YESTERDAY’S MEN ON A MISSION
Former prime minister Scott Morrison is in Israel with former UK PM Boris Johnson, The Australian ($) reports, making Morrison the first Australian politician to visit since the October 7 attack by Hamas (Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the phone last week, three weeks after Albanese requested it). Morrison, who in 2018 recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital (Albanese reversed that in 2022), will meet Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Israel Defense Forces members, and families of Gaza hostages. Meanwhile, posters of Adolf Hitler holding a mask of Netanyahu that have been plastered around Sydney’s eastern suburbs where many Jewish people live are under investigation. Local Liberal MP Kellie Sloane told the ABC race hate didn’t support either side, adding “mums on both sides have lost babies”. The death toll in Gaza has risen to 9,770, The Guardian reports, including 4,008 children, with figures coming from the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.
Meanwhile Albanese made a thinly veiled barb about steep Beijing tariffs on our wine, lobster, barley, coal and more while China’s Premier Li Qiang watched on, Guardian Australia reports. Albanese said governments had to create the “right conditions” for business, by removing “unnecessary barriers to trade and investment”. But Li appears to be on the same page as Albo, telling the Shanghai business expo that China was committed to opening up and getting rid of disruptive “non-economic factors”. Many of the tariffs Beijing rolled out after Morrison called for an international inquiry into the source of COVID, as Reuters reported, have since eased — barley is the latest. The PM will meet President Xi Jinping next. Xi hopes Australia will support China joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact — current signatories are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.
WOMEN PROBLEM
Cabinet minister Tanya Plibersek says it is “appalling” that Shore principal John Collier described the man who killed Lilie James, 21, as “an absolute delight” and “not a monster”. Collier told the SMH ($) he was trying to make the point that men with an “unblemished record” can commit domestic violence (did anyone ever doubt that?). Plibersek, the former minister for women, says she can’t think of a worse message for her sons to hear from anyone, “particularly at school”. She added: “This violence-excusing behaviour must stop before yet another woman’s life is taken.” Domestic violence (DV) in Australia is making international headlines, as CNN reports — five women have died in 10 days. It brings the yearly total to 43, according to Counting Dead Women.
In the NT, DV rates are seven times higher than the national average, the NT News ($) reports, but it gets just 1.8% of federal domestic funding because it’s based on population. It’s a deplorable amount, the territory’s Domestic Violence Prevention Minister Kate Worden says, particularly as 94% of the 83 women killed by their partners were Indigenous. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says the “scourge” affects every state and territory, across “income groups”, “ethnicities, faiths”. Any extra funding would need to wait until 2024’s budget, he added. It comes as a member of Perth’s oldest golf club has been accused of bullying and sexually harassing a female staff member, and several staff have taken stress leave or resigned recently “because of poor treatment”, as The West ($) puts it. WorkSafe confirmed it was probing alleged work and safety issues at Royal Perth Golf Club, which costs $4,060 a year on top of a $8,000 nomination fee for members. Former Liberal MP Steve Irons, who is president of the club, said he hadn’t heard of sexual assault or bullying going on.
BULLOCK AT A RATE GATE
There’s a 69% chance the cash rate will increase tomorrow, according to bond traders. Nice. The AFR ($) reports it could go up 0.25% from 4.1%, the first rise under new RBA governor Michele Bullock. Meanwhile, people are losing cash fast to “scam-in-a-box” kits being sold by criminals on the dark web, Guardian Australia reports, with at least 4,500 MyGov scams confirmed this year. The DIY scam boxes teach people how to make fake websites, and launch phishing attacks on Centrelink, Australian Tax Office and Medicare accounts. Yikes. Government Services Minister Bill Shorten says Australians have already lost $3.1 billion to scams this year, and encourages people to not use passwords more than once. He also flagged he is working on a digital ID with Katy Gallagher similar to the MyGovID login process.
Also from Guardian Australia — Home Affairs is paying a US intelligence company for a tool that tracks mobile phones, according to FOI’d documents. Babel Street’s Locate X lets you see where a device travelled several months prior, using apps that collect location info to give us tailored ads. Home Affairs says it is working in accordance with the law. Speaking of — would you pay around $20 a month for an ad-free Facebook or Instagram account? The European Union’s Court of Justice has forced Meta to offer the experience, similar to YouTube’s paid version called Premium. About 80 million people subscribe to it, The New Daily reports, so Meta’s version may have every reason to roll out globally.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
Happy Recreation Day, folks. It’s a public holiday celebrated only in northern Tasmania where people get a paid day off to do whatever, as the ABC explains. It was legislated in 1991, probably because northern Tasmanians were sulking that Hobart got Regatta Day in February. They were like, “We just want another public holiday,” University of Tasmania’s Richard Eccleston says, continuing that you’ve gotta admire half a state creating a public holiday out of thin air to celebrate nothing. A public holiday version of Seinfeld, one might say. Rather than an outlier, it’s actually fitting with the country’s reputation as the “Land of the Long Weekend”, reporter Daniel Johnson says.
But it has definitely ruffled a few feathers further south. In 2016, the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry boss told the SMH ($) his Hobart-based staff would be hard at work while those darn northerners kick back, calling it “farcical”. What are tourists supposed to think, he continued, considering half the state was closed for an inexplicable reason? But there’s no bloody way Tasmania’s north is parting with its holiday. “Every time we’ve raised this, we’ve received significant and enthusiastic opposition,” he told the paper. As a northerner, he conceded he had the day off, though added stiffly: “As I’m biking through these wonderful mountains, I’ll still be shaking my head wondering how we’re doing this in a modern economy.” There were reports that no fun was had. Unconfirmed, of course.
