HOT OFF THE PRESS
The Coalition’s federal primary vote is now 37% to Labor’s 34% according to polling in Nine newspapers, the first time the opposition has been ahead since the government won the election in May 2022. News.com.au and the Herald Sun wrote the result up, dubbing it a “severe blow” ahead of Dunkley’s by-election (perhaps a little overegged considering Labor’s margin in the seat is 6.3%). Anyway, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is ahead of Opposition Leader Peter Dutton 39% to 32% as preferred leader in the survey, though it’s the smallest difference yet. Support for the Greens fell a point to 11%, One Nation’s support went up one to 6%, and independents stayed at 9%. Over at The Australian ($) the figures are basically the same: its Newspoll has Labor support at 33% to the Coalition’s unchanged 36% (on two-party preferred it’s 52-48 Labor), while the Greens are stable on 12%, One Nation fell to 6% and independents are up two points to 13%. Albanese is the preferred leader by 47% to Dutton’s 35% over at the Oz.
Meanwhile, media mogul Kerry Stokes has launched a “highbrow” online news publication called The Nightly, with a 34-page digital edition published at 6pm from Monday to Friday featuring Seven West columnists. It’ll be an economically conservative and socially progressive alternative to “clickbait” non-subscriber news media in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, its editor Anthony De Ceglie said. (Last week De Ceglie, who is also The West Australian’s editor, featured prominently in what appeared to be an unlabelled advertorial for wrestling written up as news in his paper — the story described how wrestler Austin Theory threatened to “smack” De Ceglie in a “newsroom stoush”, something readers in the comments called “clickbait”, “fake news” and a “cheap marketing stunt”).
SPEAK UP
Keep the power to overrule the Reserve Bank on interest rates, the Greens and Coalition are urging Treasurer Jim Chalmers in a fairly rare alignment. Guardian Australia reports scrapping the section 11 powers of the RBA Act was the recommendation of a central bank review but everyone from former treasurers Paul Keating and Peter Costello and their Reserve Bank governors, to outspoken Greens Senator Nick McKim say it’s a crap idea because we need the “safety valve”. The paper notes the legislation probably wouldn’t survive the Senate as is — Chalmers says he’s thinking it over. Meanwhile, Caroline Kennedy quoted her father, former US president John F. Kennedy, ahead of outback car race the Shitbox Rally. Australian culture brings a tear to the eye. It’s actually a charity event that has raised more than $40 million for cancer research, Guardian Australia explains. Kennedy quoted the 1962 line: “We do these things because they’re hard”.
It comes as Liberal National Party backbencher Phillip Thompson says the government’s ban on the importation of single-use vapes has not dented the illicit trade, the SMH reports. It’s been illegal to commercially import vapes since January 1, and from March people can’t import their own vaping products either. We haven’t seen Labor’s legislation to stop retail stores from selling them yet, however. Fellow LNP backbencher Warren Entsch told the paper he’d tried to find who owned six vape stores in his Queensland electorate, saying kids vaping was a “disgrace”.
NOT WALKING FREE
Shadow Home Affairs spokesperson James Paterson says it’s “embarrassing” Defence Minister Richard Marles said funding to the Australian Border Force had not been cut, even though our border control chief said the agency was receiving a record level of government money. Not that Sky News Australia bothered to mention it or challenge Paterson in its story where the senator claimed spending is declining by $190 million next financial year. It’s actually up by $252 million compared to under the Coalition, the SMH says. From beyond our borders to within them and a Darwin Indigenous mother was locked up for 10 years without ever being convicted of a crime because of a mental health condition, the NT News reports. NT Health is trying to get control of her medical autonomy in the courts even though its silk described her as a “plainly highly intelligent, impressive, dignified” woman.
