OCTOBER 7 VIGILS
Vigils and ceremonies will be held across Australia today marking one year since the deadly Hamas attacks in Israel.
AAP reports candlelight vigils will be held in numerous cities, 12 months on from the attacks that the Israeli government says killed more than 1,200 people, with 251 hostages taken. On Sunday evening members of the Jewish community joined Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon at a commemoration in Sydney.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus will attend an event in Melbourne marking the anniversary of the October 7 attacks, Guardian Australia says, while Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, NSW Premier Chris Minns and Health Minister Mark Butler will attend a vigil in Sydney.
AAP quotes the prime minister as saying in a newly released video: “Innocent lives taken at a music festival. Women, men and children killed in their homes. Brutality that was inflicted with cold calculation. Today we also think of the hostages whose lives remain suspended in the fear and isolation of captivity. For their loved ones, this past year must have felt like an eternity.”
The ABC reports thousands of pro-Palestine demonstrators took to the streets across the country on Sunday, repeating calls for ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said at the weekend at least 41,825 Palestinians have been killed and 96,910 wounded in Israel’s military offensive in response to the October 7 attacks, Guardian Australia highlights. Israel’s military campaign has also spread to Lebanon as it claims to battle with the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.
Reuters reports Iranian news agency Tasnim has said Iran’s foreign ministry has summoned the Australian ambassador in Tehran, Ian McConville, over what it claims is Australia’s biased stance on Iran’s missile attack against Israel last week.
GOVERNMENT THREATENS DOUBLE DISSOLUTION
Federal Parliament returns this week and the government is once again threatening (though many believe it to be an empty threat…) a double-dissolution election as it plans to re-introduce its stalled Help to Buy housing bill, the ABC reports.
The national broadcaster says given the bill was “effectively rejected” a fortnight ago by Parliament, a second rejection before Christmas “would provide the government with a trigger for an unlikely double-dissolution election”.
Guardian Australia says Housing Minister Clare O’Neil will reintroduce the bill to the House of Representatives as the government calls for the bill to be considered on its own merits rather than as a means for other housing demands to be made.
The site says the Greens will today release new Parliamentary Library advice on Help to Buy, quoting housing spokesperson Max Chandler-Mather as saying: “It is cruel and deeply dishonest for Labor to suggest their dodgy scheme will help teachers, childcare workers or nurses when the reality is they will either be completely ineligible or otherwise unable to afford the mortgage repayments under the scheme.”
As the government tries to focus on progressing legislation and election promises this week, The Sydney Morning Herald reports Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has invited former British prime minister Liz Truss to Parliament House. The paper says Truss, who holds the record as the shortest-serving UK PM, is expected to attend question time and sit in the chamber as a guest of Parliament on Tuesday. She will also attend a lunch in Sydney on Thursday hosted by the Menzies Research Centre “for a discussion on global affairs and trade”, the paper adds.
Finally, you’ll struggle to escape one particular story this morning: yesterday’s NRL grand final. Most sites are either leading with, or have very high up, the aftermath of the Penrith Panthers beating Melbourne Storm 14-6 at Stadium Australia on Sunday. The ABC points out the Panthers are the first team to win four NRL premierships in a row since the 1960s.
Meanwhile, the Sydney Roosters claimed the NRLW crown with a 32-28 victory over the Cronulla Sharks.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
The news that acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis has come out of retirement might have film fans excited, but one local council is not rolling out the red carpet just yet.
During the shoot for Day-Lewis’ new film Anemone, traffic wardens for Cheshire West And Chester Council were photographed ticketing a number of 1980s prop vehicles that had been parked in Chester for the film, the BBC says.
The Guardian reports the council had declined an application for the road in the Chester district of Handbridge to be closed and the vehicles parked on double yellow lines were given parking tickets as a result.
“On the basis of the overall disruption it would cause, they said no on this occasion,” councillor Matt Carter is quoted as saying. “[The film company] hadn’t applied to suspend parking restrictions in that area so wardens were sent to ticket the cars in the same way they would for any vehicle.”
Anemone is Day-Lewis’ first film since he retired from acting in 2017 following Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Phantom Thread. The triple-Oscar-winner’s son Ronan is directing his return to acting.
Say What?
I look forward to pinpointing the cause so that we can learn from it and avoid a repeat.
Judith Collins
New Zealand’s defence minister was speaking at a press conference after the HMNZS Manawanui ran aground and sank off Samoa. All 75 crew and passengers on board were safely evacuated off the ship, the ABC said.
