THE WOMAN DROUGHT

A push to attract young, professional women to the Northern Territory will feature in the 2018/19 territory budget, set to be released today.

The NT News ($) reports that $2.5 million will be spent across four years to counteract population decline, with stamp duty relief, assistance with moving costs, and a marketing campaign all aimed at convincing late-career workers and women under 40 to move north. Other pre-budget announcements include money for flood prevention ($) and roads and essential services across the bush ($).

MAKES LIDDELL DIFFERENCE

An assessment of Australia’s power supply has found that supply risks to the National Energy Market from 2017 to 2024 — even accounting for the controversial, forecasted closure of the NSW Liddell coal-fired power station in 2022 — are “so small, they are generally not visible on the chart”.

RenewEconomy reports that modelling done for the AEMC’s Reliability Panel puts to bed long-running scare campaigns over Australia’s energy supply. Specifically, while the federal Coalition government is pushing for AGL to either extend the lifetime of Liddell or sell it over purported blackout fears, Ernst & Young figures put the risk of supply shortfalls in NSW even after the plant’s closure at 0.0000010%.

MOFO FOMO

At MONA’s Dark Mofo winter festival, we will see a reformed Jihadist, an Indigenous prisoner rights activists, a Black Lives Matter president, an elite Australian solider and Australian entrepreneur Dick Smith all descend on Tasmania for a three-day symposium of ideas, film and performance.

The Mercury ($) reports that that panellists across the three-day “Dark and Dangerous Thoughts” symposium in June will discuss everything from terrorism to “saving” Catholicism to the ethics around justified killing. Other highlights include the flagship “Ideas Worth Dying For” panel, with Mona owner David Walsh, Black Lives Matter president Hawk Newsome and former Tamil Tiger Niromi de Soyza among others; Canadian Inuk throat-singer and Indigenous activist Tanya Tagaq performing a live score to the 1922 silent film Nanook of the North; and Waleed Aly interviewing former Jihadist turned peace activist Muhammad Manwar Ali.

THEY REALLY SAID THAT?

In most cases of a new policy, leaving a clear minority feeling worse off because of the policy would be a cause for concern.

Flinders University researchers

A study of the $22 billion Nat­ional Disability Insurance Scheme ($) finds that about half of participants have either experienced no change or had support cut under the new support system.

CRIKEY QUICKIE: THE BEST OF YESTERDAY

Bloodletting in the AMP boardroom hides wider culpabilityBernard Keane and Glenn Dyer

“On 19 April, the AMP board declared, with the elan of Claude Rains, that it was shocked – shocked – that gouging was going on at the company. CEO Craig Meller, who was already in the exit lounge, was sent packing, director Mike Wilkins made acting replacement and General Counsel Brian Salter put on leave while a review was undertaken of that ‘independent’ Clayton Utz report into the matter that was anything but independent (Clutz have managed to avoid any fallout so far, but probably best to look elsewhere for your next “independent report”).”

Korean cacophony makes clear-thinking on Trump impossibleGuy Rundle

“There’s always something amusing about Real Clear Politics at big moments, like a Korea peace summit. The US news aggregator site publishes a daily list of key articles, alternating between right and (by US standards) left. Times like these, it sounds like the Monty Python argument sketch.”

Media Adviser: being 40-something in a modern newsroom makes me feel like a dinosaurRebekah Holt

“You remember that bit in the Wizard of Oz where the curtain is pulled back and you discover he isn’t a great and powerful man, just an elderly chap with microphone struggling to stay in charge? Well the news is going through that same curtain pull. Except behind the screen it’s a 23 year old presenter/reporter/producer/editor/influencer/etc who is also a dab hand at HTML.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Next election a referendum on tax, both sides declare ($)

Greens vow to torpedo government’s ‘punitive’ parent visa hike

From Neo-Nazi to militant: The foreign fighters in Ukraine who Australia’s laws won’t stop

Ross Lyon at centre of Fremantle payout over harassment claim

Business Council of Australia to ramp up role in politics

Threat to church after Anzac Day message echoing Abdel-Magied’s post

Advance Dermocare dog food manufacturer offers to replace euthanased dogs

Royal Adelaide Hospital nurses triage patients in carpark ($)

Trump should win peace prize, Moon says, as South Korean trust in North jumps

Kabul bombings: Photographer Shah Marai among 25 dead

 

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Melbourne

  • Treasurer Tim Pallas will unveil the Victorian government’s 2018/19 budget.

