FLAGGING THE PROBLEM
Former Labor senator Nova Peris says it’s a lie to say Jewish people are “settler-colonialists” in Israel, the SMH reports. Speaking in a video for a new campaign, the first Indigenous woman elected to federal Parliament also said the Aboriginal flag was being “misappropriated” by pro-Palestine protesters, asking “Who gave free, outright, prior and informed consent to use our flag for your cause?” (It’s actually not the first time Peris has said this — she told the same thing to The Australian ($) three weeks back). Peris says it’s become “trendy” to support Palestine and said people had learnt about it from TikTok. The paper doesn’t say who funded the new campaign, only that it was “Jewish, non-Jewish and Indigenous supporters, rather than organisations”, and it didn’t publish the video.
Meanwhile, the 16,750 sheep and cattle bound for Israel will be slaughtered if exporters can’t get permission to go there. The animals have been onboard for a month after their voyage through the Red Sea was aborted due to fears of Houthi rebels, but this week the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry said they weren’t allowed to go the other, longer route to Israel either. Right now they’re stuck off the coast of Perth, Guardian Australia says, where consecutive 42-degree days are forecast. Speaking of beastly things abroad, dozens of politicians in Victoria spent nearly half a million dollars on travel last financial year, the ABC reports, with India, China, and Thailand among the most-frequented countries. It’s bad optics considering Treasurer Tim Pallas has warned the May budget will be “very, very tight”.
CUT AND PACE
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton called the stage three tax cut reforms, which left 70% of people with more money, “the most egregious breach of trust and promise by a prime minister in recent history”, Sky News Australia reports. Get a bloody grip; your predecessor secretly swore himself into five ministerial portfolios without telling the public or in many cases the minister, and took a secret holiday to Hawaii while Australia burned through its worst bushfire season in modern history. Anyway… Reserve Bank boss Michele Bullock confirmed Labor’s tax reforms would have “no material impact” on our economy — specifically inflation — The New Daily reports, after the cash rate was kept steady at 4.35% as predicted yesterday.
Speaking of which, the Reserve Bank has gone all fortune teller on us, The Age reports, revealing the five things the central bank is preparing for in the year ahead. Inflation is still going to be a big problem, even though it’s at a two-year low, because demand is still going to outpace supply. The economy is going to slow “abruptly” in the next few months because of the triple prong of a high cash rate, high cost of living, and high personal taxes. People are still not buying much but bargain hunting more (i.e. on promotional days like Black Friday). Rents will keep going up (they increased by 0.8% in January and 0.65% in December) and the RBA will cut the cash rate this year — it’ll probably be around 3.9% at the end of 2024.
MIND THE GAP
Closing The Gap will fail, the Productivity Commission says, and it needs urgent changes to stop it from doing so. The truth-bomb review found the most important thing government decision-makers need to do is accept “they do not know what is best for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people,” Guardian Australia says. There are four targets in Closing The Gap — shared decision-making, building the community-controlled sector, transforming government organisations and sharing access to data — and none have been met, the commission continued. So what do we do? The review suggests giving Indigenous community organisations power over Indigenous health, education and safety, The Australian ($) reports (this model works elsewhere — in British Columbia, where I live, The First Nations Health Authority “plans, designs, manages, and funds” First Nations’ health programs and services).
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wouldn’t say whether he’ll implement parts two and three of the Uluru Statement from the Heart (part one was the Voice to Parliament). The government has earmarked $5.8 million for the Makarrata Commission — that’s Treaty — and the third part is truth-telling, a deep dive into injustices and their impacts. He did, however, say the Voice failed on his watch, ABC reports, citing “a considerable fear campaign” — the first comments about the referendum this year. It comes as an Indigenous man has died in custody in Western Australia, the National Indigenous Times reports. Almost 600 Indigenous people have died in custody since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody made its recommendations in 1991 (as of 2018, Guardian Australia reported, just 64% have been fully implemented).
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
On Sunday morning, California woman Edie Ceccarelli came across a local parade. There was the local dog walker, wrangling the leashes of no fewer than 15 overstimulated pooches. There was the red fire brigade, with the beaming firefighters waving madly down at local awe-struck kids. There was even the proud local garbo, driving a thankfully emptied truck down the people-lined street. My stars, Edie thought. What’s all this about? Suddenly a stranger spotted her. “Hi Edie!” they said. “Happy birthday!”. At that, dozens of smiling people turned to her to echo the sentiment, with a trio of moustached musicians appearing from nowhere to serenade her with guitars. There was even a banner emblazoned with birthday wishes coming down the street. What on earth, she thought, today isn’t my birthday.
Today is your birthday, her caregiver gently corrected her, as she lovingly straightened Edie’s sweater and helped touch up her red lipstick. Oh yeah, she twigged. It is! Her dementia can cloud her mind sometimes but it’s still not too bad for the oldest person in the US (and the second-oldest in the entire world). Edie’s 116th birthday parade in the streets of Willits was something of a local holiday at the weekend, as The Guardian tells it, and she felt like a real-life movie star. The supercentenarian waved at the flashing lights of hyperactive photographers, was gifted handmade cards and pretty flowers by shy children, and was asked the inevitable question by journalists: what’s the secret to a long life, Edie? Two fingers of red wine, she responded, and minding my own business. Queen.
Hoping you celebrate someone else today, big or small.
