CEASE AND DESIST
Three federal Labor MPs and 11 NSW ones have signed a letter calling for a permanent ceasefire following the “grossly violated” human rights of Palestinians at the hands of Israeli policies designed for the “domination of one people over another”. It also condemned the “horrific acts” of Hamas on October 7. The SMH ($) reports signatories include Greens leader Adam Bandt, Labor MP Maria Vamvakinou, Labor Senators Louise Pratt and Fatima Payman, NSW Labor MP Anthony D’Adam, NSW Greens MP Jenny Leong, former Liberal immigration minister Ian Macphee and more. Indeed more than 200 current and former federal and state MPs and local councillors signed. The letter urged the Albanese government to rethink Australia’s relationship with Israel and to instead find an end to the “intolerable and dangerous situation”, noting many in the Jewish community are protesting against Israeli violence towards Palestinians.
Meanwhile The Australian ($) reports a cleric at Bankstown’s Al Madina Dawah Centre called for a “Muslim army” to be a “final solution” — a phase that can be considered a Nazi-era term, including in 2018 when former senator Fraser Anning said it in a speech, as Guardian Australia reported (Anning said it wasn’t meant like that). The police have dropped an investigation into sermons at the centre that said “jihad is the solution” because there was no criminal wrongdoing. Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson piped up, however, telling the paper law enforcement and security agencies should keep an eye on preachers at the centre.
WOMEN’S WORK
NT Chief Minister Natasha Fyles reportedly didn’t declare 754 shares in a company that runs Gemco mine, the NT News ($) reports, while also refusing to investigate the effect of manganese dust on the surrounding Indigenous community. The possible conflict of interest, which allegedly occurred when she was health minister, has led to “high-level” discussions about whether she should remain in the job, the paper said. It comes after eyebrows were raised about her small bundle of Woodside shares, which she said she declared but divested anyway, as the ABC reports. Fyles is going to say more about the Gemco shares today but the opposition says her reputation is shot.
Meanwhile Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong should host a pre-sessional meeting of the UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues in Australia ahead of the meeting in New York to revive our international reputation after the failed referendum, member Dr Hannah Glade writes for the National Indigenous Times. Holding the advisory body pre-session onshore would also give Indigenous folks the opportunity to discuss treaty, the Noongar law academic added. Wong was named the government’s most effective leader by AFR ($) readers for the second time, while Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney was deemed the worst for the failed referendum. Wong’s international diplomacy has seen relations with Beijing thaw, including the release of journalist Cheng Lei (no word on Australian democracy blogger Yang Hengjun however). Treasurer Jim Chalmers was voted second best.
TRAVEL EXPENSES
One in five people awaiting a refund for a cancelled flight has waited longer than six months for their money back, Guardian Australia reports, and three in five say they were never given a reason for the cancellation. The Choice poll also found more than four in five (85%) were not offered accommodation or meal vouchers. It was part of a submission to the government’s aviation green paper — the consumer body wants a compensation scheme like Europe’s where airlines are forced to pay passengers compensation for binned or delayed flights. This comes as flights could be about to get cheaper — Transport Minister Catherine King has allowed Turkish Airways to increase flights from seven to 21 a week, up to 28 next year and then 35 in 2025. Qatar is reportedly pissed off, AFR ($) says, after King knocked back its request to double the number of its routes here.
Speaking of — Brittany Higgins and partner David Sharaz left for the south of France last night, news.com.au reports, after she bought a home in the town of Lunas (pop. 650). She plans to study and learn French. Good for her. It comes after former Liberal staffer Fiona Brown told the court Higgins didn’t cry during their meeting in the days after the alleged rape, Guardian Australia reports — she just had a “little bit of water in her eyes” which prompted a tissue. Tears, you mean? Brown told the court her “antenna was up” listening to Bruce Lehrmann’s explanation that he went to Parliament House that night to drink whisky, and that she recalled Higgins separately saying Lehrmann had been on top of her. He has always denied the rape allegation and the charge was dropped.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
It’s 1975 and a man named Jack H. Hetherington was finessing the finer points of a pivotal paper on low-temperature physics in the hallowed halls of Michigan State University. So engrossed in the tap, tap, tap of his typewriter solving a gargantuan problem in real-time, he’d overlooked an atomically small one: Hetherington had used the first person plural (“we” and “our”) throughout his entire paper, rather than the singular (“I”). It’ll almost certainly be rejected by the scientific journal Physical Review Letters on this basis alone, a colleague had sniffed. Faced with the daunting prospect of retyping no fewer than 1,442 pages, the physicist decided to take the path of least resistance. He added a co-author — a colleague named F.D.C. Willard.
The pair’s paper was swiftly accepted by the impressed submissions team and it made waves upon its publication in 1975. Dining out on his sudden notoriety, a gleeful Hetherington sent signed copies to friends and colleagues, mystifying them when the paper turned up stamped with inky cat paw prints. As it turned out, F.D.C. Willard was a nom de plume for none other than Hetherington’s Siamese cat Chester Willard (the first two initials referring to felis domesticus). It was the first time a scientific paper had been published under a human-cat byline. No doubt there were pursed lips in the more humourless corners of the scientific community, but what were they going to do about it? In any case, Hetherington didn’t care — he’d go on to reference Willard in his papers for decades. But not everyone learnt of the tale. Budding boffins would so frequently call the uni to pick Hetherington’s brain that a terse assistant would often snap that he wasn’t available. “May I speak to Mr Willard instead?” they’d ask politely. Talk about cat’s got your tongue.
