POWER AND FURY
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says the statement “from the river to the sea [Palestine will be free]” is extremely violent, according to former treasurer Josh Frydenberg in a Sky News Australia documentary. Frydenberg continued: “I also put to him, ‘So it has no place on our streets?’ He replied, ‘I agree.’” So where did the slogan come from? Referring to the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, The New York Times explains the chant dates back to the early 1960s and reflects calls for Palestine’s borders to return to the pre-1948 British control era (Britannica shows it here). “But the phrase has also been adopted over the years by Hamas, which calls for the annihilation of Israel, taking on a darker meaning”, according to The Times. It comes as Albanese rebuked Education Minister Jason Clare saying it meant different things to different people. Crikey notes Albanese said he established the Parliamentary Friends of Palestine group in 2013 alongside former Liberal treasurer Joe Hockey.
Meanwhile, Albanese is in Western Australia today for a breakfast, a week out from a budget expected to contain many sweeteners for miners and manufacturers as The West Australian ($) reports, and one day out from WA Premier Roger Cook and Treasurer Rita Saffioti’s first budget since they took the helm from Mark McGowan. To another former premier now and Annastacia Palaszczuk has been appointed the international ambassador to the Smart Energy Council (SEC), The Courier-Mail reports, her first gig since she finished up as Queensland leader in December. “Palaszczuk will join the Canberra-based council, which counts Climate 200 founder and political activist Simon Holmes à Court on its board,” the paper notes. The SEC is an advocacy group helping the nation’s transition to net-zero carbon emissions.
BUDGETING FOR CAR AND HOME
Treasurer Jim Chalmers will not introduce road user charges on electric vehicles until after the next election, The Australian ($) reports, nor will the budget include fuel excise reforms. The current fuel excise (which helps pay for our roads) is 49.6 cents for every litre of petrol — it went up in February after two Victorians, backed by the Commonwealth, successfully challenged Victoria’s road user charge for EV users (if you paid this, claim your refund ASAP). But EV drivers don’t use petrol. Australian Automobile Association boss Michael Bradley said that “everybody who uses our roads [should be] paying their share toward their upkeep” but that will fall to a “smaller proportion of motorists as more people shift to electric vehicles”.
Meanwhile, Victoria has handed down its budget — it’s ditched plans for “the biggest hospital project in Australia’s history”, delayed a rail link for Melbourne Airport, and confirmed plans to sell government offices and remove sick pay for casual workers, the Herald Sun reports. The Victorian Homebuyer Fund will get an extra $700 million (home-buyers bring a 5% deposit, the state government pitches in up to 25%) but it’ll finish at the end of the financial year to make way for a planned federal initiative. Meanwhile, should banks overlook our HECS debt when looking at giving us a home loan? The student debt is looked at the same way as credit card debt and car loans when deciding how much they can lend, but Australian Banking Association boss Anna Bligh said treating them differently could be a small part of fixing the housing market, The Age reports. Banks could refer the debt to the Council of Financial Regulators to take a look, she said.
THE KIDS ARE NOT ALRIGHT
A Western Sydney library has banned a same-sex parenting book for kids, the ABC reports, prompting Arts Minister John Graham to reconsider state government funding for it. Six councillors at Cumberland City voted to “take immediate action to rid same-sex parents books/materials in council’s library service” compared to five opposed, with Mayor Lisa Lake in the latter group. The motion was written by former mayor, Councillor Steve Christou, who said it’s a very religious, very family-orientated community. Human Rights Campaign notes, in Christianity anyway, that there is no evidence that oft-cited bible passages “speak to same-sex relationships of love and mutuality”.
Meanwhile, kids in NSW are in actual danger from a staff shortage (256 vacant positions) of child protection workers, Guardian Australia reports, as 2,000 of them strike for part of today in a bid to secure a pay rise, 500 more staff, and to get out-of-home care de-privatised. Government data shows that three-quarters (87,769) of the at-risk kids reported to the Department of Communities and Justice were not seen by a case worker. Finally, kids in Years 11 and 12 can do about 5,000 TAFE and VET courses in carpentry, plumbing, and electrical for free, reveals a new budgetary measure The Daily Telegraph reports on. It will save students between $1,130 and $2,600 for certificates. The building industry employs 1.35 million people, but only half of the 8% exit rate is being replaced.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
Whether it is remarking “horses” as you drive past a field of idle horses, responding “at least it’s good for the farmers” while discussing the rain, or uttering some version of “howsagoan” to fellow early-morning walkers, there can be few unique utterances in a day. Take Jules Howard — he’s a zoologist specialising in the evolution of the human egg. “So what came first,” a person inevitably begins, tickled pink by what they presume is their unique quip, “the chicken or the egg?”. The answer is the egg, as Howard writes for The Guardian, but it’s a fascinating question. In the 4th century, Aristotle said the quandary’s suggestion of no true beginning is a way we mere mortals can ponder infinity, while Plutarch said it makes one consider the end times, a sort of precursor to what would become modern astrophysics.