CRIKEY RECAP
Commonwealth’s current contribution to public school funding a “floor” rather than a “ceiling”, Crikey can reveal. Meanwhile, a fight over the funding involving several states and the ACT appears set to drag on until at least next year.
The Commonwealth has so far been contributing 20% to the funding of government schools under what’s known as the schooling resourcing standard, an “estimate of how much total public funding a school needs to meet its students’ educational needs”, in the words of the Department of Education. The states and territories are meant to contribute the remaining 80%.
Victoria, NSW, South Australia, Queensland and the ACT all joined the Australian Education Union in demanding the federal contribution to be bumped up to 25%. Education Minister Jason Clare has insisted on only raising it to 22.5%, and has in the past few weeks convinced Tasmania and Western Australia to accept those terms. (The Northern Territory, considered a special case with “the most underfunded public schools in the country”, secured a 40% contribution from the federal government in July).
Vaping isn’t perfect. But it doesn’t have to be to help us quit our most deadly habit.
We shouldn’t leave vapers to the mercy of the black market. We shouldn’t reduce the appeal of vapes by banning flavours that adults and ex-smokers tell us are important in helping them to quit. And we shouldn’t impose more restrictions to accessing vapes than we do for cigarettes, which remain the nation’s leading cause of preventable death.
The pharmacy model is set for failure. When it falls in a heap, let’s try something else, something that’s already worked well in other countries very similar to our own. That is, treating vapes the same way as other adult consumer products that are sold by specialist licensed vendors, in plain packaging, and with strict age verification.
This pragmatic, harm reduction approach would ensure safer access for adults who choose to vape whilst making it easier for more smokers to quit for good.
Pharmacies are already experienced providers of smoking cessation services. They offer advice and counselling about the full range of assistance and medications available for quitting smoking. This is the ideal place for introducing therapeutic vapes as an option for those who have struggled to quit smoking using existing methods.
Therapeutic vapes may be sold in stores other than pharmacies in the future. The scheduling system for medicines currently allows for this for other nicotine-containing products. Nicotine patches, gums and mouth spray were once only available by prescription or in pharmacies. Gradually they were “down-scheduled” once their quality, safety and efficacy were established, making them more accessible as smoking cessation aids. The same can happen for therapeutic vapes.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Israel signals an escalation of military activity in Gaza (The New York Times) ($)
Elon Musk rallies with Donald Trump at shooting site (Capital Brief)
Harris weighs more breaks with Biden as he keeps injecting himself into the campaign (CNN)
Marseille drug wars in spotlight again after boy, 14, allegedly hired as hitman (The Guardian)
Sue Gray quits as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff (BBC)
US economy smashes expectations with 254,000 jobs added in September (The Financial Times) ($)
THE COMMENTARIAT
He calls Albanese weak but is Dutton just too aggro for The Lodge? — Jacqueline Maley (The Sydney Morning Herald): Even if the reporter’s questioning was clumsy, Dutton’s belligerence was graceless. It will do little to improve the party’s flailing female vote. He goaded the reporter in a way that was uncomfortable to watch. It was a performance in keeping with the toughness the opposition leader projected all week, over the divisive issue of the metastasising Middle East conflict.
Dutton went harder and harder as the prime minister tried manfully to tread middle ground on the issue. Dutton accused Albanese of “weakness” and said, of the protesters with the Hezbollah signs, that it was “unacceptable that the government wouldn’t be arresting people already”.
As a former Queensland police officer, he should know better than anyone that “the government” doesn’t arrest people, the police do. It’s a crucial difference (we call it the separation of powers, and it’s foundational to democracy) which Dutton sought to blur for his own purposes.
‘Undisciplined, unhinged and deranged’: Will Trump’s strange behaviour hurt him at the polls? — David Smith (The Guardian): A “beautiful” beach body and a “mentally disabled” opponent. “One rough hour” of police retaliation to stop criminals. “A million Rambos” in Afghanistan. Haitian immigrants “eating the dogs” and “eating the cats”. Death by electrocution versus death by shark. Insane asylums and, of course, “the late, great Hannibal Lecter”.
These are just a few of the recent remarks made by one of two major candidates for president of the United States. Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, has spent years saying the unsayable to entertain, goad and grab attention. But his pronouncements over the past few weeks have plumbed new depths of absurdity and incoherence.
Trump, 78, increasingly slurs or stumbles over his words, raising fears over cognitive decline. He is slipping in polls against Kamala Harris and knows that defeat could lead to criminal trials and even prison. After a decade of dominating American politics, critics say, Trump could be in the throes of a final meltdown.
