A NACC FOR THE TRUTH
The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), which the Morrison government stacked with Coalition pals in its dying days, will sign off on the federal ICAC’s requests to tap the phones of everyone from spy chiefs to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. The latter is a sensational scenario, it must be pointed out, but it is within the national anti-corruption commission’s (NACC) remit, as The Australian ($) reports. But the Albanese government said the AAT’s green light was business as usual — Commonwealth integrity investigators already get permission from members, or judges. It comes as two-thirds of Australians want the NACC hearings to be more open, according to a new poll from The Australia Institute, as Guardian Australia reports. At the moment they’ll be open only in “exceptional circumstances” with the government to decide whether the shoe fits. But just imagine if former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian’s ICAC saga had been held in secret. The accountability for all parties would have been vastly different — indeed she may not have resigned amid the corruption probe at all.
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus will tell the National Press Club today that the government has got the NACC model right, even though the Greens and some independent crossbenchers reckon the secret hearings undermine its purpose. Dreyfus will say he’s happy to listen to other views, and will add that voters don’t trust politicians any more and the Coalition government is a big reason why. He will say: “Voters were not credited with the intelligence and respect they deserve. Promises were made and never delivered. Questions from journalists were treated like an annoyance. Basic standards of accountability were pushed aside.”
ALL IN A DAY’S WORK
More than one in five Aussies worked from home last year, Guardian Australia reports. Broken down by state and territory, about 31% of NSW workers and 26% of Victorians worked from home on census night, August 10 2021, while 4% of Northern Territorians and about 7% of Western Australians did, as lockdowns reigned in the eastern states. It’s according to a workplace census released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics yesterday, and there are oodles more interesting tidbits in there — for instance, nearly 800,000 people worked no hours in the week before census, The Australian ($) reports, which is 7% of our entire workforce. That’s double the 2016 figure. Arts and construction copped it the worst — 15% of construction workers worked no hours in the week prior, double the national average.
And the pain continues in many sectors. There’ll be a shortage of 11,000 GPs in the next decade without urgent funding and Medicare change, The New Daily reports. A shortfall of doctors in rural communities and increasing gap fees (the difference between what Medicare covers and appointment costs) are making it harder, particularly for vulnerable Australians, to access healthcare. AMA vice-president Danielle McMullen says one in seven final-year medical students consider becoming a GP, and that’s got to change. But there’s some good news for the cohort of Australians affected by robodebt at least — the ABC reports some 200,000 will have their reviews axed and their debts completely wiped, according to Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth. Government Services Minister Bill Shorten called the debts an “illegal shakedown” of vulnerable people by the former government to underpin their discredited surplus forecasts. Ouch.
PARTY POOPERS
As Victoria hurtles towards a November state election, its Liberal Party’s lawyer has quit over “risky” decision-making by senior figures. The Age actually got a copy of Chandra Lloyd’s resignation letter — it alleged some of the things the party’s head office did could be “considered criminal in nature”. Yikes. Sources told the paper she was concerned about the “Ditch Dan” donation drive (it collected half a million dollars in August, but 20 donations, several anonymous, were larger than the $1080 limit) and the alleged illegal mailing out of postal vote applications (the Victorian Electoral Commission is looking into that). It’s more bad news in Opposition Leader Matthew Guy’s quest to topple the popular Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews.
