PETROL-DRIVEN
Australian motoring executives have launched a secret campaign to delay our moving to electric vehicles and unpick a key section of our climate change plan, the SMH reports. It was created by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, the peak body representing 39 auto brands. Basically, it would see the industry’s voluntary emissions scheme become the national standard — new passenger cars sold in 2030 would still pump out an average of at least 98 grams of CO2 a kilometre. The paper reports it would ensure Australia’s car industry maintained some of the weakest carbon emission rules in the world. Plus it would set us back significantly in our fight to slash emissions: the transport sector is our third-largest source of greenhouse gases. Meanwhile a new report has found if an emissions cap on car-makers that was proposed by former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull had been implemented, it would have saved consumers $5.9 billion in fuel costs, the ABC reports.
From cars to petrol, and Shell confirmed it is selling Queensland gas to global customers through a Singapore marketing hub, the AFR reports, possibly lowering its domestic tax payments. Last week a bombshell report from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) lifted the lid on the arrangement but didn’t name Shell — it indicated the petroleum giant has sold liquified natural gas (LNG) cheaply that could have been sold to our domestic market — which doesn’t exactly bode well for next year’s looming gas supply shortage. Shell said it didn’t do anything wrong — it claimed it offered the uncontracted gas to customers in Australia. But ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said: “LNG exporters have diverted most of their excess gas to overseas spot markets, with as much as 70% of the excess volume going overseas in recent years,” adding that we face a 2023 shortage if nothing changes.
MASTER OF TRADES
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet told Transport Minister David Elliott he would create a parliamentary trade role for him, the SMH reports. The paper called it a “sweetener” for Elliott after dumping him from cabinet — it continued that Perrottet also spoke to Elliott about the agent-general position in London. Yikes. It comes as all overseas trade roles are set to be put under the microscope by the inquiry digging into former deputy premier John Barilaro’s plum NY trade appointment, ABC reports. Leader of the opposition in the upper house Penny Sharpe said the “significant meddling” was plain, and Perrottet’s claims that these are “arm’s lengths positions” now look very dubious. “And in fact, I think the premier has said that it would be illegal for him to even interfere in these,” Sharpe added.
In South Australia, Premier Peter Malinauskas has ordered Labor to give back a $125,000 donation from the Victorian Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU), The Australian ($) reports. It comes after a bunch of people drove laps in a car that reportedly has CFMMEU stickers on it outside the Master Builders Association in Adelaide on Friday, reportedly shouting at MBA staff, the paper says. Malinauskas will hold an emergency state executive meeting today after a week of monitoring the “rising influence” of the Victorian division, the Oz says.
WILL THE KIDS BE ALRIGHT?
We need to ban fast-food companies from buying prime time TV ads and sponsoring kids’ sport, independent MP Sophie Scamps says, to take on the obesity epidemic. Scamps, who was a GP in Sydney’s northern beaches before being elected, says she’ll draft a private member’s bill to sideline brands such as McDonald’s, KFC and Hungry Jack’s from pouring millions into appealing to kids, The Age reports. About a quarter of Australian children are overweight or obese, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
Meanwhile, we may have cracked one of the pandemic’s biggest mysteries: why children are less likely to catch COVID and experience less severe symptoms. Researchers from the University of Queensland say the “lining of children’s noses have a more pro-inflammatory response to the ancestral SARS-CoV-2 than adults’ noses”, The New Daily reports. What does that mean? Basically that the virus finds it harder to multiply in there, maybe because kids get so many viruses and bacteria in childhood and their systems are tougher for it. However, the Omicron strains were far tougher for kids to fight off than Delta, they added.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
In a beautiful display of cosmic origami, the billion-dollar James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) defied all doubt by unfurling its gold-plated body, configuring its intricacies and capturing, not only deep space photos of the far reaches, but an actual glimpse back in time to the early origins of the universe. Every image NASA releases feels so arresting, bringing up recollections of the microscopic cross-sections of foundational human cells, or mystical illustrative fairy tales from our wondrous child years, or a piece of spicy chorizo on a plate. Wait, what? A senior French scientist by the name of Etienne Klein has apologised after tweeting a photo last week that he claimed was taken by the JWST, as ABC writes, but was actually just a close-up photo of the tasty Spanish sausage.
In French, Klein had claimed the photo was of “Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, located 4.2 light years from us. She was taken by the JWST”. Klein is no amateur — he’s a director at France’s Atomic Energy Commission — so when he continued to some 90,000 followers that “This level of detail … a new world is revealed every day,” people believed him. He later admitted the photo was a sausage. He apologised for what he dubbed a “scientist’s joke” but claimed the prank had a larger point: to promote scepticism of people in positions of authority. In a follow-up tweet, he wrote: “According to contemporary cosmology, no object belonging to Spanish charcuterie exists anywhere but on Earth.” If that’s not a reason to care for our planet, I don’t know what is.
Hope this made you smile and that your smile repeats during your Monday, much like a slice of chorizo might do.
SAY WHAT?
Congratulation to this beautiful family, but lets say everything in Aus is about white saviour culture. The very public return of this family is a paradoxical and challenging story. Specially when we remember that there are still more 100s refugees remaining in Port Moresby&Nauru
Behrouz Boochani
The former Manus Island detainee and journalist said it’s good news Tamil family Nades, Priya, Kopika and Tharnicaa have been granted permanent visas allowing them to stay in Biloela, Queensland, but he stressed that we need to see a fundamental change in our asylum seeker policy to give hundreds of lesser-known families their chance to go home for good too.
CRIKEY RECAP
Liz Truss will be an awful UK prime minister. Here are 39 reasons why
“12.) As foreign secretary, Truss risked a major diplomatic incident when she said she would “support” any Brit who went to Ukraine to fight against Russia — directly contradicting advice issued by her own department. 13.) Truss designed the Northern Ireland protocol bill, which risks undermining the Good Friday Agreement while also starting a trade war with the EU.