The egg is the logical answer because it has been around for about 600 million years, compared to the chicken’s 10,000 years. Then again, what is a chicken, Howard muses, as one must surely draw the line somewhere in its evolution. Is it the prehistoric feathered dinosaur, the pecky thing from the gospel era, or the mutant the poultry industry created? It’s all of them — “a tumbling river of genes and genetic lineages flowing forwards in time, shuffling in and out of novel combinations as generations pass, chiselled and finessed by the whims of unthinking planetary surface forces or, more commonly for this species, the sculpting, selective hands of industry,” Howard writes rather beautifully. After all, we are merely “upright apes” with a “kink for categories”. But the fact that we continue to mull the existential question is kind of beautiful and hopeful — as if there is always more to wonder about our world and our minds.
Hoping you feel a sense of awe about it all today.
SAY WHAT?
Barry’s walking around like a dog with two dicks.
Oliver Blades-Moore
His Bar Grazie business partner used colourful words to describe the founder of Fratelli Fresh, restauranteur Barry McDonald.
CRIKEY RECAP
“When I was a senator, Senator Pauline Hanson threw it at me on national television — and also told me to pick up my manners on my way back from New Zealand. That exchange came up again in court recently in a defamation action brought against Hanson by Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi.
“Hanson’s lawyers argued the One Nation leader couldn’t possibly be racist because she also insulted white people. I won’t go deeper here because that defamation case is still ongoing.”
“Having spent nine months working on the most substantial piece of work I’ve ever written, I would have loved to enter the Walkleys this year. But as the climate crisis worsens, I, like so many others, cannot support the awards if it also means turning a blind eye to greenwashing and supporting fossil fuel.
“In response to the boycott, the Walkley Foundation produced a new sponsorship and donations policy, as promised. However, the policy does nothing to respond to the boycott’s concerns. It makes no mention of fossil fuels.”
“Why Hamilton, Hogan and the rate-rise-now! crew think still more punitive monetary policy will influence rents and insurance is anyone’s guess. A rate rise will only boost rents even further and will do nothing to lower insurance costs — instead, it will just give insurance companies more money from higher returns from their billions of dollars in Australian government securities.
“There’s just as much risk if Chalmers and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher produce too contractionary a budget next week — one that knocks away still more support for demand — as the alleged risk of fanning inflation up again with too much stimulus.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
UN pushes Iran for ‘concrete’ cooperation on atomic programme (Al Jazeera)
India election: Modi’s party accused of demonising Muslims in video (BBC)
TikTok sues to block prospective US app ban (CNN)
Jack Dorsey quits Bluesky board and urges users to stay on Elon Musk’s X (The Guardian)
Security guard shot outside Drake’s Toronto mega-mansion: Police (CBC)
BP profit slides by 40% as refinery outage offsets higher output (Reuters)
Ukraine says it foiled Russian plot to kill Zelenskyy (The New York Times) ($)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Expelling students for bad behaviour seems like the obvious solution, but is it really a good idea? — Linda J. Graham (The Conversation): “Suspending or expelling a student is meant to be a last resort for serious problem behaviour. It is either supposed to allow space for a reset or as a consequence for behaviour which threatens other students’ safety or learning. In the case of Yarra Valley Grammar, the suspensions and expulsions send a message to the girls in the school, other students, parents and the broader public, that this behaviour is not tolerated. With so much media and public attention on the spreadsheet, the suspensions and expulsions also help protect the reputation of the school. Clearly there has been some horrendous behaviour and it does need to have a stern response. But without condoning the behaviour in any way, kicking these students out of school is not the best way to handle this situation, which is a symptom of a much bigger problem.
“Typically, when a student is expelled, the outcomes are not positive for that child. This is because expulsion is a punitive action, not an educative one. Research shows suspending and expelling students can also simply build resentment and anger. If students feel like they are rejected from society, there is a risk they become more extreme in their views or behaviours. Research also shows it can impact a young person’s learning and lead to leaving school early. We also know there is an association between suspension and expulsion and increased delinquency, including contact with the police. The most protective thing to do is to keep young people in schools where they can be exposed to the influence of positive peers, under adult supervision, with a chance to keep up with their learning.”
A year on Ozempic taught me we’re thinking about obesity all wrong — Johann Hari (The New York Times): “We can’t find our way to a sane, non-toxic conversation about obesity or Ozempic until we bring these rarely spoken thoughts into the open and reckon with them. You’re not a sinner for gaining weight. You’re a typical product of a dysfunctional environment that makes it very hard to feel full. If you are angry about these drugs, remember the competition isn’t between you and your neighbour who’s on weight-loss drugs. It’s between you and a food industry constantly designing new ways to undermine your satiety. If anyone is the cheat here, it’s that industry. We should be united in a struggle against it and its products, not against desperate people trying to find a way out of this trap.
“There are extraordinary benefits as well as disturbing risks associated with weight-loss drugs. Reducing or reversing obesity hugely boosts health, on average: We know from years of studying bariatric surgery that it slashes the risks of cancer, heart disease and diabetes-related death. Early indications are that the new anti-obesity drugs are moving people in a similar radically healthier direction, massively reducing the risk of heart attack or stroke. But these drugs may increase the risk for thyroid cancer. I am worried they diminish muscle mass and fear they may supercharge eating disorders. This is a complex picture in which the evidence has to be weighed very carefully.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
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Economist Saul Eslake and former WA premier Colin Barnett will speak about GST at the National Press Club.