To NSW politics now and One Nation MP Mark Latham is going to quit the upper house and run again at the top of the ballot to leave a gap for another One Nation MP, the SMH reports. There are two One Nation MPs in the Legislative Council — and the former Labor leader wants four. God knows why. Sometimes it’s hard to believe Latham once worked for Gough Whitlam and Bob Carr and now represents a party headed up by Pauline Hanson. Quite the juxtaposition. Anyway — is this allowed? We don’t know yet — Latham is getting advice from Parliament about whether he can recontest his seat. So who would run? Maybe Bankstown MP Tania Mihailuk? She was sacked last month after she used parliamentary privilege to launch an extraordinary attack on her own party, accusing a mayor of being linked to corrupt former minister Eddie Obeid. Speaking of Hanson — just five years after Lidia Thorpe lobbied her in a tweet to help stop constitutional change, as SMH reports, the Greens senator has declared she will not campaign against the Voice to Parliament constitutional recognition push.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
It was the job ad from hell if hell froze over. Or was it? Management at the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust charity didn’t mince words. It needed to recruit four people to relocate to a tiny frozen place called Port Lockroy in the far west of Antarctica to work in the world’s most remote and coldest post office in near-continual daylight. The perks? The accommodation would have no flushing toilet, no electricity and only bunk beds for whatever shut-eye you could manage. The job? Counting penguins. There are about 1500 of them waddling their tiny tuxedo tuchuses around the picturesque landscape, as The Guardian tells it. But it seems the job posting wasn’t exactly a tough sell for job seekers — some 6000 people applied. After careful consideration, four women were chosen.
Mairi Hilton, 30, will monitor the penguins — incidentally, she completed her PhD in conservation biology in Australia. She has no idea what to expect: “Will we have to dig our way through the snow to the post office?” Lucy Bruzzone, 40, has a bit more of a feel for the freeze — she was the chief scientist on an artic expedition in Norway’s Svalbard. Clare Ballantyne, 23, will be charged with dealing with some 80,000 cards that are mailed to more than 100 countries (Port Lockroy usually gets about 18,000 tourists across summer). Ballantyne’s most looking forward to the caterwauling stinky aquatic flightless birds. Or as she more delicately put it, “taking in the cacophony and pungent smell of the penguins”. And the skillset of Natalie Corbett, 31, who runs a pet store back home in Hampshire, is required to run the gift shop. Corbett just got married, but she’s elated that she can ditch the new hubby for a “solo honeymoon”. Girl, I get it — penguins are really cute.
Hope you feel cosy and warm on your Wednesday morning.
SAY WHAT?
The tweet relates to an old debate around the Liberals hijacking constitutional recognition. Pauline Hanson is no friend to First Nations people, I have no interest in working with her.
Lidia Thorpe
The outspoken Greens senator will not join the No side in the Voice to Parliament campaign, and rejected an old tweet from 2017 she wrote to One Nation’s Pauline Hanson that read: “Pauline help us stop the constitution changes. Aboriginal people say no to constitutional change.”
CRIKEY RECAP
A YouTuber is trying to claim an expensive video game weapon as a tax deduction
“An Australian YouTuber is claiming a tax deduction for buying an expensive video game weapon in what might be the first documented example of a tax write-off for a digital collectible item. elmaxo is an online gaming creator with nearly 200,000 YouTube subscribers who makes videos about popular online first person shooter game Team Fortress 2. Last month, he shared a 40-minute video about challenging himself to rack up 10,000 kills of other players in seven days.
“As a way of keeping track of his progress, elmaxo purchased a version of the game’s ray guy weapon, called a phlogistinator, with a ‘strange’ item quality. Team Fortress 2 has a game mechanic where weapons can have different item qualities that will change the way they look or work. The strange item quality means the weapon shows a public count of how many kills have been made using it.”
Essendon case shows why it is time for church and state to be truly separated
“The idea of legislating against religious discrimination is relatively new. Historically, religious belief was left out of the list of attributes protected by law from discrimination for the simple reason that it is recognisably indefinable. Not that we can’t see when a person has a belief which is rooted in religious faith, but that the potential range of beliefs fitting that description is infinite. Religious faith is absolutely subjective and uncontainable.
“One consequence is the problem that Thorburn’s case illustrates: that one man’s religious belief may engage the denial of another’s fundamental rights, or even their existence. Thorburn’s church, for example, erases LGBTIQA+ people as they self-define. Its adherents are entitled to hold that belief, and to preach it. However, it becomes deeply problematic when they take it with them into the real world where LGBTIQA+ people do, in fact, exist and would prefer to not be told otherwise.”
