RESERVE JUDGMENT
People with a $500,000 home loan could be paying $333 more a month after today, according to RateCity. The Reserve Bank is meeting to look at the 0.85% cash rate — it’s expected to jump to as much as 1.35%. For those with a $700,000 loan, repayments will increase by $499 a month, and for those with a $1 million loan, they’ll jump $665. And there’s another hike expected in August, according to an economist who spoke to Guardian Australia. Why are economists predicting the hefty 50-point jump? The Australian ($) reports the NSW floods disaster has put $1 billion in produce at risk, meaning the price of our veggies could stay high for weeks. That could prompt the central bank to opt for “another double rate hike”, which would make it the largest increase since 1994. The idea is to curb inflation — ABC has a great explainer that delves into why.
The AFR reports that Australian shares will “slip at the open” today ahead of the 2.30pm rate decision — and that’s not all. More than 2.4 million Australians who have their retirement savings with AustralianSuper are set to cop a 2.7% hit to their balances — it’s the first time the super fund has posted a loss since the GFC, AFR adds. It’s in line with losses felt across nearly all Australian super funds last financial year, only the fifth time in 30 years that’s happened. Meanwhile, households will fork out an average of $70 to pay for last month’s electricity market crisis, the SMH reports this morning. Regulator AEMO intervening triggered compensation payments from the generators — they’ll pass that onto the retail companies who’ll pass the buck to us.
ROLE WITH IT
Is former Foreign Affairs minister Marise Payne about to quit politics? There’s “growing expectation”, according to Nine newspapers’ James Massola, that she’ll step down after NSW’s state election next march. Massola spoke to “nine current federal and state parliamentarians from NSW” — none of whom put their name to the report. Hopefully she’d have more luck with a new career than former NSW deputy premier John Barilaro — after walking away from his plum NY gig, the former state Nationals leader is under the microscope again for his ties to the property development industry. His LinkedIn says he’s the executive director of Coronation Property, but director John Landerer said he’s never “met or spoken to Mr Barilaro in my life”, SMH reports.
To a neighbouring state now and four of the five vacancies in the Andrews government will be filled by women, The Age reports. James Merlino, Lisa Neville, Martin Foley, and Martin Pakula announced their retirements a fortnight ago — Labor is reportedly worried about Merlino’s seat of Monbulk and Foley’s of Albert Park amid the teal uprising. So who’s in the running? Former union officer and schoolteacher Daniela De Martino is expected to be Labor’s candidate in Monbulk, while upper house MP Nina Taylor will probably move to the lower house to replace Foley in Albert Park. Primary school teacher and anti-fracking campaigner Alison Marchant will probably sit in Bellarine (Neville’s seat) while the Melbourne Arts Centre’s Lauren O’Dwyer will probably sit in Richard Wynne’s.
TICK-TOCK, TIKTOK
Senator James Paterson has asked TikTok to ‘fess up about whether the social media app shares data about some 7 million Australian users with China’s government, ABC reports. TikTok admitted to US senators that US user data was accessible in China — and the company has said before that some Australian data is kept in US servers. TikTok is primarily a feed of videos based on what the algorithm thinks you will like in categories like comedy, travel, renovations, cooking, and beauty. But it frequently comes under scrutiny for its impact on youth mental health and even suicides linked to the platform, as well as its cybersecurity issues — indeed former US president Donald Trump tried to ban the app in the US, as BBC reported.
Speaking of social media — no, there was decidedly not a shark in Sydney’s Lewisham train station amid the floods, Reuters concluded. The original tweet said Sydney’s aquarium staff were on their way to “deal with this”, with more than 19,000 likes garnered on the post. The pic is digitally altered and years old. Meanwhile a grumpy United Australia Party candidate posted yesterday on social media that he’ll sue the party for refusing to reimburse him for campaign material. Jamal Daoud told Guardian Australia he’s owed tens of thousands of dollars — but other candidates told reporters it was Daoud’s fault for spending big without permission. He ran in Reid, winning 2.58% of the vote.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
In 1697 British playwright William Congreve penned a tragedy called The Mourning Bride about doomed matriarch Zara, who is held captive by the King of Granada. He is later slain by mistake, leading to Zara’s untimely demise also. In the play, Congreve wrote: “Heav’n has no rage, like love to hatred turn’d; Nor hell a fury, like a woman scorn’d”. Yesterday a Melbourne man may have shared Congreve’s sentiment. In the streets of Northcote in the early morning, passersby would have bared their teeth in second-hand embarrassment as a sporty-looking Mercedes in a subtle champagne colour had the words “LIAR”, “CHEATER”, and “ALL MEN R TRASH” sprayed in bold red paint across three sides of the car.
There is no word yet on who the offender is (by that I mean, the owner of the car), nor the offence committed against the scorn’d party. Pedestrian reports “the Melbourne bloke who owns the set of wheels eventually appeared in the brisk morning air to see his surprise new paint job”. A neighbour remarked to the man that he had, perhaps, “pissed off the wrong person” which was met with a low chuckle before the man entered his vehicle and departed the scene. Is it a guerilla marketing campaign for the newest Netflix series? Or a reminder that our most intimate transgressions can come to define our outermost selves, a revolving billboard of our failures — nay an etched tattoo on our proverbial foreheads — our humiliation a penance for the pain we so carelessly dole out in the pursuit of our pleasures???
Wishing you a far happier commute than his this morning — even if it’s only to the kitchen for a cuppa.
SAY WHAT?
I do what I want. I’m not above the rules, I just like wearing my Jordans [trainers]. It’s more attention for me. What’s that saying? Any publicity is good publicity, right? I sit here now in the quarter-finals of Wimbledon again and I just know there’s so many people that are so upset. It’s a good feeling.
