THE PHANTOM MENACES
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party is reportedly running at least a dozen “ghost” candidates in NSW, Victoria and the ACT — that’s people who have not been seen or heard from in the seats they’re contesting, and who may not even have a digital footprint either, ABC reports. The AEC says it’s not against the law — but it’s definitely weird, one expert says, continuing it probably means the far-right group are struggling to make up the numbers.
Meanwhile, a conspiracy theorist who claims Ukraine is run by Nazis and that COVID-19 vaccines increase cancer risk has been put ahead of Labor by the LNP in a blue-ribbon inner Brisbane seat, The Courier-Mail ($) reports this morning. The Australian Federation Party’s Axel Dancoisne is fifth on the Coalition’s how-to-vote cards — ahead of Labor, Greens, One Nation, and Australian Progressives. Nazis do not run Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish, and won with 73% support, while the far-right candidate garnered 1.6%, as BBC’s Ros Atkins explains.
Meanwhile, Coalition candidate Nicole Tobin appears to think Bill Gates was behind COVID, vaccines cause autism, and that many thousands of Australians are dead from the COVID-19 jab, according to now-deleted tweets, as the SMH reports. Tobin reportedly responded to a tweet referencing the Gates claim with “This!” in mid-February, and claimed in her own tweet that up to 7000 Australians “may have” died as a result of the COVID vaccines, accusing the Therapeutic Goods Association (TGA) and The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) of a cover-up. A Coalition spokesperson told the paper Tobin is double-vaxxed and the tweets don’t reflect government policy.
A MINE OF INFORMATION
The Liberal-National government often claims more strident climate action would decimate regional economies — but a new report says mining towns are like, we’ve been ready for a while. What Regions Need comes after a year of consulting everyone from local workers, civic leaders, and unions, to the energy sector, Guardian Australia reports — and it found regional Queensland and NSW have seen the private sector racing ahead with new renewable projects and the closure of coal plants, and now just want to see a government plan. The hesitancy from 2019’s election is gone, the report found.
But Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Labor Leader Anthony Albanese are going head to head on business this morning — Albo wants economic reform to lift growth and increase wages, while Morrison wants to help 400,000 small business owners set up shop, the SMH reports. Albanese is speaking to the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and will again spruik his flagship childcare policy that’d leave 96% of families with more support — made possible by requesting the Productivity Commission look at a universal 90% subsidy. The Australian’s ($) Geoff Chambers claims it relies on an “outdated” report (it’s from 2019) and overshoots the benefits because it takes into consideration better health, welfare, lower crime, and better earning potential for kids later in life.
THE STORIES OF SOLOMON
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has accused Australia and the US of “glaring hypocrisy” in “working with some of their agents on the ground, to give the government a hard time for non-justifiable reasons”. He even said his nation had been “threatened with invasion”, which ABC says is in reference to a story written by an Australian analyst that suggested we’d need to invade if China did set up camp there — the broadcaster didn’t link to it but I think this is it, written by David Llewellyn-Smith, the founding publisher of MacroBusiness and former owner of leading Asia Pacific foreign affairs journal The Diplomat, news.com.au says. Sogavare also says his nation is being treated like “kindergarten students walking around with Colt .45s in our hands”, The Australian ($) adds.
In his tirade to Parliament, Sogavare didn’t name Australia per se, saying “our partners” instead. Sogavare also seemed to take a swipe at Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce — remember he said the Solomon Islands could become a “little Cuba”, as Guardian Australia reports, an apparent reference to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis)? Sogavare claimed Russia wasn’t the aggressor then (the US put up a blockage to stop the Soviet Union from building missile silos there), and continued that, even in Ukraine at the moment, there are “two sides to every story”. Big yikes. It continues, folks — Sogavare also claimed China’s tough rules and restrictions have led to Christianity “thriving” in the nation. In response, Foreign Minister Marise Payne’s spokesperson says we “support our Pacific family and always will”.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
Folks, the building blocks of life itself have been found in a meteorite that fell near Murchison, Victoria, in 1969. When scientists first looked at a trio of meteorites, which had also plonked into landscapes in the US and Canada, they found three of the five things we need to form DNA and RNA. DNA is kind of like an instruction manual for living things, whereas RNA reads the instructions. But earlier this year scientists took a closer look using more sensitive methods, and quickly realised: these meteorites actually do have all five ingredients.
