KEAN NOD ANNOYS COALITION COLLEAGUES
Former NSW Liberal treasurer Matt Kean’s appointment by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to lead the Climate Change Authority has rankled his Coalition colleagues. Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce called Kean “treacherous” in a Sky News Australia interview, while another Nat, Matt Canavan, called Kean a member of “team reckless renewables” who was “living in [a] fantasy land”. Shadow Health Minister Anne Ruston, meanwhile, said the announcement was “another distraction”, according to Guardian Australia.
The Sydney Morning Herald’s David Crowe writes that “Albanese clearly see [the appointment] as a coup”.
In The Australian, the appointment was described as Albanese “[escalating] his campaign against nuclear power”. Never mind that Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s proposal for seven nuclear reactors across Australia is only about a week old.
The reason conservatives are so upset is that Kean made clear immediately, at a press conference alongside Albanese, that he doesn’t support the idea of transitioning to nuclear power. Kean said that as a newly minted energy minister in NSW, “we looked at all options and made decisions based on economics and engineering, [acting on advice] it would take far too long and would be far too expensive for NSW. I didn’t want to bankrupt the state”.
UNESCO WARNS AUSTRALIA OVER REEF
The United Nations agency UNESCO has urged Australia to set more ambitious climate targets to preserve the Great Barrier Reef, writing in a new report the reef might otherwise be placed on a list of world heritage sites in danger.
According to Guardian Australia, UNESCO decided against immediately placing the reef on the list, but said Australia should be asked to hand in a progress report by February next year.
The reef “remains under serious threat, and urgent and sustained action is of utmost priority in order to improve the resilience of the property in a rapidly changing climate”, the report said.
Earlier this year, the United States-based National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration warned the world is undergoing the fourth global mass coral bleaching event since the late 1990s.
“What is happening now in our oceans is like wildfires underwater,” Kate Quigley, principal research scientist at Australia’s Minderoo Foundation, told CNN after that warning was issued.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
A US woman who bought a “nice little” vase for the equivalent of six Australian dollars found out she was actually in possession of a Mayan treasure that’s at least 1,200 years old. Anna Lee Dozier bought the vase at a thrift store in the state of Maryland in 2019, as she told NPR, “to take home and put on the shelf and remind me of Mexico”.
But in January, when she visited a national anthropology museum in Mexico City, she realised her op shop find bore a striking resemblance to Mayan vases on display there. After telling a museum official, who recommended she call the Mexican embassy, experts confirmed she did indeed have an ancient masterpiece on her shelf. Dozier arranged to have the vase returned to Mexico and received a thank-you from the embassy. “I am thrilled to have played a part in its repatriation story,” she told CBS.
Say What?
I am as angry as anybody when I learned about these things. I am incredibly angry.
Rishi Sunak
The UK prime minister and Labour leader Keir Starmer were grilled by readers of The Sun overnight, and Sunak naturally faced questions about allegations several people associated with the Conservative Party had placed bets on the date of the general election. Sunak said anyone who had broken the rules would be kicked out, according to the BBC.
CRIKEY RECAP
AI-generated news is unhuman slop. Crikey is banning it
Until artificial intelligence can generate a headline as incisive or beautiful as ‘Pissing in the Sink’, we will never use it to write our articles.
“Crikey’s first-ever edition arrived in inboxes on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2000. It included a reflection on Lachlan Murdoch from his former philosophy tutor, pseudonymous insider gossip from the former political staffer Christian Kerr, and lists of journalists who’d previously worked in politics. There was a profile of Rupert Murdoch lieutenant Col Allan titled ‘Pissing in the Sink’.
From our inception, we have been so very Crikey. There are a lot of things that make up Crikeyness, but central is its humanness. Like most people, we want to cut through the bullshit, know how the world and power works, hear the gossip, tell stories, take the piss and have fun. We write the way we wish other people would write, which is the way we talk to each other, for our readers.”
Everything the new Media Watch host shouldn’t be, according to ABC reporters
Paul Barry’s retirement announcement has sparked rampant debate as to who his successor might be. We asked ABC reporters who they want in the job.
“The shock news that Paul Barry is stepping down from hosting one of the ABC’s most-watched programs, Media Watch, has naturally inspired a slew of speculation over who might be his replacement.
Barry has hosted the program for 11 years, the latest in a long line of experienced journalists to have held the role. Rumours are rife as to who might take his place — including about cartoon blue heelers and former employees — so Crikey asked 14 ABC journalists who they wanted in the job.
While our informal survey remained anonymous so as to protect any professional repercussions for ABC employees, whose scope for public opinion is particularly limited, we made clear we were seeking their thoughts on who they wanted to see in the role, rather than who they thought might in fact fill it when Barry hangs up the microphone in November.”
The same party that legislated for offshore wind farms now wants to ban them
Imagine being a developer of offshore wind that has spent the better part of a decade working up a project that, this time next year, could be rendered obsolete if there’s a change of government.
“Who said this? ‘An offshore electricity industry in Australia will further strengthen our economy … Offshore generation and transmission can deliver significant benefits to all Australians through a more secure and reliable electricity system, and create thousands of new jobs and business opportunities in regional Australia.’
If you answered the federal energy minster, you’d be half right. Current Energy Minister Chris Bowen said a lot of these sorts of things last week, what with the declaration of the Illawarra offshore wind energy zone followed by the awarding of a feasibility licence to what stands to be Australia’s first floating wind project off the coast of the New South Wales Hunter region.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Gunmen kill police, priest and civilians in attacks on places of worship in Russia’s Dagestan (CNN)
Prosecutors in classified files case to urge judge to restrict Trump from inflammatory comments about FBI (Associated Press)
Netanyahu says war will continue even if ceasefire deal agreed with Hamas (Al Jazeera)
Ukraine says it destroyed Russian drone base (BBC)
Rwanda’s presidential campaign kicks off with Kagame facing familiar rivals (Africanews)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Matt Kean’s appointment as Climate Change Authority chair is frankly astounding — Geoff Chambers (The Australian) ($): “Matt Kean’s appointment as Climate Change Authority (CCA) chair without any due diligence or formal recruitment process is astounding and diminishes the independent, expert advice expected of the role. Kean — a vocal proponent of renewables who conveniently is now anti-nuclear — is a career politician whose 13-year tenure in the NSW Parliament ended with a whimper.
Putting Kean’s CV next to his three predecessors at the CCA illustrates just how comparatively unqualified he is for the part-time job that pays $65,170. The inaugural chair was Bernie Fraser, a former Reserve Bank governor and Treasury secretary.
Fraser was followed in 2015 by Dr Wendy Craik, a former productivity commissioner, National Competition Council president, National Farmers Federation executive director and Murray-Darling Basin Commission chief executive.”
Could Nigel Farage become the next Tory leader? In some ways, he already has — Samuel Earle (The Guardian): “[Nigel] Farage’s party has overtaken or drawn level with the Tories in many polls. In the past, Conservatives liked to say that a vote for Farage was a vote for Labour. Farage now says, gleefully, that a vote for the Conservatives is a vote for Labour. ‘A Tory vote is a now wasted vote — we are now the real opposition,’ he declares. Who’s laughing now?
As ever, Conservatives are split over what to do with the former City broker. While figures such as Suella Braverman and Jacob Rees-Mogg are eager to incorporate Farage and his crowd into the Tories’ electoral coalition, others — from [David] Cameron to Kemi Badenoch — are steadfastly opposed. The Conservatives know this conundrum well. In their quest to defeat Labour, a question recurs throughout the party’s history: how to maintain an aura of respectability, and thus keep its moderates on side, without losing voters to parties further on the right?”
