MORRISON’S DEFENCE
Former prime minister (and former minister of health, finance, treasury; home affairs, and industry, science, energy and resources) Scott Morrison is talking to a major UK defence company about a new job, according to the SMH ($). The senior role would draw upon Morrison’s AUKUS insights, sources say, and involve him commuting to Britain about once a month. Six colleagues say Morrison will quit between May 9 and the end of the year, the paper reports loftily, but one might note that an eight-month timeframe isn’t the juiciest insight. When asked for a comment, Morrison said he’s enjoying being back in his electorate of Cook. Meanwhile, quite the correction in The Post-Courier, a Papua New Guinea newspaper owned by News Corp, which used a photo of Morrison on the front page of the paper this week and captioned it “Prime Minister Anthony Albanese”. The paper regrets the error.
Speaking of our Papuan neighbours — PNG Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko agrees we should have Pacific island troops in the Australian Defence Force (ADF), The Australian ($) reports. They could rotate through, he says, and everyone could gain experience and knowledge. It comes as the government has earmarked $400 million for getting 18,500 more people into the ADF — more boots on the ground was one of the top priorities in the defence strategic review, but with unemployment at a low right now (3.5%), it’s going to be an uphill battle (mind the pun). So what else was in the review? The SMH ($) reports a classified version of it explored a possible conflict between the US and China over US-backed Taiwan, and also how we’d deal with Beijing setting up a military base in a nearby nation. “The message was, ‘You’re f—ed’,” one source told the paper. Oh…
SMOKE SIGNALS
We’re banning flavoured vapes, Guardian Australia reports, dubbed both the biggest smoking changes in a decade and world-first reforms. Under current laws it’s not actually legal to sell a flavoured vape with nicotine in it at your local corner store, as news.com.au ($) reports, but most packets don’t mention they have nicotine in them. It’s a massive “loophole”, Health Minister Mark Butler says, that has helped big tobacco create a “new generation of nicotine addicts”. Colourful vapes are marketed to kids alongside lollies and chocolate bars, he says, and they’ve become the top behavioural issue in high schools, infiltrating primary schools, and even impacting pre-school-age kids — a poison hotline in Victoria received 50 (!) calls about kids under four (!!) being sick from using a vape, he says. Wowza.
The national reforms follow South Australia’s new ban on smoking and vaping near schools, shopping centres, buildings, near patrol flags at beaches and children’s sporting grounds, 9News reports. Tobacco vending machines will be banned under the proposed changes. There has been some public wrestling over the past few years about whether vapes are better or worse than cigarettes. The Conversation delved into the myth that e-cigarettes are 95% less harmful than tobacco cigarettes in a sprawling explainer worth reading if vapes are used by you or someone in your life. And the ABC published an interesting retrospective on Victorian GP Dr Nigel Gray’s campaign to see the end of tobacco advertising in Australia — we were actually one of the slow pokes to do so, after the UK and the US.
SUPER PAY PLAN
Our superannuation would hit our super account on payday, not quarterly, under new changes proposed by the Albanese government. It’s a measure designed to stamp out dodgy employers avoiding their super obligations to workers, the SMH ($) reports, but it won’t come into force until July 1 2026 — yep, the year after the next federal election. The government says a 25-year-old worker on a median income could be about $6000 better off in retirement under fortnightly super payments, and said employers would have an easier time managing their payrolls. Hmm, not sure about that one. The Conversation’s Michelle Grattan notes the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) estimates $3.4 billion worth of super went unpaid in 2019-20.