What does this mean? It could mean we are the original aliens — that all living things on earth have an extraterrestrial origin, according to NASA astrobiologist Danny Glavin. The theory goes that life’s chemical ingredients landed here, came together in a warm, watery place and formed a microbe able to reproduce itself — Earth’s “prebiotic soup”, Glavin says. So when did this all happen? Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, and it got pelted with meteorites early on (as well as comets!). The earliest fossils we have ever found date back to 3.5 billion years ago — so we have about a billion-year window, roughly. But the five ingredients are not the only things that brought life to life. Amino acids, fatty acids, and sugars were also necessary. Take this as your excuse to make yourself some scrambled eggs and OJ this morning. Life depends on it!
SAY WHAT?
You could argue that they were somewhat successful in prosecuting an argument that if interest rates were to rise, then the government should be accountable for those things, and as a result the government should not be elected. Well, if it’s good for them, it’s good for us.
Scott Morrison
An old declaration has come back to bite the prime minister, who — as a fresh-faced pollie in 2008 — told Parliament a rate rise was cause to not vote the government back in. Yikes.
CRIKEY RECAP
News Corp mastheads are not doing journalism. Why pretend otherwise?
“Treating News Corp seriously is hurting the fact-based news media, particularly the ABC. It pays the price in its own credibility every time it provides space to the News tabloids and The Australian as legitimate media voices. The payments can come in small doses, such as the inclusion of News’ mastheads in regular ‘what the papers say’ round-ups (and the usual simultaneous exclusion of rising independent digital news media), even with a ‘did they really say that?’ raised eyebrow.
“The price comes a bit higher whenever it recognises the News commentariat with guest appearances, from metropolitan talk radio to flagship programs such as Insiders. The highest cost is when it follows on from the agenda set by News mastheads, from ‘gaffe-gate’ to ‘tough on borders or taxes’. Or, worse, when it acts safe by downplaying the agendas News Corp disdains, like the climate crisis.”
The Labor corruption scandal that sank without a trace
“When The Age’s Nick McKenzie and Sumeyya Ilanbey reported last week on a draft Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) report into the Victorian Labor Party, including that Premier Dan Andrews had been questioned on the way to conclusions about systemic unethical behaviour approved by the party leadership, you could have fairly expected it would crop up during the campaign.
“Especially with the Coalition in terrible trouble in Victoria — this week’s Morgan poll shows Labor leading 63.5% to 36.5% there … But Scott Morrison — or any federal conservative, really — couldn’t touch the scandal, because the federal Coalition is hopelessly hamstrung by its own opposition to anti-corruption bodies. Having derided state-based anti-corruption bodies as ‘kangaroo courts’, the prime minister could hardly use a draft IBAC report to attack Labor.”
Scott ‘making shit up as I go along’ Morrison confused over governments versus experts
“That’s a strange change of tune from Morrison. The day before that interview, in response to Labor’s housing equity proposal, Morrison was rubbishing the idea of elected representatives doing things needed in their communities, like helping people into home ownership. On the one hand, politicians are some monstrous invasive species that shouldn’t be allowed near the reins of power; on the other, the only people who can be trusted to do the right thing.
