HOT AND BOTHERED
Australia has warmed 1.47C since 1910 and the oceans around Sydney are rising at more than double the rate of Australia’s coastal waters, according to the 2022 State of the Climate report from the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO. Here’s what we learnt: in 2019, there were 33 days when Australia’s average maximum temperature was 39C or above — that’s more than the 58 years prior combined. Sudden downpours are much more common, as Guardian Australia reports, and there’s less snowfall — indeed heavy snow years are now rare. Our sea levels are rising at 2-3mm a year, although around Sydney and in the Gulf of Carpentaria (the water north of the NT and Queensland) it’s 7-8mm. Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek called the report a sobering read, and Science Minister Ed Husic said it showed “the urgent need for action on climate change”.
It comes as the government announced it was adding $500 million to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation — the money will help commercialise renewable energy, improve efficiency and fund new clean technology. Speaking of big climate bucks, Fortescue Metals Group says its executives won’t get big bonuses unless they meet the mining giant’s emissions reduction targets, The New Daily reports. Billionaire executive chairman Andrew Forrest says it’s all part of the ambitious plan to be net zero by 2030. It comes as Fortescue’s net profit after tax dwindled by 40% last financial year, bringing it to the still-mighty total of $9 billion. That’s actually how much Forrest says the company will put towards its decarbonisation project before the decade’s end — executives who were not driving down emissions had either a vested interest or were “simply lazy”.
BREAKING THE BANK
Our interest rates will probably climb to a 10-year high of 3.1% in December, the SMH reports. Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe says get used to it — he expects interest rates will swing up and down in the coming years as we grapple with climate change, our energy grid overhaul, more supply chain breakdowns, and an ageing population. Lowe said the best thing for us to do is get our budget in order, create policies that encourage our productivity, and make sure we’re flexible enough in our labour and product markets to absorb the shocks, The Australian ($) continues. His comments come ahead of the OECD’s global economic outlook, which is basically predicting a recession in the US and much of Europe in 2023. Growth in developed nations was 2.8% this year — it’ll be 0.8% next, according to forecasts. Cripes.
It comes as the Albanese government is trying to get through the biggest workplace reforms since the 1970s. Business groups are pushing back on the IR bill because they say it’ll make it easier for staff to strike, and puts a burden on small biz, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says it’ll boost workers’ wages and give us more rights. It all hinges on independent Senate powerbroker David Pocock — he and Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke are poring over a shopping list of issues. For instance, Pocock says only businesses with more than 15 staff should be able to do multi-employer bargaining (where a union tries to get a raise for multiple workplaces at once), the SMH reports. The government will probably have more luck with passing the national anti-corruption watchdog bill — debate about the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) went late into the night, The New Daily reports, with amendments including better protection for journalists welcomed by Parliament.
OPEN TO DEBATE
Victorian Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said the state’s Labor government faces more anti-corruption investigations than any government in the state’s history. Incidentally, as the ABC reports, Guy is being investigated by IBAC after the Victorian Electoral Commission said he wouldn’t cooperate with its investigation into a possible donations breach involving him and his former chief of staff, Mitch Catlin. Anyway, it was one of few noteworthy moments in what was a pretty unconfrontational debate between him and Premier Daniel Andrews last night, The Age reports, the only one of the whole campaign. The paper says it seemed to be a deliberately calm strategy from Guy, and boy, does he need it — indeed Crikey’s Guy Rundle writes that the Victorian Liberals have proved themselves “a destroyed organisation, midway through an internal party struggle, under investigation for numerous electoral breaches, studded with numerous unvetted candidates, honeycombed with weirdos, and preferencing neo-Nazis”. Ouch.
