OH BROTHER!
Liberal MP Stuart Robert visited his good friends’ consulting company to speak about possibly lucrative government projects when he was a minister, according to leaked internal documents the SMH reportedly saw. Consultant David Milo and political fundraiser John Margerison are shareholders at Synergy 360 and are also close mates of the former government services minister. The paper adds that a Synergy 360 executive said a potential Spanish client had to make “some form of payment upfront i.e. retainer, $100K etc before any meeting with ministers etc is confirmed” (the Spanish company confirmed to the paper that Milo told it about a “number of ministers” who were highly involved and that it’d be good to meet them and take them out to dinner). The leaked files also reportedly show Infosys, which won $135 million worth of contracts but struggled to deliver, had paid Synergy 360 to have meetings with Robert. Robert denies any wrongdoing.
To another former government minister in hot water now and then PM Scott Morrison falsely claimed he did not have the power to help the Biloela family even though he was sworn into the home affairs portfolio at the time, Guardian Australia reports. The day before the election, he waved away calls to help the family, whose surname is Murugappan, return to their Queensland home saying it was up to then immigration minister Alex Hawke. And yet Morrison told the House of Representatives yesterday that he would’ve been honest about all of his portfolios if he was asked, the paper notes. Morrison also claimed he binned the Pep-11 permit that would’ve seen gas exploration off the coast of wealthy Sydney suburbs using prime ministerial power, as The Conversation explains, though he also had that power because of his secret resources portfolio, no? No wonder the Liberals were usurped by a slew of independents running on platforms of integrity shortly afterwards.
Hey, if you’re interested in delving into the teal uprising in May’s federal election, check out journalist Margot Saville’s edition of The Crikey Read — it’s a fascinating insight into the historic movement, and explores where to from now for the teals. Read an excerpt here.
RAISED VOICES ON THE VOICE
First Nations leaders from some of Australia’s most remote Indigenous communities say Country Liberal Party Senator Jacinta Price does not speak for them, The Australian ($) reports, when she rejects the Voice to Parliament proposal. Empowered Communities is an alliance of 10 regional, urban and remote Indigenous leaders from all over the country. The group worked closely with the Coalition government, but yesterday slammed the Nationals for its “premature decision to oppose a referendum on a constitutionally guaranteed First Nations Voice”, saying the party shouldn’t let Price tell them how to think. Pollies are always “too busy grandstanding and politically manoeuvring to work with our communities on improving outcomes for us”, the group said, continuing First Nations peoples need this “constitutionally guaranteed Voice in our affairs”.
Meanwhile, a historic land rights win — and the largest sea claim ever — has taken place in far north Queensland, The New Daily reports. Five traditional owner groups — that’s Ankamuthi, Gudang Yadhaykenu, Kaurareg, Kemer Kemer Meriam and Kulkalgal peoples — worked together for the first time to successfully receive native title recognition. The Federal Court sided with the group in what the judge described as “a truly momentous occasion”, seeing the return of more than 2500 hectares of land and 2 million hectares of water. Victorious Gudang Yadhaykenu man Bernard Charlie said: “When I come to my sea country, I sleep right. It feels like I’m in my lounge room, at home … I feel like I’m looked after.”
ON OUR FRONT FOOT
The Socceroos have beaten Denmark 1-0 at the World Cup in Qatar, a team ranked 10th in the world, sending us through to the round of 16 for only the second time. Mathew Leckie scored “one of the most important goals in the history of Australian football”, news.com.au reports, making this the only time Australia has ever won back-to-back matches at the World Cup. Please enjoy the footage of fans losing their minds over the result, as 7News had. The Age’s esteemed football writer Greg Baum wrote a somewhat delirious (published at 4.48am) yet deeply joyful analysis that leads with this protracted food analogy about Leckie being a baked good. Baum says 10 minutes into the second half, Tunisia had scored against world champions France, and “Leckie had played himself into Australian soccer immortality”.
