MONEY TALKS
Australians’ wages are falling at a record speed. The ABS says our wage price index has increased by 0.8%, bringing it to a 10-year high of 3.3%, the SMH says. Sounds good right? But factor in inflation ballooning to 7.8% and the chasm between the pair is now 4.5%, the largest since we started recording in 1998. The RBA will be red-faced by the meagre wage price index change — it predicted a higher increase. Miffed at governor Philip Lowe’s cash rate rises and reckon you could do it better? For the first time, the Reserve Bank of Australia will take expressions of interest from the public, The Age reports. Two positions on the nine-person board will be filled within the next six months, with a minimum remuneration of $77,600 — not too shabby for 11 meetings a year.
Meanwhile, Treasurer Jim Chalmers says super fund balances may be capped at $3 million in the May budget. The AFR says it would affect only about 36,000 people, but it would save the budget $1 billion a year in tax breaks. The average super balance is about $150,000, Chalmers says, but 1% of the system has an average balance of $5.8 million and are cashing in on those tax concessions. Guardian Australia’s Greg Jericho explains: super contributions are taxed at 15%, far lower than income tax rates of 19% to 45% (depending on what you earn). It means the rich can dodge tax, and boy, do they! A third of all super tax concessions go to the richest 10%, Treasury found.
A TOWN LIKE ALICE
Facebook group Action for Alice 2020 has been banned from Facebook after founder Darren Clark posted a video of a woman throwing chairs in a Yeperenye food court, the NT News reports. Facebook removed the video for “bullying and harassment”, as Crikey reported, so Clark complained to the moderators. They initially restored the video but a spokesperson said they shouldn’t have and it was removed a second time. As a result Clark was given a month-long ban notice last week which stops him from posting. The paper says Clark’s bakery has been broken into 42 times, and he wants politicians to act on “youth crime”.
Meanwhile the Queensland government had vowed to boost the police force by 1450 officers by 2025, The Courier-Mail reports, but an “extraordinary leak” shows it’s grown by just 92 officers. (As an aside, the intro to the Courier’s story described the ranks as “seriously undermanned” — one presumes that should have been “seriously understaffed”, particularly as the force grapples with internal accusations of a sexist and at times misogynistic culture.) Overseas a moment and an Australian university professor (who hasn’t been named) is being held hostage in Papua New Guinea after being taken at gunpoint on Sunday. Police commissioner David Manning said the gunmen want cash in return for the academic’s release, Al Jazeera reports, and described the situation as “delicate”.
WRITTEN OFF
The Adelaide Festival is reeling after sponsor MinterEllison and two Ukrainian writers pulled out in protest of guest Palestinian-American writer Susan Abulhawa, who has repeatedly supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And information technology company Capgemini says it will not renew its sponsorship next year. The Advertiser ($) reports exiled authors Kateryna Babkina and Olesya Khromeychuk walked away from the festival, a move that new Writers’ Week director Louise Adler described as “disappointing”. Abulhawa has said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a “Nazi-promoting Zionist” and accused him of dragging “the whole world into the inferno of WWIII”, as the ABC continues. Adler is already trying to smooth things over after the inclusion of Palestinian author Mohammed El-Kurd infuriated the Jewish community. In 2021 El-Kurd tweeted that “state-settler collusion [is] emboldening an unquenchable thirst for Palestinian blood & land”, as Forward reported, though he has since deleted his Twitter account.
The ABC has an interesting story this morning about the 70 or so Australian Defence Force soldiers training everyday Ukrainians in combat. They’re in the UK, where army medics are teaching recruits about combat medicine, and infantry soldiers are teaching “urban operations skills”, which basically means how to breach rooms, clear buildings, and move within a conflict environment. The wider training program the ADF is involved with has already trained as many as 10,000 soldiers. It comes as Russia unsuccessfully tested its nuclear-capable “invincible” missile during President Joe Biden’s visit to Ukraine this week, CNN reports. Gulp.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
Never underestimate the life-saving power of an “old lady pee” — that’s Kiwi Sharron Solomon’s solemn conclusion as New Zealand reels from cyclone Gabrielle. Solomon, 74, heads up the Wairoa Riverside motor camp on the picturesque banks of the Wairoa River, with her partner, Bill Dicken. On Monday night, campers had moved to higher group amid red weather warnings, as Stuff says, and everyone turned in for the night. At 3am, Solomon woke up to “have a waz” — her words — and as she made her way to the lavatory, noticed water lapping at the back door. She woke up Grant Bishop, a former firefighter, who hot-footed it to the fire station and set off the alarm, waking locals. The pair got everyone to safety just as the water rose to 1.2 metres in the back yard.
Meanwhile, another miracle in the disaster. A four-month-old puppy named Murphy barked his owner into consciousness at 2.15am when she realised they were already in ankle-deep water in their home, as Stuff tells it. The water rose so fast, owner Irene Cahill said, that it was at her waist in a moment. Fortunately, she and her heroic pooch made it out thanks to the kindness of neighbours, who picked them up in a boat and jetted them out of there. “We’re so lucky to have neighbours like that,” she said. And a yappy puppy, too. If you’d like to donate to the victims of cyclone Gabrielle, there are several ways to do so — Red Cross has a disaster fund that has passed the $7 million mark, or you could donate to New Zealand’s only dedicated animal disaster management charity, Animal Evac.
Hoping a little miracle finds you today.
SAY WHAT?
I’m the lead candidate, and Fred Nile is No. 2, and we both hope to be elected to the Legislative Council in the 2023 election.