  • A Melbourne Magistrates’ Court committal hearing will announce whether Cardinal George Pell will face charges of sexual assault.

  • Day one of the Carbon Market Institute’s emissions reduction summit, Australia’s largest climate change and business event. Speakers include opposition foreign affairs spokesperson Penny Wong. 

  • Day one of the three-day Civsec security forum, an international congress and exposition focused on key themes civil security, policing, homeland security, border protection, resource and infrastructure protection, emergency management, disaster response and humanitarian assistance.

  • The 2015 Australian of the Year Rosie Batty will launch a new report on the impacts of family violence on brain injuries.

  • Final dress rehearsal for opera Don Quichotte. 

Darwin

  • Treasurer Nicole Susan Manison will unveil the Northern Territory government’s 2018/19 budget.

  • Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works will hold public hearings into two proposed Department of Defence projects: the $223 million Larrakeyah Barracks Redevelopment, and$272.6 million Facilities to Support Naval Operations in the North.

Canberra

  • French President Emmanuel Macron begins day one of his three-day visit to Australia, and is expected to discuss the Australia-France Enhanced Strategic Partnership.

  • Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack will join with ANCAP Chief Executive James Goodwin to make a doorstop announcement on future government support for the independent vehicle safety consumer organisation.

  • Ten veterans, aged between 91 and 98, will meet to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic.

  • Workers will protest for higher wages and more job security as part of continuing Change the Rules rallies across the country.

Brisbane

  • Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea Peter O’Neill and Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull will speak on day two of the PNG Australia Business Forum.

  • Farmers protest at Parliament House over the Labor government’s vegetation management laws.

Sydney

  • Protestors will meet at Parliament House to condemn the secret approval of Stage 3 of WestConnex in mid-2017.

  • American environmentalist Bill McKibben will hold a talk about responses to climate change.

  • Personal trainer and TV personality Michelle Bridges will kick-off the Black Dog Institute’s ‘Exercise Your Mood’ week, to advocate at least one hour of exercise a week as a support measure for mental illness, with a free public group workout at First Fleet Park in Circular Quay.

Adelaide

  • Indigenous Business Australia to bring together more than 180 women for the largest ever conference of Indigenous Australian businesswomen.

  • Community groups will gather at the mouth of the Murray to protest proposed laws that threaten the river’s future.

Perth

  • Former federal Labor opposition leader Kim Beazley will be sworn in as Western Australia’s 33rd governor.

  • The WA euthanasia inquiry public hearing continues.

Hobart

  • Tasmania’s parliament will sit for the first time under a re-elected Will Hodgman Liberal government.

  • Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea will be launched by Cancer Council Tasmania at Parliament House.

Alice Springs, Northern Territory

  • The Indigenous Affairs Committee will hold a public hearing into the growing presence of inauthentic First Nations’ art.

Ipswich, Queensland

  • Ipswich City Council will hold a special meeting to discuss the appointment of a new CEO and an update on waste and recycling issues. 

THE COMMENTARIAT

Shorten’s ‘axe the tampon tax’ doesn’t go far enough — Roqayah Chamseddine (Daily Life/Sydney Morning Herald): “In a move that may draw an ovary-action, (sorry) from the sanitary hygiene industry, Bill Shorten has proposed an end to GST on items such as tampons, arguing it is ‘unfair on women’. This campaign to end the discriminatory ‘tampon tax’ is a political undertaking from the Labor party, Shorten said.”

Ensuring there’s a doctor to see you in the bush starts with training — Michael McCormack (Sydney Morning Herald): “The people who travel for hours on country roads or who wait for weeks or even longer just to see a doctor. Those who do their best – who rally local business communities to help, who open their arms to a new recruit and make them welcome – just to make sure the doctor stays. Yet this is the reality in many country communities around Australia.”

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