Anyway, at the debate Guy accused Andrews of not wanting to embolden IBAC with more power just like other state watchdogs have, to which Andrews retorted, erm, “Weren’t you just bragging about the fact you set it up?” and “Isn’t this your model?” Afterwards, 38% of the audience said they’d vote for Andrews’ Labor Party on Saturday, and 34% for Guy’s Coalition (the rest didn’t know), The Australian ($) reports. Meanwhile, Victoria Police say upper house MP Catherine Cumming didn’t break the law when she told a crowd of protesters that Andrews should be turned into “red mist”. Andrews and Guy agreed on one thing at least — condemning Cumming’s comments, as Guardian Australia reports. Andrews called her outburst the “Americanisation of our politics”, and Guy said Cumming should withdraw and apologise immediately.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
Protests come in all forms. In Amsterdam, for instance, there is a gorgeous five-storey home, right opposite the lush greenery and happy waterfowl of the iconic Vondelpark. Prime Dutch real estate, really. The home belongs to a Russian billionaire. Or does it? Since October, a group of squatters has been living there. It issued a formal statement that basically said it would be staying put. It’s a protest, it solemnly declared, against the home’s owner, Arkady Volozh, and his ties to the Kremlin. Volozh is a pretty big name in Europe — he’s a co-founder of Russia’s Google, which is called Yandex. But he resigned as CEO in June after he was heavily sanctioned by the European Union, which froze all his accounts. See, Yandex has been censoring articles that criticise the government, and prioritising ones that praise it, preventing Russians from getting the full information about the invasion of Ukraine.
The squatters decorated Volozh’s home with banners slamming the invasion — when a Guardian reporter visited the home, one of the women lit a cigarette, smiled and said: “The law is finally on our side.” That’s because a Dutch court ruled the squatters don’t have to vacate the property. Their “somewhat surprised” lawyer was like, I thought they were right, but I didn’t think the judges would. Not least because the Netherlands is renowned for its strict property rights that favour owners. Volozh’s lawyers tried to argue his family is moving into the home — his sanctions wouldn’t apply, they claimed, because it’s going to be a primary residence, not a form of rental income. But the squatters’ lawyer scoffed. Even if a billionaire oligarch decided to suddenly live in the middle of Amsterdam with his adult children, she told the court, instead of, say, on his own actual island, “his life would be severely restricted here. He can’t pay for food or other services. He isn’t even allowed to pay for a taxi.” The judges agreed — the squatters would be staying put.
Hoping your Wednesday has a little rebellion in it too.
SAY WHAT?
I’d say [the WA government’s] really smoking high-grade drugs and they should rethink that.
Andrew Forrest
The mining billionaire says the McGowan government needs to take more action on decarbonisation after setting reduction targets for its emissions but not having a plan for the broader economy. WA admitted it might need to import coal from NSW as coal-fired stations close.
CRIKEY RECAP
Victorian Liberals preference anti-Semitic, white supremacist candidate ahead of Labor
“[Tylere] Baker-Pearce frequently posted in Australian neo-Nazi Telegram channels, including sharing updates about his candidacy in the state election. In one channel, run by a member of Australia’s National Socialist Network, Baker-Pearce posted screenshots of the ballot draw for his seat — “Came 3rd in the ballot draw” — and an email from a business working with the Victorian Electoral Commission asking him to translate his election pitch into other languages.
“Other posts include sharing pictures of Hitler and pictures of extremist groups’ stickers, as well as using anti-Semitic, racist and homophobic slurs. Baker-Pearce has also used slurs and spread conspiracy theories on other platforms including Gab, Parler and Twitter. He’s previously tweeted a link to the Telegram channel of Australian neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell, referenced the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, and repeatedly called for the deportation of migrants.”
Victoria’s Liberal Party was invaded by the margins, and now it lies in ruins
“It’s a measure of how interesting the Victorian election is getting that your correspondent is watching it from Rome, where actual post-neo-quasi-fascism has taken hold. But Italy appears relatively sane as far as I can tell, and the place is full of jabbering foreigners, so who can really tell what’s going on?
“What appears to be happening in Victoria, though, is of genuine significance beyond our wedgy borders, because, well, one side of mainstream politics appears to have entirely collapsed — politically, organisationally and morally. The Liberal Party of Victoria is absolutely and in every way unfit to take power and hold office. This seems to me to be the obvious and key point to have emerged from this campaign, and one which precedes any other judgment. Yet it has been barely stated explicitly, despite the fact that it is clearly widely held.”
Elon Musk is Twitter’s final main character
“It has made Musk into Twitter’s permanent main character, which, in my opinion, has always been his motivation for buying it. Much like a certain former US president, the world’s richest man routinely announces decisions or thrashes out ideas about the platform on the platform. Other people use Twitter to dunk on him for his many follies. Journalists are using Twitter to livetweet the platform falling apart. It’s all very meta.