Silvana Nile
Both Reverend Fred Nile and his wife will be jostling for your vote in the NSW election on March 25. The 88-year-old conservative veteran retired just four months ago but after his 64-year-old wife threw her hat in the ring, he changed his mind.
CRIKEY RECAP
Surveillance tech that ‘predicts crime before it happens’ used in 40% of Australian stores
“Auror users can search through reports by people’s names and by products stolen. Individual stores and companies can see overviews of the information and analyse the report data by location and time, which the company said would help prevent future crime.
“Auror is also used to track people. While it doesn’t offer facial recognition, its use of machine learning helps identify individuals across different reports. It allows users to input features about an individual’s appearance such as hair colour, age and build (race is notably absent). It analyses photographs or footage to suggest these features and then checks across other reports to link it to an existing profile of an individual, if relevant.”
ABC forced to apologise: Project Veritas is not news
The ABC’s ombudsman has ruled ABC News breached its accuracy standards following a complaint regarding a radio item in early February that reported as credible the results of a Project Veritas ‘investigation’ into Pfizer executives.
“What investigation? We’ll let Fox News host Tucker Carlson approvingly sum it up…Yep, the ABC and Carlson have had their differences, but they were briefly united in treating this story as credible. Veritas released footage of what it claims is a Pfizer executive talking about actively mutating the virus so the company can pre-emptively create vaccines.”
Was it ethical of News Corp to publish Brittany Higgins’ diary?
“Anyone who works, or has worked, within any kind of political system knows that Higgins and every other woman working in Parliament deserves better than being targeted like this. Sex discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins has made some important recommendations for safe and respectful work environments to clean up the toxic culture of Parliament House.
“But if that’s going to work, every person who works in the corridors of power, including the media, needs to play their part in building that supportive culture, and start treating people with respect. A simple act of giving a right of reply is a good place to start.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Pakistan’s defence and spy chiefs discuss security with Taliban (Al Jazeera)
US Supreme Court hears case against Twitter over Istanbul massacre (Reuters)
Mormon Church fined over claim it hid $32b of investments (BBC)
North Korea a ‘clear and present danger,’ says South Korean foreign minister (CNN)
[Former ISIS bride] Shamima Begum bid to regain UK citizenship rejected (BBC)
New York Times reporters criticise union for backing trans coverage protest (The Guardian)
Malcom X’s daughter to sue FBI, CIA, alleging they ‘fraudulently concealed’ assassination evidence (SBS)
THE COMMENTARIAT
An army of ‘little Americans’ dominates foreign policy debate — Paul Keating (The Australian) ($): “Greg Sheridan, in his opinion piece of Tuesday, February 21, provides yet another display of his spiteful, vacuous journalism — his erroneous claims that I am not the progenitor of the APEC leaders’ meeting, and that my views on Australian strategic policy are eccentric and at odds with the US alliance. I will deal with the APEC leaders’ meeting first. This is easy enough because the Australian government records of the time are now open. Sheridan was never one to let evidence stand in the way of his prejudices and clearly prefers the fact that Bill Clinton failed to mention me in his autobiography re the leaders’ meeting than he does Australian archival evidence.
“This is strange, for in his 1997 book, Tigers: Leaders of the New Asia Pacific, Sheridan wrote, ‘Keating had in 1992 himself first proposed that APEC national leaders should meet’. The year 1992 was, of course, before Clinton came to office. Every Australian prime minister before me sat at only two international fora — the great non-meeting of the world, the Commonwealth Heads of Government annual meeting, and the local South Pacific Forum. There was no place for Australia organisationally beside an American president, let alone a Chinese or Indonesian president. I wished to change that. When the Cold War ended with Mikhail Gorbachev’s dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 26, 1991 — five days after I assumed the prime ministership — I could see a clear opportunity for open regionalism of the kind the bipolarity of the Cold War had prevented.”
The Voice — things I am worried about and a few other thoughts along the way — Luke Pearson (IndigenousX): “As I find myself reawakening from the past few years and looking around at the lay of the land with fresh eyes, I see certain merits of both the Yes and the No arguments. I see many mob, on both sides, who I respect still fighting hard to have their views heard and to win popular support for their arguments. I also see the increased confidence among non-Indigenous people, especially those who would label themselves ‘allies’, becoming bolder and bolder about chastising mob who aren’t on their side. I am not an active supporter of either the Yes or No campaigns at the moment, just as I also have no allegiance to any political party. But I listen to all opinions and perspectives carefully and with humility as best I am able.
“I see the bad faith arguments and ad hominem attacks and I try to look past them for those with sincerely held beliefs, valid questions and concerns, and interesting insights. In my previous life as a teacher, I always liked the idea that before you can say someone is wrong you need to understand why they think they are right. It can be very easy to dismiss the views of those we disagree with as ignorant, malicious, ill-informed and, of course, there is no shortage of those out there at the moment. Usually though, I find most mob have a reason for believing what they believe, and I want to be respectful of those reasons while I try to understand and work out for myself whether or not I agree with them.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
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Lithuanian ambassador to Australia Darius Degutis, Centre for Independent Studies’ James Mann and Alice Han, and foreign policy expert Peter Jennings will speak about Australian-China relations in an event at Hotel Realm.
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Siemens’s Jennifer McIntyre, Arup’s Laura Aston, and CoreLogic’s Eliza Owen are among the speakers at the Economic and Policy Outlook Victoria 2023, held at Arup.