SAY WHAT?
Are you referring to Nemesis, are you, last night on the ABC? You didn’t want to say the brand I presume Andrew, maybe it’s too soon.
Peter Dutton
A rather noxious comment from the opposition leader to Andrew Probyn after the award-winning journalist’s shock redundancy from the broadcaster. Probyn had asked Dutton if he’d like to respond to Malcolm Turnbull calling him a thug on the ABC program.
CRIKEY RECAP
“While it really ramped up under the Morrison government, the prosecution of former ACT attorney-general and Canberra lawyer Bernard Collaery and his former client, former Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) officer ‘Witness K’, began in June 2018.
“This followed years of government harassment of the pair after the 2013 revelation that ASIS had illegally bugged East Timor’s cabinet in 2004 to secure an advantage to Australia in treaty negotiations with the fledgling state over natural resources in the Timor Sea. The shameful saga would drag on until the change of government in 2022.”
“Having used unproven claims of inciting violence as an excuse to further toughen laws around speech offences and hand police yet more power, Minns has also made a habit of attacking his own MPs for daring to criticise Israel.
“When frontbencher Anthony D’Adam made the simple factual statement that Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu was responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent children, Minns — presumably on the basis that Palestinian children were somehow dying of causes unrelated to being bombed incessantly by Israel — dismissed him as someone ‘most people in NSW would never have heard of’ who was being ‘deliberately inflammatory’.”
“The ‘liar, liar, pants on fire’ reporting construct is an eccentrically Australian conceit. In the age of social-media-powered disinformation that’s roiling journalism worldwide, the delicate parsing by Australia’s elite media would appear almost quaint, if it weren’t so destructive — of journalism, more than anything else.
“The practice is not, as the media likes to tell itself, a dose of much-needed journalistic accountability. Rather, it’s a journalistic choice of a political narrative that spotlights the clowning in the main ring of the circus. It comes with a self-importance — a hubris — of the journalists as ring-masters …”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Argentina president Javier Milei says plans to move embassy to Jerusalem (Al Jazeera)
ICC ‘turf war’ blocking Ukrainian bid to have top Russians tried, advocate says (The Guardian)
Kill the bill – Māori implore PM to stop Treaty Principles Bill in its tracks (Stuff)
Trump’s sweeping immunity claim rejected by US appeals court (Reuters)
Brussels recommends new EU climate target: a 90% cut of all greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 (euronews)
Rio de Janeiro: Dengue spike prompts health emergency ahead of Carnival (BBC)
Kenyan cult leader is charged in the deaths of 191 children (The New York Times)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Albanese on front foot as both sides settle into the ‘permanent campaign’ — Michelle Grattan (The Conversation): “The prime minister’s communications team has been beefed up, with two new senior people starting this week: Katharine Murphy, formerly political editor of The Guardian, and Fiona Sugden, who previously worked for then-prime minister Kevin Rudd and for a time for Albanese in opposition. Late last year Liz Fitch, the head of the PM’s media team, left. Brett Mason, who was number two, has stepped up into her place as communications director. Among Fitch’s duties had been to prepare Albanese for his big media appearances and engagements of the day. This will be one of the roles of Sugden, who has most recently been Fortescue’s director of corporate communications, based in London.
“One driver for ramping up the spin team is a perceived need to improve relations with the Canberra press gallery, members of whom had been complaining about the Albanese office. Albanese now has a record number of seven media advisers (not including support staff). But he is known for having his own firm views on media strategy. The immediate challenge for Dutton is less about the spin, more about the substance. While now living with the replacement of the stage three tax cuts, the Coalition is also trying to send the message that it has not deserted those of its voters who have lost out (compared with where they would have been) in the changes. Dutton (wisely) has not pledged a Coalition government to restoring their position.”
Interest rates may fall soon. Here’s what that means for your finances — John Collett (The SMH): “Opinions differ among property experts on what is likely to be in store for property prices in Sydney and Melbourne this year. Andrew Wilson, the chief economist at My Housing Market, expects rates will be on hold for longer and that property prices in Sydney could rise by up to 5% over this calendar year. Melbourne prices will also likely rise, but could find it a ‘little harder’ to grow by 5%, he says. The fundamental issue driving higher prices in both cities is the lack of supply, Wilson says. The founder of property data firm SQM Research, Louis Christopher, says prices in both cities could end this calendar year slightly down on where they started 2024, as the economy appears soft with a fall in retail sales and a weaker jobs market …
“Comparison site Rate City’s head of research, Sally Tindall, says while most banks should “play ball” for the first cut (at the very least) and pass it on, in full, to their variable rate mortgage customers, that may not be the case with any subsequent cuts to the cash rate … Rate City figures show if there was to be three cuts of 0.25 percentage points by the end of this year, someone with a $750,000 mortgage with 25 years to run, who is paying 6.39% would save more than $330 on their monthly mortgage repayments. AMP’s chief economist Shane Oliver says falling interest rates are generally good for share prices. Shares can potentially trade on higher price-to-earnings multiples when inflation is low, he says, which is good news for those with investment portfolios.”
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The AFR’s Jennifer Hewett and Sky News Australia’s Joe Hildebrand will talk about Australian politics in 2024 in a webinar for the Sydney Institute.
Stephen Mushin will talk about his book, Ultrawild, in a webinar for The Wheeler Centre.
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