SELECTION ISSUE
Former PM John Howard has said that Coalition spats are nothing but personal grievances, the SMH reports, but does think Liberal Party members should choose their own candidates. It comes as outgoing Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells has rebuffed scepticism that her spectacular spray at the PM — as Crikey transcribed — was motivated by her demotion on the ticket. She has an unlikely (or maybe not so unlikely) ally in One Nation’s Pauline Hanson, who called Morrison “a bully” yesterday, saying it’s his way or “no way”.
Fierravanti-Wells doubled down on the immigration minister too, referring to the “obstructive conduct of Alex Hawke“. So what’s this all about? There’s been an ongoing factional stoush in the NSW Liberal Party over whether Hawke, Environment Minister Sussan Ley, and North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman (who all sit in key seats) should face preselection challenges or just be endorsed (particularly as the first two are cabinet ministers), as The Australian ($) reports. In the end, a committee including Prime Minister Scott Morrison, NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet, and former federal president of the party Chris McDiven stepped in to take control — thwarting what is usually a ballot vote process, as Guardian Australia reports. So it’s going to NSW’s Court of Appeal this Friday — Fierravanti-Wells’ camp versus Morrison and Hawke’s intervention. Stay tuned.
Speaking of preselection drama, NT Senator Sam McMahon has told Parliament she’s quitting the Country Liberal Party (CLP) because Jason Riley was placed on the central council, the NT News reports. McMahon had a physical bust-up with Riley, her former chief of staff, in 2020, though the cops didn’t press charges. McMahon announced she was quitting the party after she lost preselection to Alice Springs Mayor Jacinta Price — but says her decision to walk was motivated entirely by Riley’s appointment and her concerns for her personal safety. After her resignation, ABC reports, the CLP was placed under review by the Australian Electoral Commission, which was looking into whether it had enough paid members to exist at a federal level (it needs 1500).
GOODNIGHT, SPIN KING
More than 50,000 mourners gathered last night, along with a global audience of a billion people, The Australian ($) says, to say their final goodbye to cricket legend Shane Warne at the MCG — the late spin bowler’s fortress, as news.com.au puts it. The state funeral was offered to the Warne family following Warne’s heart attack in Thailand earlier this month. He was 52. It was a big night of tears, laughter, reminiscence and admiration — “Warnie, the cricketer, star and fan, would have loved it,” the Herald Sun ($) writes. Among the big names celebrating Warnie’s life and impact were Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman, James Packer, Eric Bana, Greg Norman and Kelly Slater, as well as cricket greats Allan Border, Mark Taylor and Merv Hughes. Prime Minister Scott Morrison reportedly arrived to a bit of a chilly reception, news.com.au continues, with boos heard when Morrison’s name was announced. Yikes.
Shane’s father, Keith Warne, spoke of his son’s legacy and love for life, while Shane’s children Summer, Jackson and Brooke shared heart-wrenching speeches about their dad. Summer says the last time she saw her dad — when he was picking up luggage for that fateful Thailand trip — his car stereo was blaring Bryan Adams’ Summer of ’69. She says Warne started dancing and singing with “true happiness all around”, as ABC reports. Jackson recalled his dad giving him a leg up in Monopoly games so he could have a shot at winning, calling Warne his “best friend”. And Brooke addressed her dad directly, promising the trio would always do what their dad had told them — which was “try our best”.
WATER DISASTER
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has binned the National Water Grid Advisory Body, Guardian Australia reports, after not consulting it on major water projects in Nationals seats — including $5.9b in funding for the Urannah and Hells Gates dams in north Queensland. The decision to abolish the body followed member Stuart Khan writing to other members that the government’s funding was “brazenly political” — though Guardian Australia stipulated that it isn’t suggesting the two are related. Joyce’s spokesperson says the body was never meant to be ongoing and has met its objectives.