“14.) Two days before the Brexit referendum, Truss tweeted: ‘Leave cannot name one country we would get a better trade deal with if we left the EU’. She has spent the intervening six years claiming the exact opposite. 15.) One of the few trade agreements Truss managed to get signed was with New Zealand, which she promised would deliver ‘vast opportunities’. Instead, it is expected to boost New Zealand’s economy by $970m, with ‘negligible’ effect on the UK. 16.) So one-sided was the UK-New Zealand trade deal that even Kiwi television reporting couldn’t believe it …”
No country for old men: the Liberal brand is a smoking ruin
“All Hunt, Dutton and his colleagues gave us in 2014 was a more painful, costlier and slower decarbonisation process, removing at a stroke any capacity for Australia to offer international leadership on the biggest long-term economic threat to us. Eight years later, they’re still trying to stop climate action.
“Even up until last year, most of the press gallery was convinced climate wasn’t a problem for the Coalition. Indeed, it maintained that Scott Morrison had cleverly neutralised the issue with his 2050 net zero deal with the Nationals. The conventional wisdom in the gallery was that it was Labor that had an unsolvable electoral problem on climate. The unhappy faces of Dutton and his blokes yesterday — their ranks missing MPs from half a dozen seats lost to the independents backing and amending the bill nearby — shows how wrong that conventional wisdom was.”
Ties off, masks on: two weeks in, Parliament hits new ‘nice’ stride. But will it last?
“The climate change bill was one of 18 presented to the House in the first two sitting weeks, as Crikey reported, and one of two to pass. Territory rights were on the table, building codes were axed, there was buy-in for better biosecurity, and the economy brought little joy. Debate was robust, questions were evenly allocated, and answers had to be pithy and pertinent, but petty points of order did pile up.
“Question time under the Albanese government has not transformed into a polite debating society. The government had scores to settle after nine years in opposition, and the Coalition-turned-opposition was disoriented playing in defence.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Israel-Gaza: talks under way to broker ceasefire in Gaza (BBC)
Air Canada denies certain compensations claims, calls staff shortages a ‘safety-related issue’ (CBC)
Election boost for Italy’s far right as centre-left alliance collapses (The Guardian)
‘Blatant exploitation’: migrant workers packed in freezing, damp rooms for $150 a week (Stuff)
Senate passes Democrats’ sweeping healthcare and climate bill (CNN)
‘Russian nuclear terror’: Ukraine atomic plant attacked again (Al Jazeera)
China eases COVID-19 suspensions for international flights (SBS)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Human rights can’t be left at mercy of emergency orders — Lorraine Findlay (The Australian) ($): “One of the fundamental principles when curtailing rights during a crisis is the need for measures to be implemented fairly and equitably. Yet the evidence suggests it was our most disadvantaged areas and most vulnerable groups who were disproportionately fined for breaching public health orders … What we should have learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic is that the public health response is only one part of the equation. Public health interventions have broader economic and social impacts, and invariably give rise to human rights issues. Our planning for managing public health emergencies needs to extend beyond the health sector response. The failure to embed human rights considerations into pandemic planning resulted in COVID-19 response measures that did not give sufficient weight to human rights concerns.
Some examples include international and interstate border closures, hotel quarantine, extended periods of lockdowns, school closures, curfews and other restrictions on movement, vaccine mandates, playground closures and disparities in the severity of restrictions and responses in different localities. Australians have had to live with some of the most restrictive pandemic response measures in the world. The impact on our human rights has been substantial, and should be the subject of a comprehensive, stand-alone inquiry. We need to formally review all aspects of our COVID-19 pandemic response — especially its impact on human rights — to allow us to be better prepared for the next health crisis. We also need to ensure that future emergency planning incorporates human rights considerations as a priority. Even in the middle of an emergency — perhaps especially in the middle of an emergency — human rights matter.”
La dolce vita might not cure COVID, but it sure felt like an antidote — Edwina Munns (The Age): “Of course, the standout moments were those you can’t predict while planning a meticulous itinerary. The pauses between the big Verdi experiences. Discovering our best pizza of the trip, ostensibly low-key for €5 at Lido Pantano. Running into my in-laws’ former neighbours while on a day trip to Lecce. Conquering a steep climb in picturesque Siena – and being beaten by both of our small children. Watching a group of local teenagers fish and play football at 9pm at Massa Lubrense, the sun setting on Capri serving as their backdrop. Our daughter losing her first tooth and wondering if the tooth fairy comes to Italy.
“We made mistakes and quickly learnt from them. When the inevitable travel stuff-ups happened we found ourselves laughing rather than stressed. We were grateful for the opportunity to experience culture shock after staying inside our homes for months on end. My husband accidentally told a shopkeeper he loved him instead of complimenting his shoes. “Grazie,” the shopkeeper replied, quite happy with the proclamation. Italy is generous with its history, music, flavours and colours. We lapped up its green-blue waters, gorgeously deep red sugos and passatas, buttercup-yellow sandstone buildings: the perfect palette to reawaken our senses. But Italians and their generosity of spirit? Oh my god.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Yuggera Country (also known as Brisbane)
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Writers Jan-Andrew Henderson, Pamela Jeffs and Pauline Yates will chat about the horror anthology, That is TOO Wrong!, at Avid Reader bookshop. You can also catch this one online.
Whadjuk Noongar Country (also known as Perth)
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WA Data Science Innovation Hub’s Alex Jenkins, Minister for Emergency Services; Innovation and ICT Stephen Dawson, and Amazon Web Services’s Bachir Awad are among the speakers at the WA Health Hackathon 2022 Launch Event.
