HOLDING COURT
The ACT’s most senior prosecutor complained about former defence minister Linda Reynolds’ “disturbing” conduct, including her allegedly coaching Bruce Lehrmann’s defence team, Guardian Australia reports. It was in the same letter director of public prosecutions Shane Drumgold wrote to the territory’s top cop to complain about police behaviour — the paper FOI’d it (it should be published today). Reynolds did some eyebrow-raising things during the Lehrmann trial, that’s for sure — she sent a text message to defence barrister Steven Whybrow requesting transcripts while Brittany Higgins was in the witness box, the AFR reports, and suggested to him that texts between Higgins and another staffer may be “revealing”. When Reynolds was asked why she did that, she told the court she hadn’t been through a trial before and figured it was fine, reasoning that boggles the mind considering the slew of portfolios the 57-year-old has held.
It comes as Higgins’ civil claim (reportedly for close to $3 million) against the Commonwealth will head into mediation tomorrow, according to The Australian ($). The paper’s Janet Albrechtsen says it’ll probably be settled by the Department of Finance with taxpayer funds rather than go to court, and urged the government to “satisfy ourselves that robust processes are in place before potentially millions of dollars are paid as part of a settlement”, noting “Higgins’ version of events was contested, and contradicted, in court”. A rather different vibe in the news this morning for Higgins’ one-time alleged rapist. Former Howard government minister Amanda Vanstone has written a story for the regional papers this morning that begins “Does anybody care about Bruce Lehrmann’s life?” while the Daily Mail has written a very Daily Mail story about how “Lehrman [sic]” was “secretly supported by his mother” who cooked for him during the trial, while he is now is “living as a recluse and fears being recognised on the street”. The rape charge against him has been dropped.
IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH
One of the country’s biggest bulk-billing medical centre chains and mental health providers rorted Medicare for years, the SMH reports this morning. Tristar Medical Group collapsed this year, owing creditors $23 million, but the paper says it has seen leaked documents where GPs exaggerated appointments to get a bigger Medicare rebate — some charged Medicare for 18 hours worth of appointments in a 10-hour day, while a doctor in Bendigo got about $900,000 from Medicare billing. What’s worse is Tristar employees told the paper they had tipped off the Department of Health and Aged Care, but nothing came of it.
Meanwhile Aussie kids needing surgeries in Sydney’s hospitals are waiting up to five days, Sky News reports. It’s according to data from the Bureau of Health Information which shows waitlists for paediatric surgeries going all the way back to September, with 1000 kids experiencing surgery delays. The SMH continues that the waitlists have blown out to record numbers — with 4000 kids on the lists at Sydney Children’s Hospital at Westmead and Randwick. Why? Staffing mostly — 50 senior health specialists wrote a letter to Health Minister Brad Hazzard in May saying they just don’t have enough staff, and can’t maintain “the best standards of safety for the babies and children in our care”.
LEWD AND RUDE
Sky News host Chris Smith has been suspended after allegations he made lewd comments and touched a young female colleague at a Christmas party in Sydney, Guardian Australia reports. Smith was also barred from 2GB indefinitely while an investigation into the evening is under way. It’s not the first time for Smith either — he was suspended in 2009 for allegedly groping female colleagues at the Christmas party of Macquarie Radio (now Nine Radio), blaming it on drinking and drugs in a Sunday Telegraph article rather sympathetically headlined “Groping 2GB host Chris Smith loses job, family”. Hmm.
Meanwhile, the plumbers’ union secretary and ALP right-wing powerbroker Earl Setches has been accused of repeatedly headbutting a union rival at a Christmas party last Thursday, The Age reports. Setches, who the paper adds is one of “Bill Shorten’s closest political allies”, allegedly “charged” at Mem Suleyman, assistant secretary of the Transport Workers’ Union’s Victorian branch. The paper says witnesses alleged there were at least two headbutts, and insults including “coward” and “thug” hurled. Cripes. Tangent, but should we even call them Christmas parties? In the UK, public sector employees have been told to call them “festive celebrations” to not exclude folks of differing faith (end-of-year parties is a little less cringey, no?). One also told The Telegraph ($) that since toppled UK PM Boris Johnson’s “partygate” scandal, civil servants are being encouraged to have booze-free parties too.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
The crowds are gathered at dusk in Port Macquarie’s main square, a disjointed cacophony of babbling toddlers, chatty acquaintances, seagulls saying hooroo for the day, and the distinctive cssht! of cans. They’re waiting for the coastal spot’s Christmas tree to be lit — it’s an enormous Norfolk pine in the park, 43 metres tall and adorned with jumbo baubles that look big enough to sit in. A climactic backtrack sounds, and one woman says “Here we go!” before the lights are officially turned on. Initial celebrations quickly descend into laughter and the crowd stares at the tree. Guardian Australia described it as looking “like it arrived home after a 24-hour bender, slapped on some make-up and covered itself in tinsel”. Another local said it looked like the cat had got up there and caused feline havoc. It sort of gives the impression of an eight-year-old’s slapdash job at the insistence of his festive mum before sprinting out the door to catch his mates. But on a supersized scale, the horror of it magnified, daunting, inescapable, and not even topped with a star.
Initially the mayor stood by her national laughing stock saying, ah well, “All you can do is laugh.” Then, however, the council quietly replaced the tree with a smaller, artificial one that had been more lovingly decorated by staff, the ABC reports. But Port Macquarie is hardly the first to commit a Christmas tree crime. Check out Lismore’s, which sort of resembles a pluto pup that fell on the floor of a local festival (though it at least has been topped with a star). And then there’s Hobart’s tree in Salamanca Square, which is no tree at all but rather a dozen or so steel beams — a cold, unforgiving thing with a seat beneath for one to sit and contemplate all that is lost in the world. And the UK’s South East Coast Ambulance tree, where staff went with the “more is more” tinsel decoration style, topping it with none other than a nice leather boot. Brings a festive tear to the eye.