Meanwhile, the SMH says police should not march in this year’s Mardi Gras after Sydney men Jesse Baird and Luke Davies were allegedly killed by policeman Beau Lamarre–Condon. In a searing editorial likely written by editor Bevan Shields and/or senior editorial figures, the paper pointed out the cops had fallen short of an apology in the aftermath of the recent damning inquiry into LGBTQIA+ hate crimes and only said sorry yesterday via The Sunday Telegraph before posting the apology on the NSW Police website. They should stay home from Mardi Gras this week because it would be “sensible and sensitive”, the paper said, concluding we’ve taken a step back in justice in reconciliation with the community. The ABC reports that police divers will resume their search at a crime scene in Bungonia, which is near Goulburn, this morning. A strong line of inquiry is that Baird and Davies were shot in the former’s home in Paddington.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
A kid named Willis Gibson has gone where no kid has gone before. Like Truman finding the cloud-painted wall in the eponymous movie, Gibson actually finished Tetris. It was a few days before Christmas in Oklahoma, and the 13-year-old boy was sitting in his bedroom playing the classic block-busting game on his Nintendo. He cleared a single row of blocks and suddenly, the screen froze. Gibson noticed his score read 999999 and started practically hyperventilating with joy, clutching his head and repeating “Oh my god!”. We know this because he was streaming himself at the time, and it’s impossible not to smile at this young boy’s sheer unbridled happiness.
It’s not hard to see why — before now, only artificial intelligence has been able to finish the game. Indeed until two years ago people didn’t even know it was possible that a human could, much less a child. But Gibson isn’t your normal kid — he plays about 20 hours of Tetris a week and has competed competitively since 2021, coming third in the 2023 Classic Tetris World Championship (he’s won about $4,500 so far). He was initially attracted to the game because of its simplicity — “It’s easy to start off, yet it’s really hard to master it,” he told The New York Times — but his approach is completely changing the game. He’s a “prodigy,” competitive player David MacDonald said, and has “taken over the pro Tetris scene”. As long as he keeps doing his chores, his mum Karin Cox tells the paper.
Hoping you surprise yourself today.
SAY WHAT?
… [PM Anthony Albanese] was jammed by colleagues to break a promise written in blood around tax. Getting engaged to his partner, I guess, allowed him to smile for a couple of days, but that smile will disappear very quickly if, as unlikely as it might be, he loses Dunkley.
Steve Price
Even the Sky News commentator seems to admit his statement is far-fetched, considering two-thirds of Dunkley approve of the stage three tax cuts changes and Labor won the seat with a 6.3% margin at the last election.
CRIKEY RECAP
“Blair, who didn’t give his full name for professional reasons, told Crikey that he altered the image using WatermarkRemover.io, a website that says it can remove watermarks using “powerful AI technology with only [a] few clicks”, and manually cleared up some artefacts with Photoshop afterwards. He then posted it to X, formerly Twitter, where it subsequently spread. Blair provided his original tweet as well as images from throughout the process to Crikey to show its provenance.
“A Google reverse image search shows that this version of the image (complete with distinctive remaining visual artefacts) has been published on webpages including Nine’s 2GB, 9NEWS, News Corp Australia’s The Australian, news.com.au and the Daily Telegraph…”
“The glass cliff is an extension of this metaphor. It proposes that if women or people of minority groups are elevated to positions of seniority, it is more likely to occur in circumstances associated with an increased risk of criticism and failure. Women’s leadership positions are then perceived as more insecure than those of men.
“In these conditions, fault is more likely to be associated broadly with their gender, race or other minority status, in turn re-strengthening the glass ceiling that locked oppressed groups out in the first instance. Think Vanessa Hudson replacing Alan Joyce after Qantas’ reputational fallout, or Marissa Mayer being elevated to CEO of Yahoo after it lost significant market share to Google.”
“Investors are clearly no longer swallowing this lazy, capital-starving method of boosting the stock price that transfers wealth from customers to shareholders, and they know it is damaging the airline’s balance sheet (increasing the liabilities over assets), leaving Qantas increasingly less protected from any future shocks.