It comes as water continues to pummel the north of NSW, with Wilsons River at Lismore expected to peak at 12m overnight, ABC reports. There have been 55 flood rescues in the past 24 hours, and the search for a woman missing in Nowra continues. Some residents of Lismore had nothing left to lose in this bout of flooding, Guardian Australia reports, with one describing the wild weather as “picking the bones off a carcass”. Many are irate too that an evacuation order was rescinded at 5pm on Tuesday — but then reinstated at 3am on Wednesday. It’s much the same story in tourist destination Byron Bay, where more than 295mm has fallen in the area since Tuesday, the SMH reports. Photographs of the flooded main streets show the extent of the devastation.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
Welcome to the Dyson Zone. The company known for its futuristic home technology and eyewatering prices is making a foray into headphones. But as per the times, these aren’t your average headphones — they’ve got a built-in mask. Resembling something French musician duo Daft Punk might don at a rave in Berlin, the mask-like contraption purifies the air to the mouth and nose while also reducing noise pollution. Each earphone actually has a motor, compressor fan, and air-purifying dual-layer filter inside. Like to jog? The weird little contraption will adjust the airflow between three levels of intensity so you can get up to five litres of clean air a second.
Chief engineer Jake Dyson — I wish it was an incredible surname coincidence, but he’s the son of the founder — says the real selling point is that the Dyson headphones’ built-in mask doesn’t actually touch your face, rather creates a “plume” of fresh air in front of it. The question is, of course, why? I can’t help but recall a Gruen Transfer episode where two advertising agencies battled it out in a segment called The Pitch to sell consumers bottled air. It seemed quite funny at the time, the sort of thing that big companies would try and trick us into thinking we need (hey, it worked with air fryers). But now, in this pandemic era, perhaps it’s less humorous. Of course, as with any Dyson product, you’ll need to save your pocket money for quite a few weeks or months — the headphones are expected to hit the stores sometime this year, with a price range likely to be as high as $1700.
Wishing you a calm Thursday.
SAY WHAT?
I would immediately move to providing a rifle for every single boy — and girl too if they want them — in an armoury in every single school in Australia and if that sounds extremist that’s what Israel does, that’s what Finland does, that’s what Sweden does, that’s what Switzerland does. All I’m saying is give them a rifle.
Bob Katter
Forget putting kids on forklifts, as the PM rather memorably suggested — Katter told ABC News yesterday that we should arm school children. None of the countries he listed put guns in the hands of school children (though Switzerland has a teenage shooting festival). It’s not the first time Katter has said it either — in 2019, the zany politician suggested children be paid pocket money to shoot cane toads with rifles. What could possibly go wrong?
CRIKEY RECAP
Fake religion and no moral compass: departing Liberal senator calls out the PM’s use of religion as a ‘marketing advantage’
“To traditional Catholic believers, Morrison’s brand of Pentecostalism is always suspect — seen as big on glitz and marketing while lacking in intellectual heft and tradition. They see it as centred on the advancement of self and the acquisition of material wealth, as opposed to Catholicism that elevates the idea of suffering.
“Last night that marriage of Morrison’s fake religion and the fakery of the man came together in one of the most powerful faith denunciations Parliament has witnessed. It was also a rarity in Canberra where political journalists have refused to touch the story of Morrison and his relationship with God, even though it goes directly to the character of the prime minister, as Crikey has detailed since last year.”
Requiem for a Panda Father: Labor loses as Kim Carr exits
“It was, but Carr’s reason for backing Shorten, from the Right, over a fellow leftist is that the core of the Victorian Socialist Left doesn’t regard Albanese or the national Left, as left in any sense — i.e. the political-economic — that they would regard as important. There is personal dislike between Albanese and Carr on a range of things.
“Though Albanese was from modest circumstances, he quickly joined the groovalicious young Labor-student politics swirl when he made it to uni. Carr worked as an outer-suburban high school teacher while working his way up the faction (though his birth was more spectacular — on the side of a storm-tossed mountain in Korea, when Kim Il-sung pierced the side of a she-bear).”
