BAINI OF HIS LIFE
Lawyer Natalie Baini is suing former Liberal minister Craig Laundy, his wife and daughter after Baini was allegedly chased down the street and called — mind my language — a “whore”. Baini, a former Liberal Party member, dated Laundy for two years before finding out he was not separated from Suzanne Crowe, as The Australian ($) tells it. When Baini broke it off, she alleges Laundy blocked her preselection bid for the seat of Reid in the 2019 election. She claims she copped prank calls and disturbances at home, which culminated in Laundy’s daughter Sophie allegedly chasing her down the street yelling about causing her children pain. Yikes. Reid flipped to Labor in the election, as the ABC reports, after then PM Scott Morrison’s captain’s pick Fiona Martin failed to retain it for the Liberals.
Meanwhile, a group of Catholic schools, including one attended by NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet, is warning parents about a “targeted attack” in an episode of ABC’s Four Corners that has not aired yet. It’s called “Purity: an education in Opus Dei”, billed as an investigation into the “disturbing practices of the conservative Catholic organisation and its influence in the NSW Liberal Party”. According to the letter to parents, the ABC asked the Catholic schools a bunch of questions about “abortion”, “homosexuality”, and “whether people who commit suicide go to hell”, The Daily Telegraph ($) reports. The paper says a bunch of NSW Liberals who are associated with the schools were approached too. To finish on some quickfire NSW election news: lawyer Tu Le, who was catapulted out of Fowler when Labor’s Kristina Keneally was parachuted in (and lost), will seek Labor preselection for the Sydney seat of Cabramatta, The Daily Mail says, and Labor Leader Chris Minns has promised to put $2.5 million towards researching if phones and video games are rotting kids’ brains, The Daily Telegraph ($) says.
RAISING A RED FLAG
A video of tennis star Novak Djokovic’s father Srdjan posing with apparent Putin supporters at the Australian Open is making headlines around the world. One of the four guys in the video is holding a banned Russian flag while another is wearing a shirt with a “Z” on it — a letter representing support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the ABC reports. The video was posted by Simeon Boikov who is wanted by the cops for allegedly assaulting a man at a Ukraine support rally. Another video on Twitter shows a group chanting Russian slogans, which unfolded after Djokovic triumphed over Russian Andrey Rublev in the quarter-finals. Tennis Australia confirmed a group of people with “inappropriate” flags and symbols had “threatened security guards” before being evicted. The tennis body banned Russian and Belarus flags from the event last week.
Meanwhile beaten Belarusian semi-finalist Victoria Azarenka had a rather eyebrow-raising exchange with a journalist who was asking her about the Putin demonstrators — The Australian ($) has the full script, but news.com.au has a free-to-read snippet. Azarenka told the journalist it had “nothing to do with players”, and when pressed on whether pro-Russia protests frustrated her, asked: “Are you a politician? Are you? Are you covering politics?” When the questioner replied, “No, I’m a sports journalist,” Azarenka was ready: “And I’m an athlete. You’re asking me about things that maybe somebody says are in my control, but I don’t believe that. Spin the story however you want.” Game, set, match.
FINE PRINT
A little-known fact is that a “fine” from a private car park operator is not actually a fine. Private car parking companies do not have statutory authority to issue fines, as the Queensland government explains, but they can hypothetically take you to court over the penalty if you don’t pay. Payment would need to be ordered by the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, Brisbane Times reports, after the company proved you had breached a car park contract. But it’s tough for the operator to prove. Instead, Queensland’s Transport Minister Mark Bailey says, a rising number of companies are sending threatening payment letters to people after getting their contact details through the Transport and Main Roads Department — a bit of a “loophole”, Bailey says, that the state is keen to close.
From a penalty to penalty rates — an Australian hospo giant that employs more than 700 bartenders, waiters and baristas has been accused of going to “shocking” lengths to avoid paying staff their penalty rates, Guardian Australia reports. Mantle Group — which owns favourites like The Squire’s Landing on Sydney Harbour, the Pig ‘N’ Whistle pub chain, as well as James Squire brewhouse venues and Jimmy’s on the Mall in Brisbane — had this “zombie” contract from 1999 that said it didn’t have to pay casuals weekend and public holiday rates. Fair Work overturned it last year, but Mantle promptly sacked all casual staff and rehired them under a new entity called KGS Staff Pty Ltd, as the AFR reported. That new agreement says the workplace doesn’t have to pay penalty rates. Again.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
A GP surveyed a 15-year-old named Eli who resembled not a boy as much as a cane toad. He’d been stung by a wasp and was told to get an epi-pen — stat. But this happened in the US, where one dose can cost a staggering $800, even with insurance, as The New York Times writes. The pharmacist, Brooke Walker, saw the crestfallen faces of Eli’s parents and reached for an envelope filled with $100 notes to help cover the cost. The money had been anonymously provided for more than 10 years — in January, the small community in rural Alabama finally learnt the donor was a local guy named Hody Childress, an 80-year-old farmer. And they only learnt because Childress had died. His daughter said her dad just had this sense that he couldn’t not give. He’d grown up poor — no electricity until he was seven and mostly living off what his folks could grow.
As an adult, Childress had a respectable career in the air force, and in his later years he could often be spotted carrying his wife up the stands to watch football games. She had multiple sclerosis. He was also known for giving the fruits of his farming — like strawberries, tomatoes and even peanut brittle — to locals. For some, that was more significant than others — about one in five people in the town live below the poverty line. Back in 2010, the pharmacist remembers, Childress strolled in and asked her if anyone ever struggles with the cost of medication. Sure, she responded. So he began leaving money. He didn’t want a fuss, he explained, and he didn’t want to be unmasked. Just use it when someone needs it. When part of Eli’s epi-pen was covered, his mum started to cry. “What Childress doesn’t know, now that he’s in heaven, is that he helped a kid that works on a farm that he started,” Eli’s mum said. “Look at that circle.”