“Perhaps the board is confident that the federal government will continue to prop up the company in the face of any financial crisis. Having helped steer Telstra through the government-created post-NBN mire, Mullen may not be so certain. Yet some things stay relentlessly the same and herein lies the problem for Hudson. She is continuing to try and screw the only front-line workers — pilots, maintenance engineers and cabin crew (well most of them) …”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
India’s Assam state repeals British-era Muslim marriage law (Al Jazeera)
Ukraine war: Zelensky says 31,000 troops killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion (BBC)
China, the world’s biggest polluter, at risk of missing climate targets, new report finds (CNN)
SAG Awards 2024: Oppenheimer, The Bear win big at 30th Screen Actors Guild Awards (NZ Herald)
Navalny’s “tortured” body handed over to his mother (Reuters)
Israel agrees to send a delegation of negotiators to Qatar to continue peace talks (euronews)
The spy war: How the C.I.A. secretly helps Ukraine fight Putin (The New York Times) ($)
Trump soundly defeats Nikki Haley in South Carolina Republican primary (The Guardian)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Peter Dutton picks the mood on nuclear but neither side is winning the cost of living war ahead of Dunkley — Simon Benson (The Australian) ($): “The only divergence is by gender. Women were significantly less excited about it than men. Yet, a majority of female voters were still supportive. Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s argument hinges on cost and the fact that the small modular reactor technology is still in development. But his frenzied opposition, which appears rooted in an old-world ideology framed by Labor’s historical antagonism, is at odds with even Labor and Greens voters. Pragmatic sections of the Left now embrace nuclear as a net-zero option to firm renewables. Labor ignores this community sentiment potentially at its peril. The Coalition still has to make the case. And significant obstacles remain. It will require political courage to pursue it.
“But if the selling point is the zero-emissions attraction, and the low environmental footprint, then finally the Coalition may have a climate policy that younger voters believe is credible. The nuclear option is now clearly something that resonates with younger Australians — a rare occasion where the Coalition’s point of view is in agreement with this generation. The danger for Labor is based in its wrong assumptions about community sentiment. At a time when power prices are feeding the cost of living pressures families are facing, the energy wars have an elevated significance. So far, neither side appears to be winning the cost of living debate. Whatever political benefit Labor may have believed it would derive from breaking an election pledge in order to redraw legislated tax cuts in favour of lower income earners, no evidence exists to support this belief.”
What China’s blossoming relationship with the Taliban says about its long-game — Amin Saikal (The Age) ($): “When the US and its allies retreated from Afghanistan, enabling the Taliban to return to power with the backing of China’s other regional strategic partner, Pakistan, in 2021, Beijing did not miss the opportunity to fill the power vacuum. While maintaining its embassy in Kabul, the Chinese government reached out to the Taliban for cooperative relations for three main objectives: to tap into Afghanistan’s natural resources, to harness wider regional support for its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and to counter the US’ influence in the region. By befriending the Taliban, it also saw potential to moderate the group’s extremism and prevent its influence on China’s restless Muslim Uyghur minority.
“The Taliban has keenly reciprocated by maintaining silence regarding the Uyghurs and welcoming trade with and investment from China as an ‘economic partner’. They have honoured old agreements and signed new ones with Chinese companies to extract Afghanistan’s mineral resources, and China is now predicted to surpass Pakistan as Afghanistan’s largest trading partner in 2024. In September 2023, Beijing appointed an ambassador to the court of the Taliban. On 30 January 2024, President Xi Jinping personally received the Taliban ambassador’s credentials. Thus, China became the first country and global power to formally recognise the Taliban regime. Beijing has quietly accepted the Taliban’s status as a tribal minority and ultra-extremist group, acting in the name of Islam.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Yuggera and Turrbal Country (also known as Brisbane)
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The University of Queensland’s Ross H. McKenzie will speak about his new book, Condensed Matter Physics: A Very Short Introduction, at Avid Reader bookshop.
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
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Fortescue founder Andrew Forrest will speak at the National Press Club.