Meanwhile men still had a quarter (26.4%) more super in their account than women, pretty much the same figure as 2015 (25.1%). The New Daily says rises in the superannuation guarantee and improvements to maternity leave with some private employers hadn’t really made a dent. So why is this happening? High-income jobs are mostly filled by men, and “women are doing more work in lower-paying feminised industries than they were 30 years ago”, Women in Super CEO Jo Kowalczyk tells the paper. These include healthcare, social work, education and training, The Workplace Gender Equality Agency says.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
On July 4 2015, Twitter user @negaversace posted: “Is [pop star] a feminist? Is MasterCard a queer ally? Is this tv show my friend?”. It was a digital masterpiece of our time, a musing on why we yearn to make tokens of capitalism — like anthropomorphic corporation marketing, or extreme wealth hoarded by untouchable modern deities — a pillar of modern morality generally, and a balm for our psychosomatic ailments personally. It was this tweet that came to mind as I read a story from The Guardian’s Elle Hunt about her attendance at Matthew McConaughey’s free live-streamed talk on “the art of livin”. Hunt had read his runaway bestseller autobiography Greenlights, and says it sounds exactly the way he speaks — dubbed “outlaw wisdom” (McConaughey has no criminal record, except for being fined once for playing the bongos naked).
After signing up, Hunt immediately got an email signed “McConaughey” that urged her to “Pretend like you paid $10,000 … though this event is free, it’s WORTH that much.” Some 400,000 others show up to the live stream. When McConaughey appears, he’s introduced as a “thought leader”. He is playing a conga for some reason, Hunt notes. He tells nearly half a million keen listeners the first lesson: “The art of livin’ starts with admittin’ — if we want to be legit, we gotta first admit.” His drumming quickens. McConaughey muses on strengths, which he says can sometimes be our weaknesses. This thought came to him, “like, six months ago”. But Hunt says she does find herself oddly invigorated by his rousing platitudes. Like when McConaughey tells them how to find one’s purpose. “Start trying to be great at what you’re good at, instead of good at what you’re bad at,” he says. It’s not bad advice, actually. Whether it would be worth ten grand, on the other hand…
Wishing you even a smidge of McConaughey’s vim and vigour today.
SAY WHAT?
Sharma’s intellectual quotient would outstrip the collective intellectual ability of almost all who currently determine the direction of the Liberal Party. I suspect some hack will be given the nod by faceless administrators.
Alan Jones
It’s hard to say whether this endorsement for the late Jim Molan’s Senate seat, which comes from the polarising former shock-jock and ultimately ends with a forecast that Dave Sharma wouldn’t be preselected, is a blessing or a curse for the former Liberal MP. Either way, Sharma has hinted it’s Wentworth he wants back, after teal newcomer Allegra Spender wrangled the seat from him last May.
CRIKEY RECAP
“Aside from stretching the meaning of ‘not much more’ — it’s 57% of the minimum wage — Coorey and his sources’ analysis is circular. We can’t raise welfare when unemployment is low because jobs are plentiful (despite the fact most recipients can’t work full-time due to sickness or disability). But we didn’t raise it pre-COVID when unemployment was higher due to cost concerns. In this conception, the Right Time™ is literally never.
“Polling also shows relative support for a raise — 42% favour, 31% oppose, 26% unsure, according to Resolve. Other polls have put support at up to 55%. The electorate has been complicit with our heartless leaders in deprioritising this issue for decades, but we’ve reached a moment of relative public compassion.”
“In his recent blow against the cultural elites in aid of returning politics to the material concerns of the working man, One Nation’s NSW leader boldly… subjected independent MP Alex Greenwich to an episode of homophobic taunting. And in the absence of an apology, which seems highly unlikely to come, he’s going to be sued for defamation over it.
“If it does go to court, how might Latham’s defence play out? Thankfully, we have a historical precedent to guide us. Back in 2018, Latham’s quest to render the phrase ‘humiliating new low’ meaningless from overuse saw him sued by journalist Osman Faruqi for Latham’s claims that Faruqi supported ‘anti-white racism’.”
“The Jacinta Nampijinpa Price-led campaign is the only Voice to Parliament group showing ads on YouTube and Google services so far, having paid to show their messages to millions of Australians in the past 10 days.
