BOLT FROM THE SKY
Mark Latham risks becoming a “pariah” at Sky News and has been blasted by One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson over “disgusting” and homophobic comments posted to Twitter yesterday. Sky News Australia reports Latham’s tweet was so offensive that host Andrew Bolt considered barring him from his TV show.
“I’d asked Mark Latham to come on tonight to explain what went wrong for him in the NSW election. But as you can see, no Mark. Nor will there ever be,” Bolt said on air. “Now this tweet, I don’t think he’ll ever live it down. He will be a pariah, and not just here at Sky. I wonder how he will be able to function as a political leader when he’s earned the contempt of so many for his abuse.”
In a video message posted to Facebook late on Thursday, Hanson said she had tried to call and text Latham “to no avail”, The Sydney Morning Herald ($) reports: “I want you to know that I don’t condone [the comments] and neither do my members of Parliament or party associates. I think they are disgusting … and I have clearly sent a text message to him telling him my views and also I’ve asked for him to give the people an apology.”
Latham’s graphic comments — which the Worm has opted not to repeat — were directed towards gay NSW MP Alex Greenwich. Latham made the comments in a tweet reacting to media comments by Greenwich calling him a “disgusting human being” for targeting NSW’s LGBTQIA+ community during the recent state election. A predawn visit to Latham’s Twitter feed reveals the homophobic message has been deleted — but other tweets posted in the past 24 hours that remain online include one calling former US president Barack Obama “the ultimate whore”, and another one claiming “the ABC has replaced journalism with … new Stalinism”. Visit the feed at your own risk.
MEDICARE EMERGENCY
Years of cost–cutting Medicare has led to patients being denied nearly $4 billion in rebates, The Australian ($) reports. A new analysis by the Australian Medical Association obtained by the newspaper shows that $3.8 billion has been “ripped out of Medicare … in years of cost-cutting that has contributed to plummeting rates of bulk-billing and unfeasible wait times for appointments”. The article notes federal Health Minister Mark Butler has said “nothing is off the table” in the May budget, but he has not revealed whether the government will seek to increase rebates.
The low rate of patient rebates was a “key reason” bulk-billing has plummeted, and patients are facing historic wait times to visit GPs, AMA president Steve Robson told The Australian. “The most vulnerable people, the people with chronic conditions, the ones who have to see a GP the most, are paying the biggest penalty … and when they can’t find a bulk-billing GP anymore, the only option is public hospitals,” he said.
Butler claimed in Parliament’s question time yesterday that Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was to blame for many of the current problems with Medicare, which he described as “in its worst shape in 40 years”. “Whether it’s his attempt to introduce GP tax, whether it’s his dearer medicines policy, whether it’s his Medicare rebate freeze, his attempt to put a tax on every Australian visiting the emergency department in their local hospital,” Butler said.
RISING TAX ON GAS?
Soaring gas profits could be slapped with higher taxes in the May budget, anonymous sources tell The Australian Financial Review ($). The newspaper reports people familiar with a Treasury review of the petroleum resource rent tax (PRRT) said the tax increase could raise billions of dollars.
The review, which began as a “targeted and technical review of so-called gas transfer pricing rules” has “morphed into a much bigger” overhaul of the PRRT, according to the AFR. The last budget, in October, forecast the PRRT to raise $2.6 billion in the 2022-23 financial year.
Columnist Jennifer Hewett writes in a separate opinion piece ($) in the same newspaper it’s “little wonder that gas producers feel increasingly baffled and battered by the Albanese government’s attitude towards their industry”. “Is it a carbon villain that should be strangled at birth or an energy and economic saviour to be encouraged?” she wonders.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
Thylacines — better known as Tasmanian tigers — may have survived into the 1980s, and there’s a non-zero chance some still remain in the island state’s remote south-west. The ABC reported this week that new research by a University of Tasmania team looking at a database of 1237 sightings of the animal from 1910 and onwards, found it was likely the animal went extinct between the 1940s and the ’70s.
“But we found, through further analysis, that extinction might have been as recent as the late 1980s to early 2000s, with a very small chance that it still persists in the remote south-western wilderness areas,” UTAS professor of environmental sustainability Barry Brook said.
The more recent sightings of the thylacine included an “extremely plausible” one from 1982, by park ranger Hans Naarding. “He reported that he observed a fully grown male thylacine for about a minute … [sparking] a year-long search by Parks and Wildlife, which ultimately proved fruitless,” the ABC reported.
