Josh Frydenberg coal NEG

ALL THE COAL KIDS

Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg is reportedly drafting a plan to bring in extra “baseload” coal or gas power in an attempt to square the National Energy Guarantee with pro-coal Coalition factions. The Australian ($) reports that Coalition MPs have been briefed on the plan as Nationals leader and Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack looks to lobby PM Malcolm Turnbull on facilitating new coal power stations. 

In related news, NDEVR Environmental has found that Australian carbon emissions broke records over the past year, while the ACT continues to threaten blocking the NEG if the Coalition’s 2030 emissions target — set to largely be met by 2020 — are not improved.

INQUIRY INTO NSW DOC

The New South Wales Health Department has launched a major inquiry into a since-banned gynaecologist who, over a period of decades, reportedly mutilated and performed unnecessary surgery on dozens of women, including one who died from inappropriate care.

According to The Guardian, the health authority will set up an independent special counsel inquiry along with a dedicated telephone line at each NSW hospital where Dr Emil Shawky Gayed worked. The inquiry follows a string of Guardian revelations that women in and around the mid-north NSW town of Taree sustained infections, psychological trauma and related complications following Gayed’s treatment.

MO MONEY MONA

As Dark Mofo wraps up for another year, MONA founder David Walsh has responded to claims that its home suburb, Hobart’s Glenorchy, is missing out on new economic benefits from increased tourism. The Mercury ($) reports that Walsh maintained that there is a “MONA effect” across Hobart as a whole, if not especially Glenorchy, and that the museum is making local efforts through health and wellbeing projects, mini-festivals, and civic pride.

The discussion comes after a piece in The Conversation from University of Tasmania professor Dr Kate Booth outlining a lack of local benefits. Hobart’s Lord Mayor Ron Christie has also copped flack from local tourism and hospitality groups on both Dark Mofo and “mass tourism”.

 

[free_worm]

THEY REALLY SAID THAT?

They want to attack me for having a quid. They want to attack me and Lucy for working hard, investing, having a go, making money, paying tax, paying plenty of tax, giving back to the community, which we do — that’s apparently not the Labor way anymore.

Malcolm Turnbull

Amidst Labor’s attacks over tax cuts and elitism, the Prime Minister’s gamble on being “a taxpayer” and “very British” makes for as an odd defence.

CRIKEY QUICKIE: THE BEST OF YESTERDAY

Poll Bludger: it’s not all bad news for the LiberalsWilliam Bowe

“At a time when both sides of federal politics have byelections on the brain, the Turnbull government will be enjoying a modest morale boost after the Liberals’ clear victory in a Labor-held state seat in Western Australia on Saturday.”

Commercial TV networks can’t look after their own backyards, attack SBSGlenn Dyer

“For a TV and radio network a quarter of the size of free-to-air rivals Nine and Seven, SBS certainly gets under the skin of the bigger players. Remember how in 2017 Hugh Marks, Nine Entertainment’s CEO, was moaning about SBS? As was his Seven counterpart, Tim Worner, who took time out of dealing with Amber Harrison and rising cost and debt pressures to whine mightily about our public broadcasters.”

Department that enabled cruelty shocked to discover cruelty going onBernard Keane

“It says much about the Agriculture Department — the bureaucrats who have known in perfect detail about the extent of animal torture on board live sheep export vessels to the Middle East for many years — couldn’t even bring themselves to name the company whose export licence they suspended on Friday. Forced by public outrage and a public humiliation by their own minister to finally take regulatory action of the kind they have studiously avoided taking for so long, the bureaucrats wouldn’t even name the company.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Trump calls for depriving immigrants who illegally cross border of due process rights

‘I am sorry’: ambulance boss make unprecedented apology, signals new direction

Former NT Police Commissioner John McRoberts spends night behind bars ($)

Groundbreaking Solar River Project to slash the cost of renewable energy to 90,000 SA homes ($)

Exporter and Western Australia government at odds over fate of 60,000 sheep

Horror price of Dreamworld cost cutting ($)

‘Game-changer’: Melbourne’s proposed airport rail line could transform city’s west

Kristina Keneally misses out on promotion to Labor frontbench

Banking royal commission: Hayne revives the terrors of the financial crisis ($)

Senate would block Labor attempt to roll back company tax cuts ($)

Australia to spend nearly $7 billion buying unmanned military planes from America

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Brisbane

  • The banking royal commission will examine farming finance, with speakers to include an ANZ executive giving evidence about a landmark acquisition, and a Queensland cattle farmer.

