LATHAM’S LOVE MATCH
Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting gave NSW One Nation Leader Mark Latham two tickets to the Australian Open this year, and she’s not the only one. The SMH ($) reports Latham also got a seat in the Foxtel box at last year’s Boxing Day Test at the MCG and a “lunch date” from Cricket NSW in Sydney during the New Year Test. They’re revelations from an interest disclosure tabled in Parliament and come despite Latham’s “long and ongoing history of saying rather unpleasant things”, as the paper puts it. Indeed. Latham has until tomorrow to apologise to independent NSW MP Alex Greenwich for a dismal tweet he sent before defamation action kicks off, Guardian Australia reports, with Climate 200 stepping in to fundraise for Greenwich if Latham makes good on his pig-headedness to “never apologise, never explain”, as SMH ($) reported.
Speaking of toxic emissions — the government has settled an enormous $132.7 million class action lawsuit at the eleventh hour, brought over a firefighting foam that contaminated water tables in Wagga Wagga and Richmond in NSW, Wodonga in Victoria, Darwin, Townsville in Queensland, Edinburgh in South Australia, and Bullsbrook in Western Australia. It’s commonly known as PFAS, the NT News ($) reports, and was used to fight fires on Australian Defence Force (ADF) bases until the early 2000s. Some 30,000 people were exposed to the poisonous material. It was a midnight settlement ahead of the trial, due to begin Monday, but one might question whether waiting until the final moment to settle causes the plaintiffs only more anxiety, stress, worry, fear and more.
PENNY WISE
The biggest security threat to Pacific islands is climate change, not China, nations have told Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong, as Guardian Australia reports. She pointed out the $1.9 billion earmarked over five years for the Pacific would increase diplomatic staff, criminal justice cooperation and maritime security, but also disaster relief. Even so, our standing in the Pacific was way worse than she expected when she got the job just on 12 months ago. Wong says she’s used our new emissions target of 43% to show leaders we are listening to their concerns. But they have not forgotten then-immigration minister Peter Dutton joking in 2015 about “water lapping at your door” — a reference to rising sea levels that may end up swallowing nations if we don’t act. (Dutton apologised.)
Wong says things are on the up and up between Australia and Beijing, but warned that it’ll never be what it was 15 years ago when economic issues (such as trade) could be separated from security and strategic ones (though Trade Minister Don Farrell reckons he’s on the cusp of upending trade bans on barley, wine and beef, the ABC reports). The paper reckons Wong has told senior officials in her department that it is not a done deal that Australia would join the US in backing Taiwan if Beijing went in (this tracks considering Defence Minister Richard Marles went on record saying we hadn’t promised anything to the US). Wong has certainly clocked some frequent flyer points this year — she’s sat down with every member of the Pacific Island Forum and every member of ASEAN, except for military-controlled Myanmar.
MUM’S THE WORD
Treasurer Jim Chalmers was left squirming after single mum Jessica Blowers told him she can’t pay her rent until the parental payment changes occur in September. News.com.au reports Blowers’ daughter turns eight soon, which makes them ineligible for the payment until the cap is lifted to 14 later this year. She told the treasurer she often applies for jobs that have more than 100 other candidates, and she doesn’t know how to meet her rising rent. Chalmers said September was the soonest it could happen. Meanwhile, political commentator and former Coalition staffer Peta Credlin reckons “Chalmers is simply the incumbent when the Frydenberg surplus comes to fruition”, telling Sky News he was “slated to deliver nothing but deficits for the next decade”. Que? The Coalition delivered deficits every year it was in power since Howard’s 2007-08 era — including nine consecutive years from 2013-22.
Chalmers is touring Australia to spruik his budget, hitting a Labor fundraiser in Perth this week that costs $5000 a ticket, The West Australian ($) says. Cripes. The Federal Labor Business Forum lunch will see some 250 suits head along to rub shoulders with Chalmers, but former counsel assisting the NSW ICAC Geoffrey Watson reckons it turns the budget into a “commodity”. It comes as fewer than one quarter of respondents (24%) to a Guardian Australia poll believe the budget will be good for them, “although that is up eight points since the same question was asked in November”, the paper qualifies.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
No fewer than 100 candidates, including a dog and a high schooler, have thrown their hats into the ring to be Toronto’s mayor. The post was vacated after a sheepish John Tory admitted he had had a workplace affair and bailed, just four months after the voters greenlit his third term, as The Guardian reports. There’s a string of frontrunners to lead Canada’s largest city, including a former police chief who Ontario’s rather polarising premier Doug Ford has backed in. Hard to say whether this is a blessing or a curse, considering during Ford’s own unsuccessful punt at the Toronto mayor job, US comedian John Oliver begged residents to vote him in so the world could “laugh at your asshole for another four years”. Anyway, I digress.
One of the candidates is rescue dog Molly, who is seven years old (but a very much age-appropriate 49 in dog years). Her owner, Toby Heaps, rollerbladed to city hall to put her name down and told reporters Molly’s priorities included banning winter road salt, which hurts her paws. (It’s used to melt ice.) Also, Molly would lead to more “civilised discourse” in the chamber, noting that when animals are in the room, “people are more human”. She’ll be going head-to-head with Year 12 student Meir Straus (pronounced “mayor” ironically), who says his priorities will be on the “weed-smell, roundabouts, organ-shortages, Canada geese, God, labour, street preachers, hipsters, [and] uncomfortable benches”. He also added pointedly that he’s not married, and thus can’t have any affairs in office.