SAY WHAT?
If you make a list of all of the things that are giving us this inflation challenge in our economy, low-paid workers getting paid too much wouldn’t be on that list.
Jim Chalmers
The treasurer pushed back against a question from Sunrise host David Koch about whether the government feared raising the minimum wage — perhaps by as much as 7%, as unions have called for — would fuel inflation. Jim Chalmers said there was “no indication” a wage-price spiral was at play, saying the war in Ukraine and supply chain shocks were to blame for inflation.
CRIKEY RECAP
Opposition benches empty as attorney-general introduces Voice bill
“A bill that’s the first step towards creating an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament in Australia has been introduced into the lower house. ‘Constitutional recognition is an opportunity to acknowledge our history and come together for a more reconciled future,’ Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said.
“After Dreyfus finished speaking, the government side and most of the crossbench rose to give a standing ovation. The mostly empty opposition side of the chamber remained seated.”
News Corp to slash up to 40 editorial jobs in Australia after weak earnings
“News Corp Australia has tasked editors with putting forward editorial jobs for redundancy as part of a global move to cut costs. On Monday, unionised News Corp staff were told in an email that management had refused to negotiate with the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) for a ‘fair redundancy’ process, after indicating that editors will start making calls on between 30 to 40 editorial redundancies.
“News Corp editors are in the final stages of deciding who will be shown the door, Crikey understands, as staff mull voluntary redundancies.”
Coalition MPs rush, injure a staff member. It’s not the first time politicians have fled the chamber
“A flurry of Coalition MPs tried to flee Parliament after the doors had been locked for a division. In their attempts to get out, an attendant was shoved against a door and injured their arm.
” ‘We as a House cannot be in a situation — out of respect for the staff who work in this building — where, when you ask people to lock the doors, they have members of Parliament physically pushing past them to get out of the room,’ Leader of the House Tony Burke complained.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Ukraine by rail: Inside Zelenskyy’s efforts to buoy a nation (Associated Press)
Jair Bolsonaro returning to Brazil for first time since 8 January riots (BBC)
World Bank chief calls for dramatic hike in funding to help developing world (The Guardian)
Russia detains Wall Street Journal reporter on suspicion of spying (Reuters)
Relocating 70 of Pablo Escobar’s ‘cocaine hippos’ to cost around $3.5 million (CNN)
THE COMMENTARIAT
‘Let’s show the under-35s what a real recession looks like’ — Liberal NSW candidate Freya Leach (The Australian) ($): “The major problem was our messaging. Labor ran a very simple negative campaign … When we finally began to produce negative messaging targeting Chris Minns, we focused on him being the ‘definition of risk’. While this was an important message, we must remember NSW’s shifting voter demographics. In 2011, those born before 1964 made up 53% of the voting age population; now they are just 38%. Conversely, millennials and gen Z now account for 36% of voters, up from just 17.9% in 2011.
“The challenge for the Liberal Party this election was that our central message of good economic management simply didn’t resonate with young people. Why? Because no one under the age of 35 has been in the workforce during a recession.”
Time for some big bang tax reform, and yes, that includes negative gearing — Grattan Institute CEO Danielle Wood (The Sydney Morning Herald) ($): “A big bang tax reform would be to tax savings vehicles consistently through a dual income tax — one that applies a single flat tax rate to all savings returns. A single flat tax rate on savings could actually be fairer than how we tax savings today. But there are ways we could also get closer to a fairer and more consistent tax treatment of savings through better targeting of superannuation tax concessions, reducing the capital gains tax discount, and winding back negative gearing. These measures were widely supported by the poll of leading economists on both efficiency and equity grounds.
“The need for reform is clear: Australia faces both a productivity and a revenue challenge. But the over-the-top reaction each time even modest tax changes are proposed — of which the $3 million superannuation earnings tax proposal is just the latest example — strikes fear into the hearts of would-be reformers. Perhaps talking about tax can overcome this.”
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
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Federal committee inquiry into the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People to hear from the Australian Human Rights Commission and others.
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
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Senator David Pocock, Referendum Council co-chair Aunty Pat Anderson AO, and constitutional lawyer and UN Human Rights Council member Professor Megan Davis in a conversation facilitated by Virginia Haussegger AM on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