Canberra

  • Vanuatu Prime Minister Charlot Salwai Tabimasmas will attend a wreath-laying ceremony at the Australian War Memorial.

  • Opposition Leader Bill Shorten will address day two of the CEDA “State of the Nation” conference, along with speeches from Urban Infrastructure and Cities Minister Paul Fletcher and Social Services Minister Dan Tehan.

  • The Auditor-General will table a report into the Design, Implementation and Monitoring of Health Budget Savings Measures.

  • Members of the Labor caucus, and Liberal-Nationals party room, will hold party room meetings for the final time before winter break.

  • Environmental groups including the Australian Conservation Foundation and GetUp will hold a “coal vs clean energy” stunt race on the lawns of Parliament House, to protest against the National Energy Guarantee framework. This is the last sitting week before the August 10 COAG meeting in Sydney. 

Sydney

  • India’s Minister of Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation Suresh Prabhu will deliver an address, “India’s Growth Story”, hosted by the Asia Society Australia and UNSW.

  • Hundreds of miners will launch a class action over allegedly underpaid work for some of Australia’s biggest mines. 

  • The director of Australia networks company BAI Communications, Nathan Cornish, will speak on “The Power of Wi-Fi” as part of The Studio’s breakfast series.

  • National Mental Health Commission Chair Lucy Brogden will launch the 2018 Australian Mental Health Prize, to seek nominations for Australians who have contributed to either the promotion of mental health or the prevention and treatment of mental illness.

  • The Secretary of the NSW Department of Education, Mark Scott, will launch a report developed on skills required for today’s children amidst new technologies and AI, “Preparing for the Best and Worst of Times”.

Hobart

  • Day two of the Legislative Council’s Estimates Committee, to hear from the Minister for Health, Police, Fire & Emergency Management, Science & Technology, Michael Ferguson, and Tasmanian Premier Will Hodgman.

Melbourne

  • The Environment and Planning Committee will hold a public hearing for its inquiry into the proposed long-term lease of the land titles and registry aspects of land use in Victoria.

  • University of Melbourne’s faculty of Fine Arts and Music will host the ADSA 2018 conference “Actors and Acting in the 21st Century”.

Adelaide

  • South Australia’s Minister for Energy and Mining Dan van Holst Pellekaan will officially open mining conference “Copper to the World”.

  • SA Premier Steven Marshall and V8 drivers Jamie Whincup, David Reynolds and Nick Percat will launch a new V8 Supercars event to be held in August.

Perth

  • The Australian Institute of Energy will host “Network Security — Managing the transition to renewables”, a panel discussion with representatives from AEMO and Western Power.

  • The Association for Services to Torture and Trauma Survivors will host public seminar “Support Life After Torture”.

  • Professor of Imperial & Religious History Hilary Carey will present a public lecture “Babylon, the Bible and the Australian Aborigines: missionary networks and theories of racial origin in the 19th century”.

Ipswich, Queensland

  • Ipswich acting mayor Wayne Wendt and city councillors will speak on the 2018/19 Council Budget.

Australia

  • Today is the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.

London, England

  • Australian-raised singer-songwriter and Bee Gees founder, Barry Gibb, will be made a knight at an investiture at Buckingham Palace.

THE COMMENTARIAT

CBA amputates toxic wealth management arm before poison spreads — Adele Ferguson (Sydney Morning Herald): “Five years after Commonwealth Bank whistleblower Jeff Morris burst onto the scene with explosive allegations of rampant misconduct and conflicts in its financial planning arm, the bank has put up the white flag on vertical integration. It is a big move that preempts any outcome of the royal commission into financial services.”

Every single kid currently in the Northern Territory’s youth detention centres is Indigenous — Sam Langford (Junkee): “Hidden in the midst of the Northern Territory’s Estimates Committee debate last week was a truly harrowing statistic: 100% of young people currently in youth detention in the Northern Territory are Indigenous. Every single kid locked up in the Northern Territory is Indigenous, according to the government’s own numbers. That should ring alarm bells.”

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