Tuesday, July 21, 2020
Morrison unveils reduced JobKeeper
Prime Minister Scott Morrison is expected to today announce the extension of JobKeeper to March 28 at a reduced fortnightly rate, with further cuts for part time workers, casuals, and JobSeeker claimants. The Australian reports the new rate will be $1200. Morrison will make the announcement with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, following the completion of a Treasury review of the JobKeeper scheme, which found almost $30 billion had been paid to workers. JobKeeper was due to expire in September. The review claimed the flat $1500 wage subsidy dampened incentives to work, although the federal government’s previous claims about this were based on limited anecdotal evidence. Eligibility criteria will be tightened for both JobKeeper and JobSeeker. Labor treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers called on the government to release the full Treasury advice to ensure an informed debate on the new payment rates. A collection of 60 charity groups, unions and social services have called for the JobSeeker boost to be made permanent.
An Australian Special Air Service Regiment raid in 2013 that sought to assassinate a Taliban member allegedly killed another man with the same name, reports ABC Investigations. The Imam of the village of Nawjoy, Mawlawi Sher Mohammad, had that morning been teaching the village’s children, before later in the day being taken to a stable and shot by SAS soldiers, locals claim. The Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force is conducting an inquiry into allegations of war crimes committed by Australian special forces. An Australian Defence Force spokesperson said: “It is not appropriate for Defence to comment on matters that may or may not be the subject of the Afghanistan Inquiry.”
Tim Wilson provided assistance to the Institute of Public Affairs and solicited endorsement for his 2016 Liberal preselection battle while in the office of human rights commissioner, according to emails released through freedom of information laws to an anonymous applicant. Guardian Australia reports the now Liberal MP used his official human rights commission email account to arrange an international speaker for an IPA event, organise his own attendance at IPA donor functions, and ask for a political endorsement from a person who approached him in his capacity as human rights commissioner. Wilson told The Guardian the emails were “utterly irrelevant”.
The International Cricket Council has announced that the men’s Twenty20 World Cup, which was scheduled to begin in Australia in October, has been postponed because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The tournament will instead begin in October 2021. The postponement has led to revision of the international cricket calendar to accommodate bilateral series postponed everywhere since March except in England.
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This week
What led to Victoria’s extraordinary shutdown
The Andrews government cannot identify any legislation it needed to override, but experts say that is the point.When Daniel Andrews signed a declaration for a state of disaster in Victoria at 1.43pm on Sunday, it was a part of a final salvo in a battle to control a resurgent and invisible enemy.
Super funds transformed by Liberal ideology
The Morrison government’s superannuation changes risk turning the scheme into ‘privately funded unemployment insurance’.
Opening the Ghislaine Maxwell files
New files ordered released in the Ghislaine Maxwell case reveal the depth of her involvement in child sex-trafficking offences that implicate Prince Andrew, the former leader of the US senate and others.
Murray–Darling could need Reserve Bank-style regulator
As the ACCC hands down its interim report on the Murray–Darling water markets, one architect of the current system says a Reserve Bank-like body is needed to manage the rights.
Wiradyuri conceptual artist Amala Groom
For Amala Groom, making art is a collaboration between herself and her Wiradyuri ancestors. Drawing on her history and culture, as well as her legal training, she seeks to subvert the colonial project. “Colonialism affects all of us … To be change agents we have to be inclusive, and Aboriginal culture is inclusive.”
Policing as part of the national psyche
There are two striking aspects of Australia’s response to coronavirus: the first is that it’s being increasingly led as a police issue, and the second is that this is happening while the rest of the world works to reform and curtail police powers. As other democracies talk about abolition, we’re sending armed officers into housing blocks and calling it public health.
Morrison backtracks on WA border closure
Scott Morrison keeps misreading the mood of a nation gripped by fear. Nowhere is this more obvious than his now-abandoned legal case against state border closures – or, to be more precise, against the lockouts in the Labor-governed states of Western Australia and Queensland. The Liberal-governed states of Tasmania and South Australia escaped his censure.
It was quite something to tune in to the first episode of Bunter and Georgina Downer’s geopolitical podcast, where they discussed the recent AUSMIN meeting, the upcoming United States presidential election and the future of war. Father and daughter get along famously as they take us on a wide sweep through the trickiest global thickets, with memos about Condoleezza Rice’s determination to play golf, China’s dominance in the rare earth market, Joe Biden’s “flaky” interviews, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, fishing quotas in British waters and Russia’s anti-satellite rocket program.
Andrew Bolt has made a career finding vulnerable people and devising new ways of punishing them. When you consider this, his views on the elderly are not surprising, just inhumane. Bolt doesn’t want the old to die, but he believes we overstate the tragedy of their deaths. “Note: 40 per cent of aged-care home residents die within nine months. The average stay is just under three years,” he writes. “So Victoria’s bans are doing huge damage to – essentially – save aged-care residents from dying a few months earlier.” Quixotically, the column is titled “How to save Victoria from the coronavirus”.
Could Adani drop its Qld mine and head to NSW?
As fossil fuel prices collapse, there is growing speculation that Adani might throw in its Carmichael operation to buy BHP’s massive Mount Arthur thermal coalmine instead.
Pandemic and inequality keys to November poll
Presidential candidates adjust convention plans due to Covid-19. US death toll passes 158,000. Democrat Joe Biden has lead in latest polls.
As a dark comedy about self-absorbed millennial killers, Search Party focuses heavily on the lies that bind. In doing so, it also tells a lot of insightful truths.
Bill watches Joyce gather the kids for a photo. He’s seated on the front lawn, next to the overgrown bougainvillea, an oxygen tank by his side, tubes to his nose. He watches Joyce arrange the children – their adult daughters who both turned up in striped jumpers and jeans. The two of them are laughing about the coincidence. Ratty sneakers too, which can apparently be edited out on the computer. Would a dress have killed them? But he should be kind. Mel and Jennifer kissed him fondly, and Jennifer even slipped him a half-pouch of Drum. Luke, always the youngest child, is doing that funny thing where he picks up one of the small children and plays them like a guitar. It may be their last photo, although nobody is saying that.
The beverage director for Andrew McConnell’s restaurants recommends her current favourite drops.
In August 1981, MTV began its very first broadcast with which song?
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