LUCKY FOR SOME
Former prime minister John Howard says “the luckiest thing that happened to this country was being colonised by the British”, despite research showing more than half of all massacres of Indigenous people, the oldest living culture in the world, were carried out by our police and other government forces, as Guardian Australia reported last year, and right up until 1926. Speaking to The Australian ($), Howard — who turns 84 today — also says the NT government isn’t “competent”, naming health, police and education as problem areas. It’s almost as if we need an advisory body to tell politicians what Indigenous folks need on the ground. Howard also predicts the Voice to Parliament referendum will fail “significantly”, suggesting we should be instead “sitting down talking to each other” about how to lift Indigenous people up. Like an advisory body to the government made up of Indigenous representatives all over the country drawing on community views might do?
Howard, our second-longest serving prime minister, goes on to suggest the idea that a sovereign country making a treaty with part of itself is “just preposterous” and “constitutionally repugnant”, adding treaties are made between sovereign states and not with a part of a sovereign state. Perhaps we could look to Canada, where the government formally recognises no fewer than 70 constitutionally bound historic treaties signed with Indigenous peoples between 1701 and 1923, as well as the 26 modern treaties signed with First Nations communities since 1975. It’s thanks to Canada’s self-governing royal proclamation of 1763, though it’s never been mirrored here. Not that any comment above went challenged by The Australian’s Janet Albrechtsen, who instead describes the 84-year-old as smiling “wryly”, having appealing “quintessential common sense” and a “knack” for understanding the country.
MUM’S THE WORD
Manus detention centre contractor Paladin’s Craig Thrupp transferred more than $1.2 million to his mother, who works at Home Affairs, The Age ($) reports. Thrupp, who owns 80% of Paladin, said he was just supporting his mum. The Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity looked into what a spokesperson for its successor, the National Anti-Corruption Commission, described as an alleged “corruption issue” regarding his financial transactions. Some of the payments were incorrectly invoiced as “consulting services”, Thrupp says, adding that he paid applicable tax. The paper continues that “Paladin secured the lucrative Manus contract from the Home Affairs Department without a tender in mid-2017”, and was paid $532 million to run the centre.
To other transparency matters now and the Turnbull government gave a $33 million grant to a startup after being lobbied by then-mental health commissioner Ian Hickie who was also a shareholder, Guardian Australia reports. It’s not against the rules, and Hickie told the paper he was honest about it at every opportunity. The company, Innowell, got the grant to develop the mental health platform without a competitive tender, and Health Minister Mark Butler has asked the Health Department for more info on the funding. Meanwhile, the Productivity Commission thinks we need an independent Indigenous-led watchdog to deal with issues such as Queensland’s tough bail laws, eased alcohol restrictions in the NT, and other things that may be at odds with Closing the Gap. It would have “some characteristics in common” with the Voice, The Australian ($) perhaps begrudgingly admits in the eighth paragraph, though the AFR ($) goes with a much more direct “Voice could help close the gap: Productivity Commission” headline. Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney said the report will help bolster the Yes case.
FUN AND GAMES
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is in Wellington today to talk trade, the economy, domestic politics and defence with his Kiwi counterpart Chris Hipkins. It comes as we share hosting duties for the Women’s Football World Cup, the ABC adds. And the fallout from the Commonwealth Games continues, The Age ($) reports, after it was revealed there had been no cost-benefit analysis on the $2 billion’ worth of projects Premier Daniel Andrews promised the regions instead of the games. Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Morwell and Shepparton were all promised sporting facilities totalling $1 billion and the other billion was allocated towards 1300 social and affordable homes across the regions. But Andrews couldn’t say what return the $2 billion would bring, arguing you don’t need a cost-benefit analysis for “common sense”.
To another state government saga now, and NSW Liberal Leader Mark Speakman wouldn’t say whether he knew before building his shadow cabinet that MP Taylor Martin had allegedly sent former federal MP Lucy Wicks text messages that called her — mind the language folks — a “dumb slut”, a “pig”, a “fuckwit”, a “sicko” and more. Sources told the SMH ($) Martin was up for a promotion after the election — Speakman said he’ll have more to say after the investigation. And finally, the Courier-Mail reports Queensland cop Brad Hallett has been promoted, despite a commission of inquiry report that detailed the accusations of “continuous, frequent and persistent” sexual harassment of female staff by the pseudonym “Officer Brick”. The paper says it’s him.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
Canadian writer Rania El Mugammar was down to her last $20 with a toddler in tow when it happened. It was 2016, and the young mother was walking along a street with a large bag of clothes she figured she’d sell to a consignment store to make ends meet for the next 10 days until her pay slip arrived. Pushing her son in the stroller that was filled with nappies and other odd bits, and carrying a backpack of her own things, she wasn’t exactly making great time. But she couldn’t afford public transport — too costly. It was then El Mugammar heard a snap and the stroller promptly gave in under the pressure and fell to a heap, broken. She wasn’t far off doing the same when a bunch of young men approached. She was on the verge of crying as they scrambled to help her pick up the nearly 40 kilograms of things she was carting.
One grabbed the broken bits of the stroller and strolled into a bike repair shop nearby to fix it, while another told her they’d return it to her that evening. Any dubiousness she felt was mollified that evening when a couple of the guys turned up with the stroller. They’d “pimped my ride” with stickers, streamers and an extra cup holder, she wrote on Twitter, making her burst into laughter. It was such a hard time, she says, when she felt so alone. And “their kindness was the only kind of gentleness I experienced in weeks”. She stayed in touch with the guys, and this week one of them became a dad for the first time. So she bought him a stroller. It was “an honour for me to return your kindness”, she told him. He responded that he’d “pass it on as soon as little man is done with it”.
Hoping you pass on kindness today too.
SAY WHAT?
