brough survived the six-hour siege alongside Constable Randall Kirk, but “what was going through her mind, one cannot comprehend”, Leavers told the ABC.
CRIKEY RECAP
Wieambilla shooter posted on online conspiracy forums about police ‘corruption’, gun rights
“One of the men who shot and killed two police officers and a member of the public on Monday in Wieambilla, Queensland, appears to have an extensive online history of paranoid, delusional posts on Australian conspiracy websites …
“Often quoting Bible verses, the account promoted a huge array of conspiracies about topics like COVID-19 vaccines, chemtrails, the CIA and its MKUltra program, the New World Order, the Illuminati, China, satanic forces and various anti-Semitic concepts. It also espoused ideas and interacted with prominent Australian figures from the sovereign citizen movement, a group of people with a loose ideology based on rejecting the legitimacy of law and institutions. The account rejected QAnon and Donald Trump as ‘psyops’ (short for psychological operations) run by nefarious forces.”
Has the AFP rotted from within? A judicial inquiry is needed to get to the bottom of the Lehrmann case
“Viewed from a distance, the Bruce Lehrmann prosecution now looks like a hideous tabloid mess, a tangle of intersecting agendas that produced the legal system equivalent of a train wreck from which nobody has emerged with their dignity intact. The recriminations will flow for some time, and they will further cloud the central question on which justice was supposed to be done but, now and forever, will not be.
“There are lessons here if we are dispassionate enough to pick through the wreckage with a forensic eye. In particular, two figures rise above the fog, and we should take note of what they have said.”
The Twitter Files are becoming Elon Musk’s QAnon
“The Twitter Files is a handful of Twitter threads (lingo for consecutive posts read as if one train of thought) from a few handpicked journalists granted access to the company’s internal documents. One of those journalists says they show how staff at the ‘world’s largest and most influential social media platform’ are working together to ‘manipulate speech’ at the behest of ‘connected actors’ before Musk’s takeover…
“The problem is that these documents have been completely misconstrued and decontextualised in a way that makes them deeply misleading to most readers. The Twitter Files promised proof of big tech and the deep state working hand-in-hand to control the public debate. What it actually shows is how Musk’s Twitter is clumsily trying to do the same thing and, in doing so, is harnessing some of the darkest energy of the internet.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
How US scientists moved one step closer to dream of fusion power (Financial Times)
DealBook: The spectacular rise and fall of Sam Bankman-Fried has come full circle (The New York Times)
Bangladesh arrests head of largest Muslim party amid crackdown (Al Jazeera)
US lawmakers unveil bipartisan bid to ban China’s TikTok (Reuters)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Anthony Albanese’s latest plan to subsidise foreign coal and gas companies is just absurd — Richard Denniss (Guardian Australia): “Just as a fish can’t taste the water it swims in, it is hard for Australians to notice how bizarre our climate and energy policy debates have become. We have seemingly abandoned economics, climate science and even opinion polling when it comes to identifying options for reform. The only way forward is what the fossil fuel industry tells us to do. Imagine if we had taken that approach to tobacco control…
“Fossil fuel subsidies are a stupid idea, unless you want more fossil fuels. Australia spends around $11 billion a year on them. On top of that, Labor has committed $1.9 billion to the Northern Territory’s Middle Arm Petrochemical plant which will convert fracked gas from the Betaloo Basin into gas for export, fertiliser and plastics. Not only are there 114 new gas projects and coalmines seeking approval in Australia, the government is subsiding the construction of factories that will use those fossil fuels. We aren’t so much decarbonising our economy as turbocharging its carbon intensity.”
PM’s energy policy wins the politics but there are lots of risks — Paul Kelly (The Australian) ($): “Gas companies have cried wolf before. But the policy as outlined envisages a sustained intervention that must have deep consequences. It means a degree of price relief for households and industry that will guarantee political authorisation, though the actual size of the price relief raises doubts about the benefits and costs in the entire package; it hits gas company profits with a dampening impact on investment and supply that will deepen the uncertainty about the role of gas in Australia’s transition; it highlights the urgency with which Labor must oversee massive capital investment in renewable technology to deliver its emission reduction targets; and it heightens the risk of a crisis in the power system’s capacity as Labor aspires to what seems improbable, keeping sufficient fossil fuel reliability in the system as the market shifts to renewable investment.
“The immediate politics will surely work. Labor expects to prevail in the Parliament. The industry may threaten but it lacks the traction to wage a successful $20 million mass media campaign. Labor is emboldened because it enjoys the electoral winds. Albanese Labor is imposing tight controls on the sector but mocks any notion investment will be damaged — that’s heroic.”
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Election results for the Victorian upper house will be formally calculated today. Each region will be allocated a counting slot of 20 minutes.
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
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Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe will deliver the keynote address at the AusPayNet annual summit.