God’s business: how the big religions scripted a massive tax handout
“The Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference supports the work of Australia’s most senior clergy, operating from an office in Canberra with more than 40 full-time staff. It is also a registered charity, and as such is eligible for a series of tax breaks on income, FBT and GST.
“But different rules apply to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference compared to other charities. It does not need to declare its income or any of its financial details to the regulator or to the broader public. It is exempt from the governance standards the government enforces on other charities. And even if it did have to comply with those standards, the regulator — the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) — could not remove any office holder, no matter what they had done. It adds up to a near total immunity from accountability.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
US Supreme Court rebuffs fetal personhood appeal (Reuters)
Russia adds Meta to list of ‘terrorist and extremist’ groups (Al Jazeera)
Biden to ‘re-evaluate’ relationship with Saudi Arabia after oil production cut (The New York Times)
Hockey Canada announces CEO, entire board of directors will step aside (CBC)
Report reveals details of Bill Murray’s ‘inappropriate’ on-set behaviour (The Guardian)
Baltimore prosecutors drop all charges against ‘Serial’ podcast subject Adnan Syed (CNN)
Here’s what you need to be in New Zealand’s top 1% (Stuff)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Chalmers flags gas action, with escalating power prices a cost-of-living nightmare for government — Michelle Grattan (The Conversation): “High and rising power prices will become a bigger part of Australia’s inflation problem over time, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has warned, as he foreshadowed more government action to combat high gas prices. Ahead of leaving for the United States on Tuesday night, Chalmers also said he would use the information from briefings he receives there to make any needed changes to the October 25 budget — now in the final stages of preparation. And he continued to prepare the public for large, but selective, spending cuts in the budget. Chalmers painted a dark picture of probable recession in key economies.
“He remained optimistic the Australian economy could avoid going backwards, but it would not be immune from the global downturn, he said. The treasurer’s Tuesday appearances were his first after receiving a major rebuff when Anthony Albanese at the weekend quashed any prospect of rejigging the stage three tax cuts in the budget. Chalmers had pushed hard to have the controversial tax cuts reconfigured, but Albanese — who’d given him a licence to test the water — decided he couldn’t afford to risk breaking an election promise to deliver them. On his US visit, Chalmers will talk with the US Federal Reserve, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, private investment banks and his counterparts from other countries who will be there at the same time for briefings.”
Big emitters can’t keep getting a free pass — Blair Comley (The AFR): “The government’s current discussion paper outlines options that would squeeze out the buffers. With the buffers gone, high-emitting facilities will either be penalised or will be required to purchase offsets, incentivising emission reduction. The government is seeking feedback on whether there should be an immediate reset of the baselines to eliminate the headroom. Even without a reset, the government has signalled that baseline reductions between 3.5% and 6% per year may be required. That is a lot.
“If the reductions are applied at the higher rate, then by 2030 that would require a 35% reduction in emissions from either the current or the reset baseline. While this looks like it might solve the problem, EY analysis indicates that at least half the facilities would still have substantial headroom, suggesting some immediate reset will be necessary. The government’s intention is to allow the creation of safeguard mechanism credits for facilities that outperform their baseline. These credits could then be purchased by those above their baseline to meet their obligations. The creation of credits provides incentives to do better and reduces the overall cost of the scheme.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Skills and Training Minister Brendan O’Connor will speak at a business lunch held by the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
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Saman Akbaryan, Kerryn Burgoyne, Jodie Nicks and Paul Pritchard, who all live with a disability, will share stories about the impact when we get accessibility right, held at RMIT.
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Writer Chloe Hooper, death doula Kimba Griffith, Murrenda Memorial Service’s Stacey Hamilton, and anthropologist Hannah Gould will discuss how different cultural groups relate to death, in an event held at the Wheeler Centre.
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
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Historians Niro Kandasamy, Claire EF Wright, and Ann Curthoys will chat about a book they contributed to, Lessons from History, at Glee Books.
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
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Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus will address the National Press Club.
