PETER PANS BUDGET
Opposition Chief Peter Dutton says “any wise authorities should think about small modular nuclear as a part of the vitality combine”, regardless that nuclear energy is banned in each state and territory, small nuclear energy crops create long-living radioactive waste, and we’re fairly actually one of many sunniest and windiest international locations on earth with sufficient renewable vitality to energy assets to energy our nation 500 instances over. The nuclear argument will get dusted off and wheeled out each 5 years or so, as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stated final 12 months, and “we now have this financial evaluation of whether or not nuclear energy stacks up and each time it’s rejected”, because the AFR ($) reported.
Additionally in his funds reply, Dutton stated the Coalition would wave by way of “the federal government’s $3.5 billion enlargement of Medicare bulk-billing, $2.7 billion Commonwealth lease help increase, $11.3 billion wage rise for aged-care employees, cheaper medicines, and better welfare funds for over-55s and single mother and father”, as The Australian ($) lists, and can most likely help the $2.4 billion petroleum useful resource lease tax hike, which Crikey explains is mere peanuts. He additionally stated we should always elevate the earnings threshold for JobSeeker — about 75% of recipients don’t work, and he thinks letting individuals earn extra earlier than their cost decreases would possibly empower extra of them to work. Even a damaged clock is correct twice a day, and all that. Dutton disagrees with the JobSeeker rise of $40 a fortnight, however Labor doesn’t want the Coalition to go that anyway — simply the votes of the Greens and crossbench, as Guardian Australia experiences.
FROM RICHES TO RICHES
If you happen to earn $100,000, you’re going to be $172 worse off in contrast with 2019 by the stage three tax cuts, the SMH ($) experiences, due to bracket creep. That’s in accordance with ANU’s Centre for Social Analysis and Strategies, which discovered the underside 20% of households will likely be $390 higher off in 2024-25, these incomes between $40,000 and $75,000 will likely be $30 higher off, and the highest 20% will likely be $3580 (!) higher off. However everybody goes to be higher off this 12 months, it discovered, due to the mix of the stage three cuts and this week’s welfare measures within the funds. Nonetheless, the AFR ($) provides, the typical quantity of tax paid by Australians will hit a report $16,880 this 12 months even discounting for inflation.
One man who’s undoubtedly going to be higher off is 2GB’s Ray Hadley, who’s reportedly about to signal a $9 million take care of 9 Radio to remain on the airwaves till 2026, The Australian ($) experiences. Hadley was additionally within the information in a single day for slamming a pair who informed ABC they depend on Centrelink funds and a job at a service station to outlive, as The Day by day Mail experiences. One of many pair is a carer for his or her daughter who has autism. Talking of huge bucks — one of many world’s largest defence contractors tried to invoice the Australian authorities $54,875 for Christmas playing cards and decorations, Guardian Australia experiences, in addition to $1470 for fitness center memberships. All had been fortunately rebuffed. The claims had been revealed in an Australian Nationwide Audit Workplace (ANAO) report wanting into the frigates being constructed for the navy in Adelaide.
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
A report that stated we should always scrap a legislation that lets us preserve convicted terrorists in detention after they end their sentence has lastly been made public, the ABC experiences. Nevertheless it was too late for Abdul Nacer Benbrika, the primary to be detained after his sentence was up and who misplaced a Excessive Court docket problem to the validity of the legislation. So what are these instruments? They’re generally known as “VERA-2R” and “Radar”, they usually’re presupposed to measure the specter of recidivism in terrorist exercise. The previous has been used 14 instances. In 2020, ANU educational Emily Nook wrote a scathing report that solid doubt on whether or not the instruments even work, and handed it to the Division of House Affairs, however the division repeatedly dug its heels in about releasing the report. Till now. Greens Senator David Shoebridge stated it was “outstanding” any courtroom had ever accepted the VERA-2R as proof.
