REWRITING THE SCRIPT
Some 320 medicines will be half price — including those used to treat heart disease, cholesterol, Crohn’s disease and hypertension — under changes Health Minister Mark Butler will announce today that’ll affect 6 million Aussies. An average one-month script will become a 60-day script, Guardian Australia explains, doubling the amount of medicine one can collect. Butler says people will save up to $180 a year on each medicine, the SMH ($) adds, and pointed out 900,000 Australians didn’t get their prescriptions filled last year because of cost. It’s a measure designed to help with the surging cost of living (the “cozzie livs”, as the youth say), but does it go far enough?
Meanwhile, four Labor MPs — Alicia Payne, Louise Miller-Frost, Michelle Ananda-Rajah and Kate Thwaites — have broken ranks this morning to call for their government to raise the JobSeeker rate ($347 a week for a single — compare that with the pension, the AFR ($) says, which is $500 a week). The MPs signed a letter along with 300 others, including former Labor frontbenchers Jenny Macklin and Doug Cameron, the ABC adds. A mere $18 more a day was suggested by the government’s advisory committee that independent Senator David Pocock wrangled for IR support, but it was rebuffed by Treasurer Jim Chalmers because it would cost $24 billion (we’ve miraculously found $4.1 billion for missiles and defence manufacturing in the budget, Guardian Australia reports this morning, but anyway). But there is a glimmer of hope for our most vulnerable: we didn’t say we won’t raise it at all in the May budget, Assistant Minister for Treasury Andrew Leigh qualifies.
LEAN GREEN PROTESTING MACHINES
Queensland Police has dropped charges against Brisbane Greens councillor Jonathan Sriranganathan for the third time, Brisbane Times ($) reports, and he reckons they’re targeting him in an attempt to criminalise activists. Sriranganathan was part of a peaceful protest outside international weapons expo Land Forces last year — he got strict bail conditions, which were dropped, and then charges of trespassing and obstructing police were also dropped “after lawyers for the councillor spent significant time preparing his defence”, the paper notes. It’s not Sriranganathan’s first brush with the law — as Guardian Australia reports, the cops paid his legal costs in 2021 after it was revealed an officer who handed Sriranganathan a traffic charge had called him a “dishonest grub” on Facebook.
To another (former) Green who doesn’t mind a protest — independent Senator Lidia Thorpe has questioned what people want from her: to be like Pauline Hanson or Jacinta Price? While speaking to commentator Tom Tanuki, as news.com.au ($) reports, Thorpe described herself as a “straight shooter, straight talker” and said people want her to conform. She also said her dad, Roy Illingworth, “threw me under the bus on Andrew Bolt” — Illingworth called his daughter “racist” against white people — but she said Illingworth had been in touch and told her he loved her. Have we learnt nothing from Thomas Markle? It comes as Thorpe approached Senate president Sue Lines to get her advice on alleged racist remarks in the upper house, The Australian ($) reports. The Indigenous senator says there are racist comments every day and she’s constantly torn over whether she should take it or call it out.
THE GREY HOUSE
Overseas now and US President Joe Biden will run in the 2024 election, the ABC reports, after he officially launched his campaign overnight, some 560 days from the election. He opened the video with footage of the January 6 2021 Capitol attack, and described both then and now a “battle for the soul of America”. Biden says he’ll fight Republican attempts to limit women’s healthcare, cut social security and ban books, and slammed “MAGA extremists”. At 80, Biden is the oldest president in US history but is no stranger to setting records. He was the second oldest vice-president (after Alben W Barkley, Truman’s right-hand man) and was Delaware senator for 36 years (longer than eight current members of Congress have been, well, alive).
Other Democrats running at this moment are Marianne Williamson (remember that woo-woo self-help guru from the debate last election?) and Robert F Kennedy Jr (an anti-vaccine activist who his own family slammed in a 2019 Politico article for endangering lives). On the other side of the ring will be possible criminal Donald Trump, 76, who confirmed his bid in November, though don’t expect to see him at the first debate in August. No one asked for my approval on that, he whined on his social media site, as Bloomberg ($) reports. Could the former toddler-in-chief really return to the White House? The US has reinstated a former leader non-consecutively just once before — Democrat Grover Cleveland in 1892, The New York Times ($) says. If Biden wins, the future is bleak — according to this AI video the Republicans released overnight, anyway.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
When it comes to the news, most of us are browsers, perusers and even window-shoppers on occasion, lavishly consuming our current affairs in the format and to the degree to which we please in this fruitful information era. But Ross DeHovitz is a cover-to-cover person. The “fanatic” California pediatrician reads every inch of The New York Times each day, his wife Ann DeHovitz says. In years bygone, Ross particularly loved to read the tiny paid notices at the bottom of page 1. They were discontinued in 2008, but they were mere fleeting glances into the many rich lives of readers. Examples from the paper include: “Jewish women/girls remember to light Shabbat candles 18 minutes before sunset.”, “Dear Paul: Today you would have been 68 years young. I miss you terribly. Chari.”, and “Sherry, I love you and respect you. M.B.W.”
Back in 1989, when a smitten Ross decided to pop the question to Ann, he could think of no better public declaration of love. Thus the tiny notice on August 4 of that year reads: “Ann, my love for you is forever! Please marry me. Love, Ross.” When the paper hit his doorstep bright and early that day, Ross asked a bleary-eyed Ann if she would please read it to him. She thought it was a strange break in tradition, but she dutifully read page 1 aloud… before briskly turning the page! Wait, a panicked Ross said, what about the notices?! Ann turned back over, concentrating on the small font, before looking back up at him. “Hell, yes, I’ll marry you,” she responded. The pair are 65 now and recently visited the Museum at The Times. Reporter David W Dunlap had to know: did Ross’s profession of eternal love come true? So far so good, she responded, saying their wedding rings had been engraved “Forever”.
