WORDS MATTER
Former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins was taken to the Perth hospital’s emergency department on Tuesday, The West ($) reports, after nine-hour-long mediation talks with her former boss, Senator Linda Reynolds (Higgins wasn’t admitted to hospital). The pair met alongside Higgins’ fiancé David Sharaz and lawyers after the judge demanded they work on a settlement (Justice Marcus Solomon reportedly won’t preside over the case because he was involved in mediation, so Justice Paul Tottle is preparing — he’s known for his judgment that the WA government broke the law with its lockdown treatment of children in detention centre Banksia Hill). Anyway, Reynolds told the SMH she was “very concerned” for Higgins’ well-being and that she’d tried to avoid “any direct contact” with Higgins, instead relying on a judge to interact with her. Reynolds suggested a two-week pause to allow “all parties to recover”, saying it was a “tiring and difficult day for all of us”. Reynolds brought the defamation case.
It comes as five Australian Federal Police officers are suing the ACT government for defamation over allegations by former director of public prosecutions Shane Drumgold that they undertook “a very clear campaign to pressure” him not to prosecute the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins, The Australian ($) reports (the charge against Bruce Lehrmann, who maintains his innocence, was dropped amid fear of Higgins’ health). Meanwhile, Matildas captain Sam Kerr allegedly called a British police officer “a stupid white bastard” during an argument about a taxi fare, according to the UK paper The Sun. Reportedly Kerr was sick in the cab after a night out. Her lawyers will be in court on April 26 to try and get the charge of racial harassment thrown out, the SMH continues — they’ll argue that Crown prosecutors waiting nearly a year before charging her was an abuse of power. Chelsea manager Emma Hayes said Kerr had the “full support” of the club, while Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described his impression of the soccer star as “delightful”.
RACING AUSTRALIA
Just five out of our 19 Close the Gap targets are on track, according to the Productivity Commission’s most recent update that the ABC reports on. But it’s better than last year, Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney said, when it was just four. The latest one to move into the “on-track” column is the target to ensure 91% of First Nations babies are born at a healthy weight (between 2.5kg and 4.5kg) by 2031. The commission’s data also showed suicide remained the number one cause of death for First Nations peoples aged 15 to 44 years in 2022, The National Indigenous Times reports, and Indigenous incarceration was up 5.3% compared to last year.
Meanwhile, the remains of nearly 2,000 Indigenous people are being held by the Victorian government’s Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Council, The Age reports, and Indigenous community leaders want them back. We didn’t even know about this, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wemba Wamba and Yorta Yorta Traditional Owner and Elder Uncle Robert Nicholls said — there would be an outcry if it were the bones of non-Indigenous people were “taken from their resting places and plonked on a storage shelf for however long”. Meanwhile, NT Police Minister Brent Potter is facing calls to resign for old social media posts that reportedly referred to the N-word and Nazis. “In 2013 he shared a meme featuring Nazi general Erwin Rommel with the quote ‘in the absence of orders go find something and kill it’,” the NT News says, while in 2014 he shared a link to an article headlined “It’s time to arrest ultra-Orthodox Jews who delay flights over seating”, remarking “what a thought”. Potter says it’s all out of context, satirical (satirical?!), and inconsistent with his views.
FOLLOWING THE LEADER
Seven anonymous federal ministers have told the SMH spending proposals are being knocked back by Anthony Albanese’s inner circle including “co-deputy prime ministers” Penny Wong and Katy Gallagher. Industry, Science and Innovation Minister Ed Husic complained to Albanese about it, according to four people who talked to the paper, saying the expenditure review committee (which oversees minister submissions for the budget measures) was excluding ministers from the decision-making. Meanwhile, former chief-of-staff to Tony Abbott turned Sky News Australia commentator Peta Credlin is egging Opposition Leader Peter Dutton on in his nuclear campaign, after saying one could “drive a truck through the government’s position”. Today she writes for The Australian ($): “Labor-lite Liberals lose. By getting back squarely to centre-right policies and values, Dutton just may have a chance.”