Like Trump before him, Musk knows that being at the centre of Twitter is a shortcut to being at the centre of culture. Despite only having a few hundred million users — fewer than Pinterest! — the platform’s concentration of public figures and media means it drives the world’s attention even if the majority of the world isn’t on there. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has used the platform to help cultivate the mythos of him as a genius visionary memelord. Now, Musk’s Twitter purchase means his place on Twitter is untouchable …”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Bankman-Fried’s FTX, parents bought Bahamas property worth $121 million (Reuters)
[Hungarian PM] Viktor Orbán criticised for wearing scarf with ‘Greater Hungary’ map (EuroNews)
One of the most isolated places on earth [in NZ) finally gets high-speed internet (Stuff)
Researchers in Galicia open 15th-century tomb to test Columbus link theory (The Guardian)
Saudi Arabia stuns Argentina in one of the biggest World Cup upsets ever (The New York Times)
THE COMMENTARIAT
As Twitter burns we must not forget it is people that create social movements, not apps — Samantha Floreani (Guardian Australia): “Take for example, Black Twitter, which became a powerful online network of people circumventing mainstream channels to have their voices heard, shaping cultural moments and powering social justice and protest movements on racial justice, gender, and sexual equality. It’s possible to see the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement through the use of the hashtag since 2013. Recognising that Twitter was spiralling under Musk, Black Twitter held a funeral for the dying platform. The #MeToo movement took off on Twitter in 2017, with the hashtag being used more than 19 million times over the course of the year. Twitter was also the place where the original movement founder, Tarana Burke, was able to reclaim credit for her work in the face of it being commandeered by white women.
“Closer to home, activists including Lyndsey Jackson and Asher Wolf used #NotMyDebt and #Robodebt to collect and share experiences related to the Australian government’s harmful automated debt program. This vital work developed supportive communities for those suffering harm caused by robodebt, giving them a voice at a time when the government was all too happy to ignore them. Ultimately, it paved the way for robodebt to eventually be halted and for the current royal commission. Social media doesn’t create social movements, people do. But more than any other platform, Twitter has played an essential role in amplifying movements and enabling many to build thriving online communities. This is in no small part thanks to many ex-Twitter staff. They didn’t always get it right, but they fought to uphold important rights like the ability to be anonymous online, and grappled with the challenges of content moderation at scale.”
What makes Trump different from DeSantis and other republicans — Rachel Bovard (The New York Times): “Trump was a beneficiary of that system, which gave him tremendous credibility in calling it out. He is one of the only politicians who many voters — which in 2016 included a majority of independents — feel has been honest with them. The professional class sees Washington fixtures like Mitch McConnell as unexciting but necessary institutionalists — people who know how to work the system to ‘get things done’. But that’s not how many voters and anti-establishment conservatives see the self-appointed Republican wise men. What did Bob Dole, John Boehner, McConnell, the Bushes or the Cheneys ever do to stop illegal immigration?
“Or to protect vulnerable families and communities from globalisation? Or to solve the opioid crisis, check corporate consolidation over information and speech, stem the tide of left-wing cultural aggression or stand up for the rights of parents not to have their children indoctrinated in schools? … The irony of it taking a real estate mogul, reality television star to be the politician most able to connect with grass-roots voters cannot be overstated. As president, Trump helped deliver rising wages, peace and economic growth, and the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v Wade. To political insiders, Trump’s imperviousness to criticism from the likes of National Review or even Tea Party-era conservative standard-bearers seemed like a kind of superpower. To his supporters, though, all those attacks revealed the elitist contempt for conservative voters that those voters had suspected was there all along.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Online
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The Australia Institute’s Richard Denniss and Polly Hemming will chat about the myths around offsetting and environmental markets, and what we should do instead, in a webinar.
Yuggera Country (also known as Brisbane)
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Author Inga Simpson will chat about her new book, Willowman, at Avid Reader bookshop.
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
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Filmmaker Rachel Perkins and historian Henry Reynolds will speak about the battles fought on Australian soil preceding the Australian nation at the National Press Club.
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Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury Andrew Leigh will give the WD Borrie Lecture about health inequalities in the pandemic, at the Australian Population Association Conference at the ANU.
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
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Writer Brook Turner will chat about his new book, Independents’ Day, at Glee Books.
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Director Petra Kalive, actor Candy Bowers, performer Rufaro Zimbudzi, and critic and writer Alison Croggon will explore whether Emilia Bassano wrote some Shakespeare, in an event held by the Wheeler Centre.