Wishing you the tenacity of an unlikely mayoral candidate today.
SAY WHAT?
It was just torture, not understanding what was happening to me or why things had taken all the turns that they were taking.
Moira Deeming
These might sound like the words of a marginalised person experiencing rejection and isolation for existing, but are actually those of the recently booted Liberal MP who went to an anti-transgender rights rally where neo-Nazis performed the heil Hitler salute.
CRIKEY RECAP
“So the Coalition was also going to add an extra ‘Adelaide’ to the population. Thanks to the pandemic, we’re getting it later than anticipated. This is cold comfort to families desperate to find somewhere affordable to live after the landlord just raised their rent. The return of international students, backpackers and skilled migrants is sharpening competition for tenancies, especially at the affordable end of the market.
“But Australia’s rental market was in crisis long before border controls were lifted, and the Coalition failed to act. It ignored the plight of tenants and focused all its attention on spruiking home ownership. Yet its policies contributed to an extended price boom that made housing even less affordable for first-time buyers.”
“The mystery of who hosted Richard Marles to a round of golf at an exclusive US golf club before AUKUS talks last year has deepened as the defence minister’s office claims it has no record of the identity of his benefactor. Marles’ office responded to an FOI request late last week by saying it had no documents which would identify the club member’s name.
“The FOI request was lodged by transparency website Open Politics after Marles’ office had refused to say who hosted him before talks in Washington with UK and US officials on the terms of Australia’s engagement in the $368 billion nuclear submarine agreement.”
“For the Murdochs, cashing out also bought family peace with the US$10 billion worth of Disney shares that ended up with the family on a swap of the Fox shares divided among the six children. It’s been grim pickings since then: four years on, that US$10 billion-odd in Disney shares is worth about, umm, $10 billion, and still frustratingly dividend-free.
“Worse, there’s the regret of knowing that those shares shot up, all too briefly, to about $20 billion in March 2021 when streaming seemed all up-side. The sharemarket seems to be losing patience with the residual Murdoch companies. Since early February, shares in News Corp and Fox Corp have fallen about 15%, off the back of what’s been described as ‘erratic’ decision-making — both corporate and personal.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Turkey run-off vote: nationalist Sinan Ogan could be ‘kingmaker’ (Al Jazeera)
Serbian gun amnesty collects 13,500 weapons, including rocket launchers (euronews)
Average Canadian house price rose to $716,000 in April — up by $100K since January (CBC)
Abortion showdown in North Carolina may hinge on a single vote (The New York Times)
Mystery tremors on Danish Baltic island puzzle scientists (The Guardian)
Thailand elections: voters deliver stunning blow to army-backed rule (BBC)
Replacing sugar with sweeteners does not affect weight control in long term, WHO says (The Guardian)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Trump’s ‘evil charisma’ menaces the US — and Australia — Matthew Knott (The SMH) ($): “Just as Godzilla gained strength from nuclear radiation, these scandals have allowed Trump to tighten his grip on the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. The conservative base largely swallowed Trump’s lies about election fraud in the 2020 election and similarly believe his claims of being unfairly persecuted by a biased left-wing legal system. Victimhood is the juice in the Make American Great Again machine, fuelling the sense of grievance that binds Trump and his supporters together.
“For all the attention Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has attracted as a potentially more palatable version of Trump, his campaign has floundered before he has even officially entered the race. At the end of February, Trump led DeSantis as the favoured Republican nominee by just 13 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics average. That lead has now blown out to 31 points. There’s no sign DeSantis has the star power or national appeal to end the love affair between Trump and his base.”
JobSeeker boost not enough for some, as controversy continues — Anthony Keane (The Australian) ($): “JobSeeker will have three rises this year — the usual inflation-linked increases in March and September plus the budget boost, and Treasurer Jim Chalmers continues to be attacked for not doing enough. He was also attacked for spending billions of dollars extra on welfare that fuels higher inflation and interest rates, so he can’t win.This leads to the question: how much welfare is enough to give battlers a decent life without tempting too many to think they are happy living on government hand-outs.
“According to the Services Australia figures, an unemployed couple today with three children aged under 15 can potentially receive: JobSeeker payments of $631.20 each per fortnight; family tax benefit Part A of $257.46 per child per fortnight; family Tax Benefit Part B of $168.28 if the youngest child is aged under five; Commonwealth rent assistance of $148. That’s more than $61,000 a year — close to $1200 a week — and does not include other benefits such as energy discounts, cheap medicines and transport concessions. It also doesn’t include the budget’s $40 per fortnight JobSeeker increase or the 15% rise in Commonwealth rent assistance, both still to be legislated.”
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WHAT’S ON TODAY
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
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Real Estate Institute of Australia’s Anna Neelagama, Anglicare’s Kasy Chambers and independent MP Helen Haines will speak about regional Australia’s housing crisis in an address to the National Press Club.