Overseas now and it’s officially a race to the White House between accused sexual harasser Donald Trump and current US President Joe Biden after Nikki Haley quit her presidential campaign overnight. She’s not endorsing Trump but exiting Republican leader in the US Senate Mitch McConnell is — even though Trump reportedly called him a “piece of shit” once, as The Hill says. It comes as hopeful Democrat nominee Dean Phillips pulled out of the race too, strongly supporting Biden (an incumbent president has been chosen for the party’s nomination since 1884 so Phillips’ run was likely more for brand awareness than anything else). Some other highlights of Super Tuesday, per The Guardian: Biden won every contest except American Samoa, while Trump won everything except Vermont, where Haley had a surprise victory (15 states held contests). Tesla billionaire Elon Musk vowed not to donate to either Trump or Biden, and Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene told a British journalist to “fuck off” when asked about her conspiracy theories.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
In German it’s miau, in Korean it’s yaong, in Estonian it’s mäu, in British English it’s miaow, and in US-English it’s meow — bringing us to March Meowness, an extremely important time of year when a library in the US state of Massachusetts forgives all debts belonging to people who lost or damaged books on one strict and enforceable condition: they must hand over a photo of their cat. It’s a mere six days in and the Worcester Public Library’s Facebook post is flooded with felines — torties, gingers, voids, tuxedos, dogs, they’re all there. Some people don’t even owe the library money, nor are they presently living in the continental US, but posted their moggy anyway to get in on the action (catction?). Other people are being rather philanthropic, donating photos of their cats for those less fortunate (that is, average people with no cats).
West Virginia’s Beth Marquart posted benevolently that she’d like to “pay forward for someone who has a debt and is unable to accrue the necessary cattiness” by offering a side profile photo of her rather hefty ginger boy Henry. It’s a “never be-fur tried initiative”, the local radio station quipped, and it’s working: by Monday more than 400 people had their library accounts unblocked and their borrowing privileges restored thanks to the cat tender, The New York Times reports. It’s all just a bit of fun, of course, but the library is hoping the feline ground swell online will inspire people to return to their local third space in the post-pandemic era. And who really cares about collecting fees for lost or damaged books, the library’s executive director Jason Homer said — “We know life gets in the way.”
Sending you a little head scratch today.
SAY WHAT?
Quotas of 40% women were supposed to deliver diversity, but a case can be made that the backgrounds, skills and beliefs of female directors are so homogenous that they actually worsen intellectual diversity on boards.
Janet Albrechtsen
The columnist goes on to say Australia needs more female directors “who don’t look, sound and behave like the next teal candidate for Parliament — progressive, articulate and affluent women whose waking moments are consumed by ESG”.
CRIKEY RECAP
“[Shadow spokesperson for energy Ted O’Brien] hadn’t done his research — the Idaho SMR died, despite more than US$1 billion in government subsidies, because no-one wanted to pay $89/MWh for power, which is the cost the company revealed last January. NuScale had previously claimed the SMR would produce power at $58/MWh.
“Ah… cost increases. On Monday, French newspaper Les Echos reported that French state-owned utility EDF had raised its already large cost estimate for the construction of six new nuclear reactors from €51.7 billion to €67.4 billion (US$73 billion or A$110 billion) — and flagged costs could rise higher. France gets 70% of its electricity from nuclear power and now needs to build new plans to replace ageing operations built in the 1960s and 1970s.”
“That was the case Drumgold brought against the Sofronoff inquiry. He also asked the court to declare that eight of the adverse findings that Sofronoff made against him, in respect of his handling as lead prosecutor of the Bruce Lehrmann rape trial, were legally unreasonable. He failed, except in respect of one of the findings (regarding his cross-examination of Linda Reynolds at the trial).
“Albrechtsen is, as usual, right and completely wrong. It is true that Drumgold’s challenges to the detail of Sofronoff’s findings largely failed, the judge concluding that they were reasonably open to Sofronoff to reach on the evidence before him. Which is not to say that Justice Kaye agrees with him, because that is not the test he had to apply. They just weren’t so unreasonable as to be declaratively wrong.”