Also worth reading is Guardian Australia’s Emma Kemp weaving the match together in vivid detail — “Denmark … pinned their opponents down with precise passing, considered and effective, a picture of economy to Australia’s toil,” she writes, while “Eriksen was free and floating at leisure, the outside of his left boot a tourist in a new neighbourhood”. So where to now for the Socceroos? We’ll find out later this morning who they’ll play next — it could be Poland, Saudi Arabia or even Lionel Messi’s Argentina, the paper says. It’s been a long time since we last qualified — some 16 years. Football fans still wince at the memory of the 2006 game, as Baum wrote for the SMH at the time. Italy was awarded a practical “posthumous penalty” against Lucas Neill, Australia’s player of the tournament, in the 96th minute which became the only and winning goal, knocking us out.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
Do you ever have one of those days where you feel like throwing your hands up with frustration, but the shackles of modern civility force you to grin and bear it? When you take a sip of your takeaway coffee and realise you’ve mistakenly been given a peppermint tea, and your boss emails you yet another vague and inane change on that thing that you’re not even supposed to be working on? On Monday morning, one huffy Melbourne resident had enough. A sulphur-crested cockatoo was filmed indiscriminately flinging pot plants off a balcony in Flinders Lane, which soared through the air majestically before hitting the ground. He’s four floors up, and “he’s not happy”, a bloke off-screen remarks in the video, which has been watched more than 1.5 million times. On the pathway below is a practical graveyard of plants (particularly horrific in trendy Melbourne, one might think), while onlookers give pedestrians the heads-up about the hot-headed bird above.
But café manager Lucie Amulet told ABC she wasn’t surprised by the cocky chaos in the least. She’s worked on Flinders Lane since 2016 and said this time of year is like the witching hour for the cheeky birds. “They mostly drop plants but also socks as well,” she remarked. The broadcaster actually tracked down the guy who lives in the apartment attached to the balcony being ransacked, who said he wasn’t worried. Jason (no surname) was like, it’s funny, and besides, what would I do about it? “At the end of the day it is nature,” he said wisely. A cockatoo expert was more perplexed. He told ABC that the bird “wilfully throwing pot plants off a multi-storey balcony is … bizarre and fascinating”. We don’t really know why the cockatoo is doing it, but I’d like to believe he’s being destructive because it just feels good sometimes. Sometimes one wants to just chuck a pot plant, you know? Metaphorically, I mean.
Hoping you feel unencumbered today.
SAY WHAT?
Had I been asked about these matters at the time at the numerous press conferences I held, I would have responded truthfully about the arrangements I had put in place.
Scott Morrison
How silly of us all to not think to ask the former PM whether he had, by chance, happened to secretly swear himself into any extra portfolios. Morrison was mostly defiant during his name-and-shame censure in Parliament over the five extra ministries he took on, saying he would’ve admitted it if a journalist had asked.
CRIKEY RECAP
Jordan Peterson slams Qantas for ‘land acknowledgment propaganda’
“You too can write a best-selling book, gain a wide following, and have an audience with Australia’s conservative politicians.
“All it takes is a little life advice so common and basic that ‘it’s the kind of thing my grandparents used to say’ is a compliment, applying the alpha-beta hierarchies among lobster society to human interaction, and from there you can pretty much coast along on increasingly furious reaction to anything dimly progressive.”
New book reveals Frydenberg told Ryan her campaign wasn’t run ‘in the right spirit’ after conceding election
“It’s an Australian tradition that an incoming politician can’t claim victory until the loser has conceded. So Ryan waited for days for Frydenberg to concede. Finally, he rang. As Ryan tells it, the now-former treasurer was struggling with what to say …
“The defeated member for Kooyong never uttered the words ‘you won’ or ‘congratulations’. Frydenberg, a former tennis champ, was offering no polite handshake over the net.”
Scott Morrison reacts as colleagues pass historic censure motion
“Morrison, who earlier rose to defend his actions, looked relaxed when the vote was announced, made an occasional glance towards the press gallery, and even chuckled at something on his phone shortly afterwards.