“That’s according to data taken from Google’s ad transparency centre, which is now giving never-before-seen detail on advertisers using Google’s ad services to show messages about the Voice referendum. Google is responsible for serving video ads on YouTube, sponsored listings on Google search and display ads on other websites that use Google ads.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
UN holds crucial Afghanistan talks in Qatar, without Taliban (Al Jazeera)
Florida board picked by DeSantis to countersue Disney (Reuters)
French Polynesia votes for pro-independence [party] in historic elections (euronews)
Donald Trump says it is ‘great to be home’ on visit to Scotland (BBC)
Private jet sales likely to reach highest ever level this year, report says (The Guardian)
Wildfire smoke increases risk of heart issues within hours, study finds (CBC)
Suspect in Texas massacre had been deported four times after entering US illegally, ICE source says (CNN)
THE COMMENTARIAT
The Libs are all right — Malcolm Turnbull (The Monthly) ($): “But what does ‘right’ mean in the modern Liberal Party? It certainly does not amount to conservatism in any meaningful sense of the word. Most of the hard-right culture warriors who now run the party would not know the difference between Edmund Burke and Tony Burke. Today the ‘right’ simply means adherence to the populist, divisive agenda of the right-wing angertainment complex, mostly Murdoch owned. Indeed, it is fair now to regard the federal Coalition as a coalition of the Liberal and National parties and, as the senior partner, the Murdoch media. Just as Fox News dominates the Republican Party and the right-wing ecosystem in the United States, so Murdoch’s media — both print and Sky News — dominate the right-wing parties in Australia …
“The membership of the Liberal Party has dwindled to the point where it is no longer even remotely a reflection of the community whose support it needs to win elections. The issues that rile up viewers of Sky News or listeners to 2GB have become the issues that stir up Liberal politics — the obsession with transgender people being the latest example. It used to be same-sex marriage, of course, until the 62% national Yes vote settled it, and the culture war over global warming continues in the right-wing media bubble long after it has become a practical debate of ways and means in the rest of society. Victoria, once the crown jewel of the Liberal Party, is now a political wasteland at both the state and federal levels. The state division is controlled by the hard right, their position secured by a program of stacking branches with the congregations of conservative Christian churches.”
The trouble with labelling fashion brands ‘good’ or ‘bad’: It’s not black and white — Melissa Singer (The Age) ($): “Last week, to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Rana Plaza garment factory collapse, in which at least 1132 people died, Baptist World Aid released a special report to show what progress has, or has not, been made since the tragedy, particularly on the issue of garment workers’ rights. The topline statistic, which this masthead reported, was that it would take 75 years for Australia’s largest fashion companies to pay a living wage, which is the term for a salary that covers the necessities of life (food, transport, housing, healthcare, clothing), plus a modest amount of discretionary income. It is not a minimum wage.
“Discussing the progress towards a living wage, even in arbitrary terms, is an effective way to present the conversation, including the fashion industry’s role in achieving it for some of the world’s lowest-paid workers — that is, the people who make our clothes. But as the fashion label owner pointed out, reports that rank companies, such as the Baptist World Aid one, are imperfect, and can present a warped view of what companies are or are not doing to meet their sustainability goals, of which living wage is a major component. The shortcomings of these reports, and others like them that rank companies, intentionally or not, along ‘good’ and ‘bad’ lines, sometimes mean fast-fashion brands, whose problematic business models have been well documented, rank higher than Australian companies doing their best to improve.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Online
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University of Queensland’s John Quiggin, 4 Day Week Global’s Charlotte Lockhart, and Boston College’s Juliet Schor will chat about the case for a four-day workweek in a webinar hosted by CEDA.
Kaurna Country (also known as Adelaide)
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Veteran broadcaster Keith Conlon and the History Trust of South Australia’s Kiera Lindsey will speak about South Australian history and heritage at an event at Mercury Cinema.
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
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The Lowy Institute’s Jennifer Hsu, Australian National University’s Jieh-Yung Lo, and the Australian Institute of International Affairs China Matters’s Yun Jiang will speak about the “2023 Being Chinese in Australia: Public Opinion in Chinese Communities” survey report, held by the Lowy Institute.