“We in the bunker are great fans of what we’ve come to call ‘Tayloring’ — named after then energy minister Angus Taylor’s exquisite moment of carelessness when commenting ‘Fantastic. Great move. Well done Angus’ on one of his own posts, which left very little interpretation available except that he was intending to use an alternative account to inflate positive feedback …
“Former MP for Goldstein Tim Wilson appears to have joined Tayloring’s storied history. Responding to criticism of a piece he co-penned with Jason Falinski arguing there is a path back to government in regaining seats lost to teal independents in 2022 (something he and Falinski would certainly *want* to be true), someone felt the need to defend Wilson’s expertise, pointing out ‘Tim wrote a book on this topic: read it!’ That someone was none other than Tim Wilson himself.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Nikki Haley ends White House bid, clearing path for a Trump-Biden rematch (Reuters)
Haiti gang leader warns of civil war unless PM Ariel Henry steps down (Al Jazeera)
Two killed in Houthi missile attack on cargo ship — US officials (BBC)
Russian missile strikes near Zelensky and Greek PM’s convoy in Odesa (CNN)
Donald Trump seeks new trial in E Jean Carroll defamation case (The Guardian)
Bank of Canada holds key interest rate at 5% again, saying it’s still too soon for rate cuts (CBC)
The [NZ conservative] government’s first 100 days are almost up — how did it go? (Stuff)
[EU] governments mull last-chance bid for stripped-down corporate diligence law (euronews)
A grainy photo and a dilemma: How UK papers are covering Princess Catherine
(The New York Times) ($)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Settle in for a long fight — the old pugilists are up for a rematch — Joe Hockey (The Australian) ($): “Today nearly 75% of the American population don’t want a Biden–Trump rematch. Whether Americans turn up to vote in November remains the biggest risk for both candidates. For the rest of the world this election is going to be a must-watch battle. If we take out the competing personalities, the policy differences are stark on immigration, abortion, regulation, taxation, energy policies and the role of the US in the world. Differences on Ukraine, Gaza, street crime and border security also will be stark throughout the long campaign … Despite the decisive loss, Haley has put up a reasonable fight. This has given rise to speculation about her future. Haley is too conservative to run as an independent. For example her views on abortion are out of sync with swing voters. This campaign, however, has lifted her profile and given comfort to Trump haters.
“Speculation about her being a vice-presidential candidate is ridiculous. You can bet that Trump will not pick a running mate who represents any sort of competition to him over the next few years. A second Trump term will look like a new season of The Apprentice. There will be lots of ambitious competition with a fair amount of ceremonial sackings. Even if Trump doesn’t run as a result of misadventure, the former president’s delegates will never turn to Haley. Trump now controls the Republican Party, its policies, people and its money. Trump will maintain that influence until he draws his last breath. With that control he will determine who the Republican candidate will be this time and in the next few elections. For Biden it has been very predictable. He has won the nomination in a canter with a bit of a donkey kick along the way from disgruntled left-wing Democrats who want him to take a tougher approach on Israel. It is essentially the Bernie Sanders end of the party that is screaming for more attention.”
Here’s some news, Meta — you’re defying Australian law — Paul Fletcher (The SMH): “Last week. Meta announced that it will not do further deals with Australian media businesses. Meta is in effect saying: We want to do business in Australia but we do not want to comply with the law of Australia. That law, of course, is the News Media Bargaining Code — a detailed series of provisions added to the Competition and Consumer Act by the Morrison government in 2021. We took this action to deal with the problem of digital platforms such as Facebook (owned by Meta) and Google (owned by Alphabet) using content generated and paid for by Australian news media businesses, without paying for that content. Our action produced the desired result. Both companies entered into commercial deals with Australian news media businesses; by October 2022, Meta had done 13 and Alphabet 23.
“Under these deals, an estimated $200 million will be paid to Australian news media businesses; many have employed additional journalists as a result. But despite the success we had, it is not at all surprising that Meta is once again seeking to throw its weight around. There has been a consistent pattern of such behaviour from these global digital platforms. Spain, for example, passed a law in 2014 compelling Google to pay local publishers for content. Google responded by shutting down Google News in Spain. So when the Morrison government announced, in April 2020, that we intended to legislate a mandatory code to deal with these issues, we knew there was a rocky road ahead. And so it proved to be. Google threatened to withdraw its search service from Australia. And Facebook, notoriously, shut down the Facebook pages of many Australian news media businesses on February 18, 2021. But through all of this the Morrison government stood firm — and we carefully designed and legislated a code which has real teeth.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
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Swimmer Michelle Ford will talk about her new book, Turning the Tide, at Gleebooks.
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Australian Competition & Consumer Commission’s Gina Cass-Gottlieb will speak about the watchdog’s compliance and enforcement priorities at the Shangri-La Hotel.
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
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Minister for Finance and Women Katy Gallagher will speak about the new gender equality strategy at the National Press Club.