And to my mind, if people say, ‘I want you to recognise me in this particular way,’ it would be somewhat contradictory to say, ‘Yes, we’ll recognise you, but we’ll do it in the way that we want, not the way that you’ve asked for.
Anthony Albanese
The PM said the Voice, which originated from the Uluru Statement from the Heart, is about both recognition of and listening to Indigenous peoples.
CRIKEY RECAP
“What makes it different from his presence elsewhere is the community that has formed in his channel. Even by Telegram’s laissez-faire standards, it is filled with hateful content. Some comes in response to his posts, including calls for violence against people who Babet has made critical posts about, such as Welcome to Sex’s authors and LGBTQIA+ activists.
“Other content urges Babet to go further by making explicitly bigoted remarks against minorities and criticising or abusing him for failing to do so. Nazi references and iconography appear in many of the active users’ names, profile pictures and posts. Last week one user with a swastika in their name directed people to join the Telegram channel of Australia’s most active neo-Nazi group, the National Socialist Network.”
“It’s no accident that Margerison sounds like a walking, talking motivational book. He has nominated the legend of the self-belief industry and celebrated motivational speaker Tony Robbins as his ultimate role model. Margerison says Robbins’ mass-selling books have filled him with the ‘tools for achieving my own goals and aspirations’.
“The two have evidently grown close — close enough for Margerison to have Robbins along as his ‘wingman’ for the glittering night when, in front of 400 people, Margersion proposed marriage to his ‘soulmate’, the owner of an American real estate group. Crikey is lucky enough to have a Facebook record of the night, which includes photographs of the fiancée’s sparkling ring and a jubilant Robbins, with arms raised, as Margerison kneels to pop the question.”
“The outing of female complainants against their wishes, and their harassment by the media afterwards, strongly risks a chilling effect for victims of sexual violence, abuse or harassment holding perpetrators to account. Moreover, the higher the profile of the complainant, the greater the impact. If even a former Liberal MP won’t have her request for confidentiality honoured, with her name paraded in right-wing media, what hope for any other victim of abuse or harassment?
“The treatment of Higgins by The Australian and Sky’s far-right grubs was clearly intended as exemplary punishment for a woman who so profoundly exposed a toxic culture within not merely Parliament but also the Coalition and Morrison government. Was the outing of Marriott and Wicks by right-wing media for making allegations about the behaviour of federal and state Coalition figures any different in intention to what has been done to Higgins?”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
US says Russian aircraft struck its drone with flare over Syria (Al Jazeera)
Qin Gang: China removes foreign minister after unexplained absence (BBC)
Federal judge blocks Biden’s controversial asylum policy in a major blow to administration (CNN)
Gulf stream could collapse as early as 2025, study suggests (The Guardian)
India’s rice export ban leads to stockpiling in Canada and around the world (CBC)
Meta, Microsoft, hundreds more own trademarks to new Twitter name (Reuters)
Six men found guilty of terrorist murders over 2016 Belgium attacks (euronews)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Sky News spreading fear and falsehoods on Indigenous voice is an affront to Australian democracy — Malcolm Turnbull and Sharan Burrow (Guardian Australia): “Sky News is regularly promoting anti-Voice misinformation that is demonstrably false. It is a deliberate campaign to spread fear and misinformation in the lead-up to the referendum, with the objective of securing a no vote. The press would have you believe that misinformation originates from gloomy basements of the disaffected political class. But in reality, you can find it right under the bright lights at News Corp HQ, then spread like wildfire across the internet.
“Sky has been critical of the agenda of those who advocate for a Voice to Parliament and the power such a body would wield. They’ve been dogged in advancing the message that if the Voice referendum is successful, the Australian Parliament will be rendered powerless, which is incorrect. The referendum amendment clearly says Parliament will have the power to make laws with ‘respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures’. Sky also makes false claims about racial divisions, claiming that a Yes vote will lead to Australia becoming ‘an apartheid state’. They are desperate to have you believe that a Voice would violate fundamental democratic rights. But the constitution already refers to race in section 51 (xxvi) and section 25.”
If Russians and Belarusians compete in Paris, Ukraine won’t send a team due to a war they didn’t start — Roy Masters (The SMH) ($): “The behaviour of Russian and Belarusian athletes at Wimbledon demonstrated that they can compete peacefully with Ukrainians. While Belarusian Victoria Azarenka did not shake hands with Ukrainian Elina Svitolina and was booed, Azarenka explained that she was aware of Svitolina’s self-imposed ban on shaking hands with Russians and Belarusians. ‘I was being respectful towards her decision,’ she said. However, the IOC, in a document circulated to members, acknowledged problems at the European Fencing Championships in Bulgaria in June when Ukrainian athletes were allowed by their government to compete only in disciplines in which the Russians and Belarusians did not participate.
“The event had already been moved from Poland because the Polish government refused visas for athletes with Russian and Belarusian passports. At the Judo World Championships in Qatar and the World Taekwondo Championships in Azerbaijan, Russians and Belarusians competed but Ukrainians were absent, prompting the IOC to say in the recent memorandum to members: ‘The Ukrainian athletes are being sanctioned by their own government for a war that was started by the Russian and Belarusian governments.’ This is the key to the impasse: the IOC fears that Ukraine will not participate in Paris if it allows Russians and Belarusians to compete. Coates has tiptoed through some explosive minefields in his 50-year Olympic career but concedes there is no safe middle ground with the decision whether to allow individual Russians and Belarusians to compete in Paris.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
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Australian National University chancellor and former Liberal deputy leader Julie Bishop will speak about megatrends in the global market at the National Press Club.
Yuggera and Turrbal Country (also known as Brisbane)
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Author Heather Ellis will speak about her new book, Timeless on the Silk Road, at Avid Reader bookshop.