Hoping you’re feeling a little silly this silly season.
SAY WHAT?
He’s got an election coming so he’s just trying to divert attention away from the NSW government, which is a complete and utter basket case. They’ve been in office too long, they’ve failed on so many fronts, they’ve blown the budget, they’ve wrecked the finances, so many parts of their state is a disaster.
Mark McGowan
The WA premier — who was born in Newcastle, north of Sydney — described his NSW counterpart’s government as a “catastrophe”, saying it had had four premiers and multiple corruption scandals.
CRIKEY RECAP
Into the woods: Victorian Labor, the great defection, the HWU, training day, Daintree, and the big pile of money
“These ministers, such as Tim Pallas and Steve Dimopolous, had suddenly, after many years, come to see that a democratic socialist approach was preferable to a Catholic-derived redistributive one. Doubtless intense intellectual debate preceded this collective move.
“Connoisseurs were particularly amused to see Tim Richardson make the perp walk right to left. If there were ever a right-wing turdblossom growing in a Melbourne back alley, it’s Tim Richardson, a factional warrior in state Parliament since the age of about eight.”
‘People are accusing the AFP of being Liberal lapdogs’: Lehrmann mistrial fight erupts
“Crikey can also reveal the matter has been referred to the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, a federal police watchdog that has oversight of ACT policing.
That information was revealed in a response from ACT Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury to a question about whether he would support a public inquiry into the case … The comments came in the wake of the mistrial of Lehrmann for the alleged rape of colleague Brittany Higgins in then defence minister Linda Reynolds’ office in 2019. Lehrmann denies the allegations.”
Slip, slop, slap for a spectacularly normal summer before La Niña and El Niño ruin your life again
“The bureau’s ENSO Outlook (ENSO is short for El Nino-Southern Oscillation) runs a dial from blue La Niña through to white ‘inactive’, and over to a red El Niño. Although it won’t shift for a few months, the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) had already made the switch from negative (defined by warm water and rain) to neutral.
“Also in the meteorological mix is the Southern Annular Mode (SAM), which is already weakening from its positive state (a catalyst for too much rain in eastern Australia and not enough rain in western Tasmania). It’s set to neutralise throughout December.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Iran summons China envoy over islands dispute statement with UAE (Al Jazeera)
Libyan operative charged in 1988 Lockerbie bombing is in FBI custody (The New York Times)
Air India nears historic order for up to 500 jets (Reuters)
Speak plainly to me: the push to remove ‘bureaucratese’ from politics (CBC)
Four charged in connection with Qatar corruption scandal at European Parliament (EuroNews)
Erdogan, Putin discuss Syria border corridor, gas hub by phone (Al Jazeera)
Base editing: revolutionary therapy clears girl’s incurable cancer (BBC)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Australia announces ‘Magnitsky’ sanctions against targets in Russia and Iran. What are they and will they work? — Amy Maguire (The Conversation): “Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong chose Human Rights Day to announce Magnitsky-style sanctions against 13 Russian and Iranian individuals and two entities, in response to egregious human rights abuses. Wong has described these sanctions as a means of holding human rights abusers to account, in situations where dialogue has proven ineffective.
“Magnitsky sanctions are named after Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who was killed in prison for exposing corruption. Unlike more traditional sanctions targeting nation states, Magnitsky sanctions freeze the assets of targeted individuals and prevent them from travelling freely. Sanctions are a well-known tool of the modern international legal system. They are referenced in Article 41 of the United Nations Charter, in the context of the Security Council’s role to protect international peace and security … Magnitsky sanctions … target individuals and entities accused of perpetrating human rights abuses. The goal is to have a deterrent effect on the type of human rights abuser who funnels and flaunts wealth around the globe and offers support to corrupt and aggressive regimes.”
Framing men as the ‘villains’ gets women no closer to better romantic relationships — Moya Lothian–McLean (The Guardian): “Here is a genre in ascendancy at the moment that I’ve labelled ‘romantic victimhood’. Content that falls within this category — ranging from literary screeds to TikTok confessionals — only ever characterises the players in two roles: villain or victim. The villain is always a man. It is usually a man in a relationship with a woman, although sometimes it is a man dating a man. Nevertheless: man = villain. The victim is his romantic interest. They recount his behaviour, with the benefit of hindsight, and detail upsetting incidents, usually ones where they felt slighted in some way.
“These are typically imparted in the register now employed to describe a harm, which combines sombre, stark delivery with therapeutic jargon. The harm is not anything as easily categorisable as outright abuse, or sexual assault. It is a hurt, perhaps one of many, that have added up to create an ultimately ‘bad relationship‘. A universalising narrative regarding gender — identified by the writer Rachel Connolly — runs through this type of work, characterised by ‘sweeping generalities […] about the way women are and how they act’. Those who find themselves in romantic partnership with men take on the passive, feminised role of victim, whether female or not. They endure, then escape.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Kurdish-Iranian writer Behrouz Boochani will speak about his new essay collection, Freedom, Only Freedom, at The Capitol.
Yuggera Country (also known as Brisbane)
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Author Bruce Heiser is in conversation with art writer Louise Martin-Chew discussing his new book, Jon Molvig: The Tree of Man Paintings, at Avid Reader bookshop.