To WA now and Premier Mark McGowan has known as the behaviour of youngsters in Banksia Hill jail, lots of whom are Indigenous, a “type of terrorism”, The New Day by day experiences. It follows one other riot on the detention centre, managed when armed officers had been despatched in to include the youngsters (aged 10-17). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice commissioner June Oscar doesn’t get it — these are kids, she stated, who’ve skilled “a lot formative years trauma”. McGowan reckons that reasoning is simply an excuse. In 2017, a report confirmed the usage of spit hoods, solitary confinement, alleged sexual assault, and hovering charges of self-harm and tried suicide at Banksia, and there’s a category motion with greater than 500 children and adults in it proper now, Guardian Australia provides.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
Melbourne girl Rebecca Millar was dutifully making ready her daughter’s lunch on the finish of 2022 when the little lady requested if she might have extra in her lunchbox. It turned out Millar’s daughter had observed different children in her class sitting idly by because the others chowed down at lunchtime, so she had been sharing her meals round — regardless that it left her fairly hungry on the finish of the varsity day. Millar knew she needed to do one thing for these children. She lives with a incapacity — rheumatoid arthritis — and stated she is aware of firsthand how a smidge of assist feels huge to somebody in want. So she began sending her daughter to highschool with an additional lunchbox of meals — simply “bits and items so they’d extra to share round with these children who weren’t capable of convey lunch”, Millar informed SBS.
When a breakfast membership on the faculty completed up in 2023, Millar realised a few of these children had been going the whole day with out consuming a factor. “This was when the whole lot escalated,” she stated. So she launched a “no questions requested” meals field, crammed with corn chips, popcorn, Straightforward Mac, seaweed snacks, fruit, pizza crusts, fava beans, cheese, the works. There are even lovingly ready, batch-cooked home made meals in there. Now about seven children pop by her home to select up the meals for his or her pals and households. Millar additionally retains a field of interval provides in her lavatory, free for whichever child dares to dart in there. Nevertheless it’s getting more durable — Millar stated her grocery invoice had jumped $120 every week prior to now three months amid hovering inflation. If you wish to donate to assist inventory her “no questions requested” meals field, please click on right here.
Wishing you a number of the kindness of Rebecca Millar, and a restful weekend.
SAY WHAT?
In fact [Russian President Vladimir Putin’s] good. They need you to say he’s a silly individual. He’s not a silly individual and he’s very crafty. Putin made a nasty mistake for my part. His mistake was getting into. He would have by no means gone in if I used to be president.
Donald Trump
Trump stated he would meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Putin and remedy the warfare in Ukraine “in someday, 24 hours”, however he wouldn’t say who he thinks ought to prevail between the 2 nations. “Very fantastic individuals on each side” once more, Trump?
CRIKEY RECAP
“So what we’re left with is a privatised important service working as a quasi-monopoly that may at all times be assured of being bailed out by the taxpayer when instances are robust. However when issues are going nicely, it makes positive to funnel away the rewards from the general public and employees and into the gobs of the capitalist class. It’s a rort, and Joyce’s departure is pretty much as good a time as any to convey it to an finish. If Qantas really is the ‘nationwide provider’, then it ought to be re-nationalised.
“Underneath public possession and uncovered to better democratic accountability, Qantas might rededicate itself to offering an important service to Australians, versus blindly chasing income in any respect prices. With the Australian individuals as its main shareholder, the airline might as soon as once more develop into a mannequin employer …”
“Lengthy-time Indigenous constitutional recognition activist and businessman Mark Leibler and former Liberal Get together spokesperson for Indigenous affairs Julian Leeser are often recognized by conspiracy theorists because the ‘masterminds’ behind the Voice. Leibler joins figures like World Financial Discussion board chair Klaus Schwab and businessman George Soros as Jewish figures who’ve develop into the topic of thinly veiled variations of the centuries-old anti-Semitic ‘Jewish puppetmaster’ conspiracy principle …
“Earlier this 12 months, each the federal government and the eSafety commissioner urged tech corporations to behave on misinformation and hate speech within the lead-up to the referendum. Voice campaigns have additionally raised issues about poor-quality data and misinformation being revealed within the mainstream media.”