Wishing you a little romance in your Wednesday.
SAY WHAT?
[Mum’s] a fan of yours, so she’s going to lose her mind. By the way, I wanted to know, let’s not muck around with the cloak and dagger. What’s the go with aliens?
Kyle Sandilands
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was told he would be seated next to the radio host’s mum — unbeknown to her — for Sandilands’ wedding, before the non sequitur of the century veered the conversation into extraterrestrial life for some reason. Albo said there are no secret briefings given to the PM: “I know as much as you do.”
CRIKEY RECAP
Bernard Keane on Lachlan Murdoch dropping his defamation case against Crikey
“Murdoch’s legal team, and News Corp, later tried to portray this as part of a deliberate campaign all along to use Murdoch as a fundraising tool — as if the original article had been written to order as part of Operation Use Lachlan To Boost Subscriptions.
“Well, memo for Mr Murdoch — and for every other reader. I’ve never written to direction at Crikey, and have never been asked to. I write what the evidence leads me to conclude, rightly or wrongly, even if it offends readers because I’m not supporting their favourite political party or cause. I intend to keep doing that.”
‘Your voice is your power’: Alice Springs Traditional Owners launch their own patrol
“The program will also make heavy use of data, with Lhere Artepe aiming to collect the names, ages, addresses and community IDs of all ‘troublemakers’ in town. Initially, this will be done manually, but the rollout of a public-facing app in May will automate much of the process. The app will allow anyone and everyone to report incidents in the town.
“Rather than triggering a triple-zero police response, alerts will go directly to Traditional Owners. The Lhere Artepe headquarters will host a live dashboard with location data of reported incidents and the whereabouts of all Arrernte foot and vehicle crews, allowing for easy dispatch.”
Attendee at Malcolm Roberts event calls for a ‘military wing’ for the freedom movement
“Malcolm Roberts said he did not have time to refute a constituent’s claims that a former prime minister was a necrophiliac or that local councils were turning their areas into prison camps under the guise of making them more walkable because he had to focus on disagreeing with the man’s call to form an armed militia ‘like the IRA’ to replace police.
“Last week, the Queensland One Nation senator headlined an event for anti-vaccine GP Dr William Bay who is attempting to appeal his licence suspension to the High Court with a claim that the Australian medical regulator does not legally exist. After Roberts spoke for nearly two hours, the ‘Dare to Question’ event opened up to questions from the audience.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
WHO says ‘huge biological risk’ after Sudan fighters occupy lab (Al Jazeera)
William settled hacking case with UK paper group, Harry says (Reuters)
Kosovo takes ‘historic step’ towards joining Council of Europe (euronews)
Trump faces rape allegation as E Jean Carroll’s suit goes to trial (The New York Times)
The race to get New Zealand’s football club grounds ready for the FIFA World Cup (Stuff)
Venezuelan Opposition Leader Juan Guaidó ejected from Colombia (The Guardian)
Kremlin denies Vladimir Putin has body doubles and sits in a bunker (ABC)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Tax policy has become politicised and toxic — Allegra Spender (The Australian) ($): “With spending on track to hit 27% of GDP, we are expected to have the highest level of government spending since World War II. This is off the back of huge growth in the past five years from 24.6% of GDP ($478 billion) to 25.9% ($644 billion). And it is expected to be sustained into the 2030s. With the lowest unemployment of generations, it is hard to justify. And when you look at how we are spending that money, and the outcomes it is creating, it becomes even harder. For example, in schools funding, where the Productivity Commission found that national literacy and numeracy standards had gone backwards at the same time as record increases in funding.
“Or the NDIS which, while providing really important support to families, has blown out from its original estimated cost of $13.6 billion at maturity, to $33 billion today, and to $50 billion-plus in 2026. Or the inland rail — which has gone from $8 billion to an expected $31 billion in cost. We have to do better. There are legitimate calls for increased support for our most vulnerable people, such as through increased rent assistance, but to do this, we have to improve the effectiveness of our spending, and find efficiencies, rather than simply increasing the burden on taxpayers, particularly on workers who are constantly paying more tax through bracket creep.”
Hey Apple, where are your chatbots? — Tim Culpan and Parmy Olson (The Age) ($): “If Apple does go down the path of generative AI, the umbrella term that refers to computer systems that can generate text, images and sounds, it’s more likely the company will do so in the realm of visual and audio content, perhaps by offering AI systems modelled off a customer’s own photos or self-created music. That would tie into Apple’s historic strengths in building tech used by creative professionals, and for consuming content like music and movies.
“This may not be as compelling as churning out recipes upon request, but fits into the strategy of Apple devices being a gateway to information and entertainment rather being the specific source of them. Apple has a history of coming late to new fields and then improving on what others have pioneered. Its iPhone did that to the Blackberry, and AirPods to wireless earphones. But those were also efforts in hardware, turf where Apple is most comfortable. Launching popular online services is a very different ballgame and one where Apple has also historically struggled; see Apple Maps, iTunes Ping and Apple’s early difficulties launching its cloud business.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
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Greens Leader Adam Bandt will speak about his party holding the balance of power at the National Press Club.
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National University of Singapore’s Evan A Laksmana and Asia Society Policy Institute’s Richard Maude are in conversation about our strategic outlook on the Indo-Pacific at Old Parliament House (the event notes tickets include wine and cheese).