“The richer irony was that it was on the very day the ‘public autocracy’ of the Reserve Bank lifted interest rates. If the prime minister seriously thinks “public autocracy” is a “great danger” then he should immediately revoke the Reserve Bank’s independence and make monetary policy a function of Josh Frydenberg’s hopelessly politicised Treasury, where elected representatives can direct it — not faceless officials in Martin Place.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
No Ukraine ceasefire deal without Russian withdrawal: Zelenskyy (Al Jazeera)
Why Canada’s Roe v Wade didn’t enshrine abortion as a right (CBC)
Swapping 20% of beef for microbial protein ‘could halve deforestation’ (The Guardian)
Taiwan cracks down on China poaching tech talent (Al Jazeera)
Sweden’s ruling Social Democrats divided on decision to join Nato (The Guardian)
Northern Ireland set to vote in election poised to make history [amid Nationalists popularity] (Al Jazeera)
For conservative legal movement, a long-sought [abortion] triumph appears at hand (The New York Times)
Uber’s revenue doubles, but stock falls after Lyft warns of higher driver costs (The Wall Street Journal) ($)
Putin-linked superyacht may elude sanctions, by setting sail (The New York Times)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Election 2022: Labor-lite or Liberal-left? It’s a dire choice — Peta Credlin (The Australian) ($): “I’ve been closely involved in every election since 1998, as an increasingly senior political staffer and then as a media commentator. I can’t remember one that has given voters less real choice or had less to do with the real issues facing our country, none of which is going to be any closer to resolution by the result. It’s a Labor-lite government versus a Liberal-left opposition; an unpopular prime minister against an unconvincing opposition leader; a government that says nothing really needs to change fighting an opposition that says the only thing that really needs to change is the prime minister; and two grey, unpersuasive blokes trading barbs, each in the hope he’ll be judged the lesser evil.
“There are no new proposals to address the dog’s breakfast of divided responsibilities that is our federation, made even worse during the pandemic by a national cabinet that turned the prime minister from our national leader into the chairman of an ineffective committee. There are no new proposals to make our economy more efficient or tax system more fair (indeed, the only proposal of substance is Labor’s promise to abolish the building industry watchdog that could increase construction costs by 30%). And there certainly are no measures that might boost our national pride, other than self-serving exhortations that we’re a great country let down by a bad government; or a great country that shouldn’t risk a bad government … A re-elected Morrison government is unlikely to be a better government than the one we’ve had for the past term; while a victorious Albanese government is likely to be a lot more politically correct and leftist than it currently makes out.”
Morrison’s election pitch is short on substance, contradictory and confusing — Niki Savva (The Age): “Unless Scott Morrison comes up with a compelling new policy or gambit in the next few days, he could go down in history as the Liberal leader who won an election he should have lost, then lost the one he should have won in a canter. So far, Morrison’s arguments for re-election have been short on substance, contradictory, confusing, or jarring. Distilled, Morrison’s early campaign pitch offered voters more of the same, appealing to them to stick with him because he was better at managing the economy and national security.
“Then as inflation hit a 20-year high, triggering the first interest rate rise in a decade, his message veered from warning voters it was too risky to change because everything was turning to custard to arguing everything was going as planned, and if it wasn’t, the Reserve Bank had carefully pointed out none of it was his fault. Each formulation is delivered with such conviction — which remains his great strength — that it is easy to forget what happened yesterday or the day before, although if you believe the polls it is catching up with him. Morrison evolved into a purpose-built campaign terminator when in 2019 he destroyed Bill Shorten and everything the Labor leader proposed, regardless of its merit, including the switch to electric vehicles. That spawned the policy timidity of today. Instead of capitalising on his unexpected victory, he froze, figuring he could use the same template in 2022.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
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Greens leader Adam Bandt and senator Sarah Hanson–Young will be at the campaign launch for Senate candidate David Shoebridge at The Aerial UTS Function Centre.
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas will deliver a speech on Victoria’s state budget at an event held by CEDA.
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
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Defence Minister Peter Dutton and opposition defence spokesman Brendan O’Connor will take part in the 2022 Defence Debate at the National Press Club.
Kaurna Country (also known as Adelaide)
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Adelaide Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor will be on a panel with Renew Adelaide’s Andrew White and Adelaide Economic Development Agency’s Ian Hill on ways to revitalise the city.