Nick Kyrgios
He’s already been fined twice this tournament but that didn’t stop Australia’s tennis bad boy from wearing red trainers and a red cap on the Centre Court at Wimbledon, in defiance of the all-white dress code.
CRIKEY RECAP
Nice guy Rupert Murdoch reportedly broke up with Jerry Hall via email — but he’s not the first
“Comedian and actor Russell Brand ended his 14-month marriage to singer Katy Perry via text message. Text message. In an interview, Perry said, ‘Let’s just say I haven’t heard from him [Brand] since he texted me saying he was divorcing me December 31, 2011.’ Happy new year!
“Actually, when you dig into the world of celebrity break-ups, it turns out that splitting via text, social media or a TV show is fairly common. Paul McCartney of The Beatles was dumped on live TV by English actor Jane Asher in 1968. Asher told Simon Dee, the host of BBC chat show Dee Time, that her five years with McCartney were over, saying, ‘I haven’t broken it off, but it’s finished’.”
Dutton wants an education fight — but his ‘solutions’ help Liberals, not schools
“It’s also important to look at what Dutton, Hughes and the rest of the party don’t say about education. They want to talk about the national curriculum. They want to talk about protecting schools’ values (presumably a reference to the debate over our religious discrimination bill and its impact on schools). The education debate, by their telling, is being fought over the culture that they’re being taught about.
“They’re quiet when it comes to any analysis about why our education system is reaching a crisis point. After gruelling years of teaching in a pandemic, there are severe teacher shortages. Some of those still in the sector are planning to leave. An exhausted cohort of teachers are striking because they’ve been offered less pay for doing more work. Private schools funded with millions of taxpayer dollars are building a third pool while other public schools scrape by.”
The day the Reserve Bank’s messaging nearly died
“We’ve come a long way from the days of the Alan Greenspan-inspired central bank approach of revelling in obscurity, with monetary policy communications carefully fed to the cognoscenti and left as a matter of Kabbalah-like interpretation for markets and commentators. Lowe has not merely taken to giving the occasional media conference but submitted to be grilled by Leigh Sales on 7.30. Delphic utterances have been replaced with regular speeches and Q&As. Now we’re getting Lowe’s medical history.
“While it’s gratifying that Lowe survived and fully recovered from his episode, and is now thankfully fit and well, what prompted the governor to share the tale with John Kehoe of the Fin? That’s not exactly the press organ the RBA needs to win over in its rate-hiking mission. The AFR has been demanding rates for long before the RBA began lifting them.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
With no fuel and no cash, Sri Lanka grinds to a halt (Al Jazeera)
Google says it will delete location data when users visit abortion clinics (The New York Times)
Sri Lanka energy minister warns petrol stocks about to run dry (BBC)
US says Israeli shot ‘likely responsible’ for death of Abu Akleh (Al Jazeera)
Putin declares victory in battle for Eastern Ukraine region of Luhansk (CBC)
Coal makes a comeback as the world thirsts for energy (The Wall Street Journal) ($)
Hacker claims to have obtained data on 1 billion Chinese citizens (The Guardian)
Government gives $140 million worth of subsidies for Avatar sequels so far (NZ Herald)
More than 3400 monkeypox cases have been reported globally. How dangerous is the virus? (SBS)
THE COMMENTARIAT
The good, the bad, the brilliant — it’s all or nothing for Kyrgios — Rob Harris (The Age): “In the past nine days, Kyrgios’ colourful on-court antics have captured the imagination of the British sporting public and have only fuelled the Australian’s status as one of the biggest stars in tennis. For his sins and successes, it earned him centre-court billing in front of the fiercest tennis traditionalists. But Kyrgios wants you to know he’s changed. And he would celebrate qualifying for just his third grand slam quarter-final with a glass of wine, he said.
“There was a time not so long ago when he was dragged out of the pub by his manager at 4am ahead of playing the sport’s most successful player, Rafael Nadal, in the second round …The sport’s greatest showman dialled down his antics to win over a crowd with his composure, grit and calmness. This time he was happy to leave the drama to two of Britain’s finest stars of stage and screen, Mark Rylance and Ian McKellan, who sat in the royal box and stood to applaud the Australian’s stunning performance in the last set.”
I’m learning to live with my fear for my baby’s safety: it’s the price we pay for love
— Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett (The Guardian): “I write this from a house that is slowly emerging from COVID, which finally caught us after two and a half years of the pandemic. In some ways, nursing a small, sick baby with a sick husband while also very sick myself was a more hellish experience than childbirth. There were points at which I wondered how we would be able to care for him. Thankfully my mother arrived bearing Calpol and some seriously old-school cough syrup, and for the past week has been feeding us and nursing us, risking her own health in the process.
“These challenges mean that I have been thinking rather a lot about fear and how it relates to parenthood. The baby’s history of breathing problems meant that I was genuinely frightened when we caught the virus, and though I knew it didn’t affect children much, a child I happen to know and love had a very severe reaction to the disease. That, as well as my son’s time in a newborn intensive care unit, made it difficult not to let myself become consumed by terror, and yet somehow I coped. While I was there, I saw some very sick babies and some very frightened parents.”
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WHAT’S ON TODAY
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Endeavour Energy’s Gijo Vargehese, Port of Brisbane’s Teresa Murphy, and .au Domain Administration’s Rosemary Sinclair will speak about building cyber resilience in Australia’s critical services in an event held by CEDA.
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Lawyer Nerita Waight, health worker Chelsea Watego, activist Johnathan Binge, and campaigner Apryl Day will speak about First Nations advocacy in a talk held by The Wheeler Centre.
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
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The International Atomic Energy Agency’s Rafael Mariano Grossi will speak at the John Gee Memorial Lecture held at the Hedley Bull Building.
