Good morning – it’s Friday 26 March and the government’s difficulty confronting issues of women’s safety and treatment in Canberra and beyond continues to make headlines. Extremist views are taking a deeper hold in Australia via social media. And that boat is still stuck.
The prime minister is insisting Christian Porter and Linda Reynolds will continue to play an “important role” in his cabinet. Scott Morrison also declared he would not “condone” any negative briefing against formal Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins, who made a formal complaint to the prime minister’s chief of staff, asking him to examine whether government staff backgrounded against her or her loved ones as she went public with a sexual assault allegation. He was accused of historically “keeping women down” on Q+A last night – though Stan Grant took Australia to task for double standards, suggesting the country only mobilises around issues of sexual assault “when it becomes a white middle-class issue”.
Ahead of a review of parliament’s workplace culture, parts of which the government unsuccessfully pushed to keep secret, Morrison has reportedly ordered Liberal MP Andrew Laming to apologise over the treatment of two women in his Queensland electorate. In New South Wales, a rape allegation against a Nationals MP has pushed the Coalition into minority government and Craig Kelly’s “right-hand man” is under scrutiny over allegations of misconduct. Queensland MP Jess Pugh, who revealed she was raped when she was “barely out of high school” has called for better education around consent.
According to a report on workplace equality published today, Australian workplaces, homes and institutions continue to hold an attitude towards women that “devalues and discriminates against” them, exacerbating a gender pay gap that is unlikely to close for another 26 years.
Secret recordings have revealed a US neo-Nazi group’s efforts to recruit Australian men, including a former One Nation candidate. And, Michael McGowan reports, hate messages are infiltrating local anti-lockdown protests, one key organiser of Melbourne’s rallies against Covid restrictions maintaining that “Hitler had some good points” in extremist online groups.
Australia
Photograph: James Ross/EPA
An inmate classified as a high-risk sex offender spent more than three hours free last Thursday night. He was “wrongly released” from Victoria’s Ravenhall prison after a court incorrectly ordered he be let out on bail.
Blind and low-vision Australians are being shut out of the Covid-19 vaccination process with a government website that fails to meet basic accessibility standards. Vision Australia has slammed the federal government, saying it’s “particularly frustrating” given the time it had to prepare.
Marise Payne insists the Morrison government shares incoming OECD chief Mathias Cormann’s “ambitions” for a green recovery from the pandemic – despite Australia’s much vaunted gas-led recovery and dismal performance compared to other economies’ green initiatives.
The Australian government is considering expanding sanctions against military figures in Myanmar, as it faces calls from Sydney Peace Prize laureates to act quickly against individuals who played a key role in the coup.
And while the rain has stopped, the cleanup has begun, and water is starting to recede near the NSW coast, further flooding is likely in the state’s west.
The world
Teams from the Netherlands and Japan have been called in to help free the giant container ship blocking the Suez canal, with fears the operation could take weeks.
Police have been barred from searching the Queen’s private estates for stolen or looted artefacts after ministers granted her a personal exemption from a law that protects the world’s cultural property, the Guardian can reveal.
Google has said it “must do better” after it was found to be hosting antisemitic reviews of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. More than 150 comments were discovered on the Google Maps site for the camp.
A common diabetes drug may be able to help women who have repeated miscarriages, researchers have found, after they identified that a certain type of stem cell deficiency is common among women who lose pregnancies.
Recommended reads
“Straya is a man’s country/and you’re here to die lovely against the rock/to fold linenly into horizon/and sweat beautiful blonde on the beach.” Evelyn Araluen “wields a scalpel through twinkly visions and phantasma that treat the Australian landscape as empty necropolis”, says Declan Fry. Her first collection of poetry repurposes Biblical themes, Australiana kitsch and settler-colonial tropes, cutting them through with “astonishing” language: Sydney “soft and humid and dying”; kangaroos “soft blue silking through scratches of tall grass”.
“I stopped getting up early during the pandemic – and have never felt better,” writes Katie Cunningham. “Perpetually tired, I deployed a range of tactics to push through the fog – I’d drink two large coffees a day, I would eat lunch as late as possible because a square meal made me sleepy, I even avoided showering until bedtime in case the sedative effect of hot water would render me unable to work. In my hierarchy of needs, basic hygiene came below productivity. Then Covid happened.”
On a related note, Adrian Chiles asks if the 8:8:8 rule can “give us the perfect work-life balance … why aren’t more of us following it?”
“Accessible, affordable joy on a plate”: For nearly a century, children in Australia and New Zealand have been delighted by fairy bread. But why has sugar on white bread with fat maintained its hold, and what’s the correct way to make it? Celina Ribeiro finds out.
Listen
What will it take for Scott Morrison to grasp the moment and use his influence to create cultural change in the Liberal party and parliament? Today on Full Story, Gabrielle Jackson talks to Lenore Taylor and Katharine Murphy about the week in politics and what immediate steps the prime minister could take.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
The Matildas have locked their first games in over a year against Germany and Netherlands. As Mike Hytner notes: “Debuts don’t get much tougher than playing the two-time world and defending Olympic champions.”
The countdown to the Tokyo Olympics has begun, but two central Hockeyroos players remain excluded from the national squad with no sign of if or when they will reinstated.
Media roundup
Australia’s ambassador to Beijing has called China a “vindictive’’ and “unreliable’’ trading partner, the Australian reveals. According to the New Daily, Hong Kong is rejecting visa applications from British passport-holders. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s allies are calling for proof of his health from the Kremlin, the ABC reports. Australia is poised to send thousands of Covid vaccines to Papua New Guinea amid fears of the outbreak there spiralling, according to the Age. And “rumours are swirling” in The Mercury that Tasmanian premier Peter Gutwein might call an early election.
Coming up
Senate estimates continues in Canberra with Indigenous policies, the Murray Darling and NBN Co on the agenda.
And if you’ve read this far …
A US man has said 90,000 pennies covered in oil or grease (and an unpleasant note) were left at the end of his driveway after he pressed his former employer to pay the US$915 he was owed in wages. His nightly routine now consists of cleaning the pennies so he can cash them in – an hour and a half only gets him through several hundred coins.
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