Hoping you can spare a dollar, today and always, and have a restful weekend.
SAY WHAT?
I would never be comfortable flying in the knowledge that people could be losing their livelihoods, homes and loved ones as a result. The least I can do is voice my solidarity with those suffering on the front line of climate breakdown. Coming to a decision has not been easy, however little compares to the grief I would feel taking the flight.
Innes FitzGerald
Britain’s leading junior endurance runner has written to Athletics UK to ask that she not be considered for the world cross country championships in Australia because “aviation is the most energy-intensive activity we can do and explodes a person’s carbon footprint”. She said she doesn’t want it on her conscience.
CRIKEY RECAP
Prime minister, Alice Springs doesn’t need a ‘solution’. Our children need agency
“I was just five years old when my agency, my voice, was taken from me. I was the second youngest of my mother’s eight children when she passed and the government and ‘welfare’ swooped in.
“Some of us who were deemed suitable candidates for white society were placed in homes to assimilate, while others were sent to missions, such as Croker Island where I was taken. But whichever way you look at it, at the hands of colonisation, we were all displaced from our home, community and family and forced to become something we were not.”
Lidia Thorpe leaves door open to legislation on treaty ahead of Voice referendum
“Thorpe’s public position, which is informed by her party’s First Nations network known as the ‘Blak Greens’, is that she would like to see the core tenets of the Uluru Statement From the Heart play out with truth-telling and treaty coming first, followed by a Voice. The same order has been adopted by the Greens as party policy.
“Those in favour of reordering the Uluru Statement, or the formation of a Makarrata commission, often argue that doing so is crucial to their connection to land, retaining sovereignty, and securing critical legislative power. The Greens want to introduce a $250 million truth and justice commission as a step before treaty, with the aim of ‘exploring, understanding and reckoning’ with Australia’s colonial past.”
‘Not optimal’: Rupert Murdoch halts plans for Fox-News Corp merger
“For the first time in years, this gave non-voting shareholders equal footing with the Murdochs and the family trust, which had long dominated votes taken at annual meetings on directors, motions on climate change, changes to the voting system, political donations and news coverage. All motions considered adverse to the interests of the Murdochs were voted down by the trust, while all pay and other deals favourable to the Murdochs and the management teams of both companies — especially News Corp — were approved.
“But in the case of the remerging of the two companies, non-Murdoch shareholders had an equal footing and a voice, which some used publicly to oppose the proposal without changes to the asset holdings, such as calls to sell the 61% stake in Australian property listings business REA — Lachlan’s big success story for the family.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Transgender rapist Isla Bryson to be moved from women’s prison (BBC)
Israel army kills nine Palestinians, including elderly woman (Al Jazeera)
China’s northernmost city just saw its coldest day ever (CNN)
Ryanair weakens green claims after warning from Dutch regulator (EuroNews)
COVID-19 misinformation cost at least 2800 lives and $300m, new report says (CBC)
Opium production in Myanmar surges to nine-year high (BBC)
THE COMMENTARIAT
The biggest threat to the Voice is the tenor of today’s politics — Waleed Aly (The Age) ($): “Leeser can certainly argue the government hasn’t conveyed that picture well enough to the public. But he’s a parliamentarian who has read the (quite vast) literature. He’s very much in the picture. And while he might not know precisely which model of the Voice that Albanese favours, he’ll hear more about this in February after the relevant advisory groups meet, and we’re talking about variations on a theme, anyway.
“It’s hard to see which disagreement over such detail could lead a Voice supporter like Leeser to decide to junk it — especially when that minutiae would have to be debated in Parliament in any event. So it’s confounding he would make this a matter of public debate, rather than a matter of private dialogue with Albanese. Dutton might. But why is Leeser? And why not just wait a few weeks for the updated detail before deciding if it’s sufficient?”
What doing time in a WA juvenile detention centre is really like — Tom De Souza (The West) ($): “I went to juvenile detention for the first time when I was 13 years old. My mum and dad sent me there. It was the first time I had ever left home, or really, that home had left me; 2am, alone, handcuffed. Roller door to the Rangeview Juvenile Remand Centre sally port clanking shut behind me, two coppers swinging open the paddy wagon door, marching me out across the lino floor to the guards waiting beside the control room … The guards told me to call them ‘sir’ for the males, ‘miss’ for the females. One of the sirs took me into a small, brightly lit room. He strip-searched me, then left me to shower and change into a grey tracksuit and velcro Dunlop Volleys.
“He led me to a tiny observation cell, the walls stained with graffiti and spit and blood and dried bits of toilet paper. I tried to sleep on the blue gym-mat mattress, but it was very bright and the air-conditioning turned up to freezing. This was 2008. Today Rangeview no longer exists; it’s been merged with Banksia Hill, and its facilities are now the women’s Wandoo Rehabilitation Prison. It was something of a different time in the youth justice system; before the public knew of Don Dale and the spit hoods, before Banksia Hill’s chronic staff shortages, and the riots and unit 18 at Casuarina, and kids jumping up on the roof and guards ‘folding’ detainees up began to make the news.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
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Spanish ballet flamenco dancer Sara Baras presents Alma as part of the Sydney Festival at the Sydney Opera House.