Full of bribes to ‘split personality’: the commentariat weighs in on the budget
“As last night’s budget lockup wound up and the opinion pieces started rolling in, the resounding response to Josh Frydenberg’s 2022 budget was ‘ehh’. Most considered it an uninspired election pitch with not much substance or detail … Also for the ABC, Laura Tingle reckons the measures look a lot like a Labor budget. ‘It’s hard to escape the sense that second guessing what Labor may promise during the election campaign has shaped a lot of this budget’s key initiatives’, she writes.
As for whether the election pitch budget will work, the Oz’s Paul Kelly thinks it gives them “a fighting political chance”. ‘Frydenberg and Morrison, behind in the opinion polls, had no option but to bring down a highly political election eve package to support family households. Denial of this reality is fatuous. Given the situation, the largesse could have been worse’.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Gas supply: What will happen if Russia turns off taps to Germany? (Al Jazeera)
Myanmar’s newest rebels join a jungle insurgency (The New York Times)
War in Ukraine: Russia launches new attacks after peace promise (BBC)
Climate groups say a change in coding can reduce bitcoin energy consumption by 99% (The Guardian)
Israel bolsters security amid deadliest wave of terrorist attacks in years (The New York Times)
NZ has the highest rates of melanoma cases and deaths in the world, study shows (Stuff)
Federal investigation of Hunter Biden heats up (CNN)
Four million refugees have now fled Ukraine, says UN (The Wall Street Journal) ($)
Blame game after Iran women pepper-sprayed at World Cup qualifier (Al Jazeera)
Some Americans are going to Mexico for cheaper petrol (BBC)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Budget 2022 a wasted opportunity for policy bravery — Peta Credlin (The Australian) ($): “The imminent election is just the latest reason to put off the hard decisions about making government more effective and the economy more efficient, and to let people keep more of their own money. Every time government plays Santa Claus, it’s giving you a present with your own money. And Liberal governments routinely say you know how to spend your own money better than they do. Even so, the temptation to take from some to give to others is well-nigh irresistible this close to an election, and by continuing to run debt and deficit for at least the next decade we’re still mortgaging the future for a better time now.
“… Since then, while governments have taken all the credit they can for good economic news, almost none of it has been the result of any decision of theirs. Take this budget’s ‘good news’ that welfare bills will fall by $11b across the course of the forward estimates. This is not because the government has pruned eligibility or because structural change has made more people more employable. It’s simply the result of the end of pandemic restrictions plus an economy pumped up by the sugar hit of $300b in pandemic-driven spending.”
Another attack on PM’s character by one of his own, at the worst time — Jennifer Hewett (The AFR): “Morrison attempted to dismiss this as ‘Connie being disappointed’ at her failure to get the necessary support from 500 Liberal members, claiming she had also criticised Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull as prime ministers. But the episode would have reminded many voters of similar highly personal condemnations of Morrison’s lack of trustworthiness by more prominent colleagues, ranging from much admired former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian to the ever erratic Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce.
“Such free character assessments were supposedly private text messages, later leaked, although almost as poisonous. This new public assault can only amplify the doubts and decline in Morrison’s personal popularity since the last election campaign — just when he needs to persuade more voters he deserves their continued faith as Prime Minister. It’s another example of the destructive internal politics in NSW that paralysed timely preselections in some marginal seats supposedly crucial to the Coalition’s hopes of hanging on.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Online
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The Australia Institute’s Richard Denniss, Matt Grudnoff, and Eliza Littleton will unpack the federal budget in a webinar.
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Former banker and consultant Satyajit Das will offer a “surprisingly playful” examination of the world’s greatest crises and his quirky ideas about how we might solve them.
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Victorian Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio and business executives will speak on the state’s potential for a green hydrogen industry at an event hosted by CEDA.