“He was sitting at his usual seat on the backbench next to ally Alex Hawke, who was recently revealed to have spoken out against Morrison in interviews for a new book by journalist Niki Savva.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
At least 15 killed in Afghanistan school bombing, says official (Al Jazeera)
Two Chinese cities ease COVID curbs after protests spread (Reuters)
Brussels recommends freezing €7.5 billion in EU funds to Hungary over rule of law concerns (EuroNews)
Alzheimer’s drug lecanemab hailed as momentous breakthrough (BBC)
Port of Vancouver’s ‘ambitious’ zero-emissions plan praised, but critics say LNG stands in the way (CBC)
San Francisco supervisors vote to allow police to use robots to kill (CNN)
Revealed: more than 70% of English water industry is in foreign ownership (The Guardian)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Victoria election: Another Labor-lite approach, another Liberal Party loss — Peta Credlin (The Australian) ($): “Any Turnbull analysis always involves an element of special pleading as he’s still blaming his loss of the prime ministership on a right-wing coup. His argument for being leader was always that he was the Liberal who most appealed to Labor voters. The trouble was that being the Liberal leader who most resembled Labor usually lost more Liberal votes than gained Labor ones. His loss of 14 seats in his only election as Liberal leader in 2016 is fact-based proof, as opposed to his own revisionism, that when the Liberals run on a Labor-lite agenda they lose. And the Turnbull rout is backed up by similar losses under “moderate” Liberal leaders: in South Australia under Steven Marshall, Western Australia under Zac Kirkup and, of course, Victoria last weekend under Matthew Guy.
“As Turnbull implies, a hard-right party would indeed struggle to win. His mistake, though, is that there’s not a shred of evidence on which to convict the Victorian Liberal Party of this offence. During the past eight years in opposition, the Victorian Liberals had failed to oppose the cancellation of the East-West Link that they’d initiated in government, even though that was Labor spending $1 billion-plus not to build a road. They’d failed, until almost the end, to oppose any of Labor’s pandemic lockdowns even though these were among the harshest in the world. And given the way Scott Morrison backed in Daniel Andrews time and time again, the overall Liberal brand suffered, with natural Liberal supporters feeling abandoned.”
The Nationals blindsided senior Liberals on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. The aim is to put more pressure on Dutton — David Speers (ABC): “A spokesman for Littleproud later acknowledged it wasn’t, in fact, anything Linda Burney said that prompted the party to declare its opposition to the Voice. Instead, it was apparently private conversations Littleproud held with, among others, Uluru Statement co-chair Professor Megan Davis. They too had discussed about how the Voice would be constituted and how communities would be represented. Some would be elected, as ATSIC commissioners once were (as the co-design final report also makes clear). This was enough for the Nationals leader to warn of the Voice ’emulating ATSIC’ (even though its role as purely an advisory body would be very different).
“It was enough for the Nationals to shift from ‘demanding details’ to declaring a ‘No’ vote. A thin basis for a significant policy shift. The real, unspoken reason for the National Party shift was to put more pressure on a weakened Liberal Party to follow suit. Littleproud wanted to get in before Dutton makes a call, and before the end of the year. So, what difference will it make? If the Liberal Party ultimately joins its junior Coalition partner in opposing the Voice, the ‘Yes’ campaign will face a more difficult task. No referendum has succeeded without bipartisan support. But it’s not an impossible task. A successful referendum requires a majority of votes across the nation, together with a majority of states voting ‘Yes’.
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Online
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Southern Cross University’s Pasi Sahlberg and Australian Education Union’s Correna Haythorpe will speak about the success of Finnish equity-led educational outcomes in a webinar.
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Former special assistant to the head of the United Nations Development Program in Afghanistan Hiba Abd El Hamed, as well as visiting Fulbright Future Scholars Shellaina Gordon and Jadzia Livingston are among the speakers exploring about what the US midterms mean for 2024, in a talk at RMIT.
Whadjuk Noongar Country (also known as Perth)
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Inspector of custodial services Eamon Ryan will speak about the key issues in Western Australia’s adult prison and youth detention system, in a talk held at Albert Facey House.
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
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Historian Ian Hoskins will speak about his new book, Sydney Harbour, at Glee Books.