Hoping you go with the flow today.
SAY WHAT?
There was also no suggestion that the US had invited [9/11] by claiming the attacks ‘had not occurred in a vacuum’, to quote UN Secretary-General António Guterres in the UN Security Council after the October 7 attacks on Israel.
Scott Morrison
The former PM said he no longer speaks for Australia, but would be carrying forth a message for all Australians who “wish to declare their support for Israel and the Jewish people”.
CRIKEY RECAP
“A number of senior journalists have been on trips organised by the JBD and AIJAC in the past. In 2015, a particularly notable trip involved Sky News’ Sharri Markson, now-Daily Telegraph editor Ben English, now-Sydney Morning Herald editor Bevan Shields, and then-Seven senior reporter Alex Hart.
“Then-Sky News’ David Lipson (now at the ABC, which does not send journalists on trips of this kind) and the AFR’s Aaron Patrick were also present. Then-JBD CEO Vic Alhadeff was also on the trip and currently serves on the board of SBS as a non-executive director.”
Albanese’s failure on Gaza isn’t just opportunism, it’s a return of the ALP’s White Australia racism
“Look, if Albanese or Wong were any sort of leftists, this would be a moment they had literally fantasised about in the past, listening to Howard or Abbott line up behind the US or Israel to commit Australia to open-ended high-tech slaughter of the enemy of the day. ‘Jesus, what I’d say if I was at the podium’ is something everyone thinks at 2am. And here it is!
“Anthony Albanese, inner-city left-wing shitkicker, fresh off a campaign to recognise Indigenous people, had a chance to rise above his short stature, to make the link, to stand for humanity. He didn’t need to start chanting ‘from the river to the sea’. He just needed to say that lo-fi barbarism does not license indiscriminate state killing and that the Palestinian homeland question remains unresolved.”
“In 2023, one such source of entertainment is — in a lovely piece of cosmic synchronicity — the spectacle of Trump being subjected to something he’s never experienced before: being told to sit down and shut up, and hating it. Arthur Engoron, the presiding judge in the ongoing New York state fraud trial, has warned Trump multiple times not to attack the court’s integrity.
“Each time, Trump has basically walked straight out of the courthouse and attacked the court’s integrity. In the federal election subversion case, meanwhile, Judge Tanya Chutkan imposed a gag order from the outset, aiming to prevent Trump from attacking witnesses.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Israel-Gaza war in maps and charts: Live Tracker (Al Jazeera)
Israel quietly pushed for Egypt to admit large numbers of Gazans (The New York Times) ($)
Trump leads Biden in 4 key swing states, new polling finds (CNN)
[Spanish Socialist Workers’ party] members back Catalan amnesty plan to secure power in Spain (The Guardian)
Unemployment rate inches up to 5.7% despite Canada adding 18,000 jobs last month (CBC)
Russian nuclear submarine test launches Bulava intercontinental missile (Reuters)
UK home secretary wants to ban homeless people from living in tents — calling it ‘lifestyle choice’ (euronews)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Let’s not pretend Hamas is an outlier. It has popular support among Palestinians — Josh Feldman (The Age) ($): “Hamas won the last Palestinian elections in 2006 in both the West Bank and Gaza. In the years since, Hamas’ popularity has been a major, if not deciding factor, in Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ refusal to hold elections, well aware that Hamas would seize power from his Fatah party … As for who Palestinians would vote for in parliamentary elections, Hamas garnered the most support at 34%, with Fatah at 31%. In comparison, Labor received only 32% of first-preference votes in Australia’s 2022 federal election. Hamas, it appears, is more popular among Palestinians than the ALP is among Australians. The circumstances in Gaza vary drastically from the West Bank and have differing impacts on Palestinian sentiment.
“The survey addressed this, asking Palestinians by territory if they would vote for Mahmoud Abbas or Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in an election. Abbas attracted 30% of the vote in Gaza, while Haniyeh had 65%. In the West Bank, Abbas and Haniyeh received 37% and 47% respectively. In July, meanwhile, The Washington Institute found that 52% of West Bank Palestinians and 57% of Gazans held positive views of Hamas. None of this is to suggest Israel’s military should treat Hamas supporters as terrorists. But to claim — as many have since the October 7 massacre — that Hamas is an outsider in Palestinian society is to deny reality, and only serves to empower Palestinian extremists.”
Boys, we need to talk: As women die violently, too many can’t see a problem — Daisy Turnbull (The SMH) ($): “No-one says that out loud, and I don’t think the people who say ‘good guy’ think it, but if there are so many good guys murdering women, perhaps our bar for what defines a good guy is too low. No-one says, ‘Yeah, we knew he was a dodgy’ or ‘We thought he was capable of murder.’ That’s because abusers live in plain sight. Covering up their controlling behaviour is a habit. They are charming; they are passionate and affectionate when it suits them; they are outwardly respectable.
“For survivors who get out of coercive relationships and tell their friends and family what happened, they might be confronted with: ‘But he seems like such a good guy!’ People are shocked that men they knew and loved were capable of such crimes. Victims get it. They loved them too. Painfully, often they still do, which is why it can take seven attempts to leave them once and for all. When you question someone who has escaped coercive control, you contribute to their gaslighting. Somehow it is the victim’s fault that her ex-partner behaved so out of line with the person he projected. See what you made him do?”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
-
Minister for Industry and Science Ed Husic will address The Sydney Institute. You can also catch this one online.
Yuggera and Turrbal Country (also known as Brisbane)
-
Griffith University’s Darryl Jones will talk about his new book, Getting to Know the Birds in Your Neighbourhood, at Avid Reader bookshop.