The chair of the general public inquiry into the Lehrmann rape trial has lashed protection by Information Corp journalist Samantha Maiden, Seven Community’s Isabelle Mullen and Day by day Mail Australia, amongst others, describing parts of their reporting as ‘prurient yellow journalism’. Walter Sofronoff KC made the remarks on Wednesday afternoon through the course of listening to submissions on why he shouldn’t take the extraordinary step of closing the high-profile inquiry to the general public.
“His ire was aimed toward experiences by ‘respected journalists’ which he stated had ‘cherrypicked’ or in any other case misrepresented extremely defamatory, scurrilous statements about Brittany Higgins contained in evidentiary paperwork that had been tendered to the inquiry however excluded from the trial for a spread of causes, not least their severely low probative worth.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Pakistan prime courtroom orders instant launch of ex-PM Imran Khan (Al Jazeera)
Zelenskyy vows to present Russia an ‘disagreeable shock’ in Ukrainian counteroffensive (euronews)
Türkiye’s elections: what are the important thing alliances promising? (Al Jazeera)
Migrant detentions at US-Mexico border hit report highs as Title 42 ends (Reuters)
Fox Information sued for defamation by ex-government disinformation chief (The Guardian)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Why is everybody shopping for truckzillas which are too huge for our streets? — Julian O’Shea (the SMH) ($): “A part of the issue is the form of the autos. Whereas they may really feel like they sit good and excessive with good visibility, the boxy entrance grille (which primarily exist to make the autos look ‘robust’) truly creates large blind spots. A information crew put this to the check. They lined up a bunch of children in entrance of a Ford F-150 till they had been seen from the driving force’s seat. It wasn’t till the eleventh baby joined the row {that a} ponytail and the highest of their head could possibly be seen. These lethal blind spots have led to quite a few tragedies the place kids have inadvertently been pushed over in their very own driveways.
“After a long time of labor in bettering highway security in our nation, there’s an actual likelihood that these autos will undo numerous this progress. They’re not designed for Australian streets, that are usually narrower and have extra bike owner and pedestrian interactions than their pure habitat in America. Having simply returned from a visit to the US and seen how widespread these autos are, I’m not stunned that pedestrian deaths in America at the moment are at a 40-year-high — a public well being disaster we should always work to keep away from. The sq. form and big mass of those suburban tanks signifies that when they’re concerned in an accident, it’s more likely to be a lethal one. In reality, one examine discovered children are eight instances extra prone to die when hit by a SUV in contrast with a traditional passenger automotive.
”The manufactured panic over Biden’s age — Charles M Blow (The New York Occasions) ($): “This brings me to the protection of Biden’s age. It’s true that if he’s reelected, Biden can be the oldest president we’ve ever had. However he was already the oldest president the primary time he was elected. What modified? I’d argue that the largest change wasn’t the straightforward passage of time, however the determination of some Republican leaders to focus like a laser on Biden’s age because the issue weighing towards him. In an April interview, the previous South Carolina governor Nikki Haley stated it was unlikely Biden would ‘make it’ by way of a second time period. On this 12 months’s Republican response to the State of the Union tackle, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas famous that she’s half Biden’s age.
“Some observers contend that voting for Biden is basically voting for Vice-President Kamala Harris to be president, as a result of Biden could not final one other time period. For Republicans, that notion gives the additional advantage of permitting them to marketing campaign towards the trifecta of their disdain — a liberal who’s a minority and a lady. Which brings us again to the net of affect: campaigns elevate a difficulty, pollsters and journalists ask whether or not the problem is having an impact on a race, tales are written about that impact and on account of the protection, the impact is commonly intensified. That’s the chain of custody for a political assault, however far too typically that connection and context isn’t made clear. It’s typically offered as if most of these issues simply spring forth in voters’ minds and aren’t influenced by campaigns and information protection.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Ngunnawal Nation (often known as Canberra)
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Victoria College of Wellington’s Jon Fraenkel will talk about Fiji’s 2022 election, FijiFirst’s defeat and what’s forward, in a chat on the Hedley Bull Theatre 2, ANU.
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Myanmar’s Nationwide Unity Authorities’s Human Rights Minister HE Aung Myo Min will talk about human rights in Myanmar, in a chat at Lecture Theatre 1, ANU.