Hoping you are equally as ingenious today.
SAY WHAT?
Joe Biden is too old and Donald Trump is too crazy, but we are likely to be dealing with the second-term presidency of one of them. Either would provide huge challenges for Australia strategically
Greg Sheridan
In a week where Trump is making headlines for echoing Adolf Hitler by saying immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country”, a grandpa in the White House seems a rather better option for allies such as Australia.
CRIKEY RECAP
“That’s because, without her father Lang Hancock, Rinehart wouldn’t be a billionaire. She might own some cattle stations, or some boarded-up asbestos mines — both activities Hancock prospered in before iron ore — but she hasn’t built herself up from not much in the same way as, say, Andrew Forrest, who started off as a stockbroker.
“Indeed, Rinehart’s solitary achievement was to develop the Roy Hill mine. It’s a small version of the mammoth operations of Rio Tinto, BHP and Fortescue. Otherwise she has two high-priced, overly expensive plays in lithium in WA — Azure Minerals and Liontown. Outside of that, the basis for her to be acclaimed as business person of the year looks decidedly thin.”
“The Victorian federal seat of Dunkley will head for a by-election sometime next year after the death of sitting Labor MP Peta Murphy. It’s difficult to say who might be preselected to represent Labor — the party is still reeling from Murphy’s death on December 4 …
“Rumours have been flying around that former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews could sign up for preselection, the source said, but that’s far from a certainty. Efforts by Crikey to reach Andrews through his former parliamentary staff were unsuccessful. On the Liberal side, the mayor of Frankston Nathan Conroy has been floated as a possible contender.”
“WWDA CEO Carolyn Frohmader tells Crikey she was given personal assurances during the NDIS review’s extensive consultation process — to which the WWDA significantly contributed, including by hosting a ‘Sex and the NDIS’ forum that, according to Frohmader, was so over-subscribed they had to turn people away — that the review would include a recommendation to develop the strategy.
“So imagine Frohmader’s surprise when the final NDIS review report did not include the recommendation for a gender equality strategy. Even worse, the review seems to have ignored women. The final 338-page report mentions the word ‘gender’ just three times and ‘women’ five times — and just two of those mentions of ‘women’ were not about the specific needs of First Nations women or gender and sexual diverse people.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Christmas weather forecast: Here’s what’s in store for each city (SBS)
Captives mistakenly killed by Israeli troops left SOS signs in Hebrew (Al Jazeera)
BP pauses all Red Sea shipments after [Houthi] rebel attacks (BBC)
Trump’s rhetoric in final campaign sprint goes to new dark extremes (CNN)
Russian courts halt cases against Alexei Navalny after jailed activist disappears (The Guardian)
Pope Francis allows priests to bless same-sex couples (The New York Times) ($)
EU should prepare for war by end of decade, German defence minister warns (euronews)
THE COMMENTARIAT
In Spain, we don’t share Britain’s migration panic — ‘stop the boats’ has few fans here — María Ramírez (The Guardian): “Immigration has not become a central issue in Spain’s political debate, and the weaponised rhetoric of ‘invasion’ is marginal, used primarily by the far-right party Vox. Vox has very limited power, with 12% of the vote in the most recent general election. Vox gained some traction in 2018 by focusing its campaign on small towns in southern Spain with high immigrant populations, touting anti-immigration messages and spreading lies about migrants on social media. But the party has recently lost ground even in those places. Vox’s leader, Santiago Abascal, has defended immigration from Latin America while advocating for restrictions on the rights of people coming from ‘Muslim cultures’, as a proposal presented in Parliament this autumn put it.
“But Abascal is routinely more focused on the backlash against Catalan separatists, feminism and the fight against the climate crisis. Perhaps because it is not constantly foregrounded by politicians, migration is not a major public concern: only 2% of the population considers immigration the main problem for Spain and about 12% mention it as one of the key issues, according to the latest survey data. Interviews were conducted in November, after a month of record arrivals of migrants and refugees. Politicians, unemployment, the economy and public health ranked higher as sources of concern for citizens in Spain.”
The suburb where everyone knows your name — and your marital status — Darren Levin (The Age) ($): “What I love about Caulfield South is its distinct absence of gen Z 20-somethings, which means a distinct lack of house parties blasting ‘Fred Again’ until 2am. It also means a distinct lack of single-earring-wearing, vape-inhaling keyboard activists looking like Y2K vomited up all of its worst clothes. Someone once proposed a skate park here. It did not go well. Caulfield South has a median age of 41, meaning I am finally living among my people. It’s also the global capital of the oodle, which usurped the Maltese shih tzu as the Caulfield South dog de jour.
“In terms of Caulfield South landmarks, there are three: Princes Park, Brighton General Cemetery, and Mr Brightside Cafe. Princes Park was in the news recently for being the flashpoint of ugly clashes regarding a Middle East conflict 13,000km away. Before then, it was newsworthy for another ugly clash. Local cricketers were claiming dog owners had turned the grounds into ‘one massive toilet’. They were fed up with games being interrupted by off-leash fur babies, whose owners were probably too busy debating said Middle East conflict to notice the huge divots being dug up by their prized oodles. I won’t weigh in on this (or any other) conflict; suffice to say that Caulfield South has a very dog-forward culture.”
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WHAT’S ON TODAY
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will give the 2023 Lowy Lecture at the Sydney Town Hall.
