The North Sydney Olympic Pool.

WELL THE RORTS START COMING AND THEY DON’T STOP COMING

North Sydney Council Mayor Jilly Gibson has defended a $10 million “regional” grant for the North Sydney Olympic Pool, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

This follows the ABC’s report into a club within Scott Morrison’s electorate that received $50,000 for a building that had already been built — which the prime minister’s office was aware of, according to 136 freshly-tabled emails — as well as The Guardian’s report of a Question Time stoush that saw Morrison brag about a Liberal candidate (and ultimate winner of a former Labor seat) knowing “what’s best for her community”.

DRUMROLL PLEASE

In the days following the failed Natspill, Michael McCormack lobbied Scott Morrison and Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck over a $120,000 grant for an aged care home in party ally Damian Drum’s Victorian electorate, The Australian ($) reports.

Drum has denied the two events were linked, although Nationals sources have questioned the “due process” that saw the grant finalised within four days.

UNANSWERED CALLS

Labor’s new regional jobs taskforce will not focus on developing a “just transition” plan for the 8,000 workers in coal-fired power plants, The Age reports, despite both the ACTU and CFMEU calling for a Germany-esque plan for salaried retirements, job placements and retraining options.

TALKING POINT: As the paper reported last year, Germany has shut its black coal industry, and begun to transition its 20,000 brown coal workers, without sacking a single person.

[free_worm]

POLLY FARMER DIAGNOSED WITH CTE

AFL great Graham “Polly” Farmer is the first player to be diagnosed with the degenerative brain disease — chronic traumatic encephalopathy — caused by repeated head and/or subconcussive knocks, The Herald Sun ($) reports.

According to research published in online journal Acta Neuropathologica Communications, the Indigenous trailblazer, who died last year aged 84 following a long battle with Alzheimer’s, had brain tissue analysed at Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred Hospital confirming Stage III CTE.

ANTI-PROTEST WIN

Hobart Magistrates Court has lifted WorkSafe Tasmania’s ban on Bob Brown Foundation activists protesting in Tasmanian forests — and the threat of a $500,000-plus fine — which the foundation labelled “unconstitutional”, The Guardian reports.

TALKING POINT: The Tasmanian government is currently trying to pass revised anti-protest laws modelled on ones that, as ABC reported last month, were found to have been unconstitutional.

THEY REALLY SAID THAT?

If I was Bloomberg, after the performance the other day, I’d be putting out an ad saying ‘here’s a picture of Sanders on his honeymoon in the Soviet Union half-naked’.

Kim Beazley

Showing the kind of keen political foresight that lost him the 2001 election, the former Labor leader offers a helping hand to the New York oligarch responsible for expanding the racist, unconstitutional “stop and frisk” police policy.

CRIKEY RECAP

20 years on, why Crikey matters even more today than it did back then

Peter Fray

Feb 24, 2020

7

“It started out as jeffed.com, a website dedicated to dislodging then-Victorian premier Jeff Kennett. When the all conquering Kennett suffered a shock defeat at the 1999 Victorian election, Crikey was subsequently born with the overblown moniker ‘bringing down governments since September 1999’.”

Bettina Arndt points the finger at women in domestic violence cases. The data says otherwise.

Amber Schultz

Feb 26, 2020

22

“The Senate has passed a motion to strip men’s rights activist Bettina Arndt of her Medal of the Order of Australia after the commentator suggested the murderer of Brisbane woman Hannah Clarke could have been ‘driven too far’ when setting Clarke and her three children on fire.”

Morrison dodges responsibility as coronavirus hits a weak economy

Bernard Keane and Glenn Dyer

Feb 26, 2020

18

“Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg want you to know that if the economy tips into recession and the budget surplus they not merely promised but claimed had already been delivered fails to materialise, it’s the fault of coronavirus.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Nationals MP Pat Conaghan joins other Coalition figures breaking ranks to lobby for Newstart raise

Brett Sheehan: Ex Wallaby rugby player choked wife at home in Warriewood ($)

Coronavirus, fires: 1.5 million visitors to Australia lost ($)

Hundreds of new COVID-19 cases in Asia as disease spreads across the globe

While Queensland towns brace for flooding, nearby farmers hope for rain

Geelong council votes to spend $2 million to rip up part of the city’s $8 million ‘green spine’

Rio Tinto announces $1bn spend to reach net zero emissions by 2050

Brisbane council election 2020: Greens want waste vouchers for tenants ($)

Morrison government mulls ARENA’s future as funding starts to run out

Maria Sharapova, five-time grand slam winner, retires from tennis

THE COMMENTARIAT

What love kills? None at all — Warwick McFadyen (The Sydney Morning Herald): “What love kills? None at all. Love is the breath shared between one and another. Love is the rise and fall of the heart, it is the trust that can be felt in the touch of the eyes between one and another, it is the trust of closing your eyes and knowing you are safe, that you are embraced, that with this love I am protected as best as one human can give to another in the world.”

Improving incomes at core of Albo’s election hopes ($) — Paul Williams (The Courier-Mail): “It’s not difficult to see why Labor leader Anthony Albanese delivered a speech last week on respecting and valuing older Australians. Nor is it puzzling why Albo chose Queensland in which to deliver it.”

An activist future for Mardi Gras — Bridget Harilaou and Connor Parissis (Overland): “Qantas in particular has come under fire as a Mardi Gras sponsor due to their collaboration with the Morrison government in deporting asylum seekers back to danger. Hoping to follow in London activists’ footsteps, Pride in Protest have continued to raise awareness, handing out ‘Don’t Deport to Danger’ leaflets directly outside Qantas’ Fair Day stall.”

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Brisbane

  • ACNC commissioner Dr Gary Johns will present a briefing on the charity and not-for-profit sectors at an Xponential & Morgan Stanley event.

  • Solicitor-general for Queensland Sandy Thompson, parliament clerk Neil Laurie and parliamentary counsel Tony Keyes will discuss the UK Supreme Court’s decision to review the prime minister’s advice to the Queen and prorogue parliament at a Parliament House event.

Sydney

  • A portrait of Julian Assange, painted by George Gittoes at the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2018, will be unveiled at the Casula Powerhouse. Gittoes and his partner journalist Wendy Bacon will attend.

  • New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern will arrive ahead of a meeting with Scott Morrison tomorrow.

Byron Bay, NSW

  • Author David Roland will launch his new book The Power of Suffering at The Book Room At Byron.

Canberra

  • Olympic legend Ian Thorpe will speak outside Parliament House about his personal concerns about the proposed religious discrimination bill.

  • Opposition Education Spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek will speak at the second day of the Universities Australia conference.

  • STEM journalist and Wiradjuri woman Rae Johnston will speak at Indigitek’s inaugural Canberra event.

Melbourne

  • ABC Radio’s Hilary Harper will launch Melbourne writer Erin Lewis-Fitzgerald’s new book Modern Mending at Neighbourhood Books.

  • Uni Students For Climate Justice will protest as part of an ongoing campaign against the fossil-fuel industry.

  • The National Gallery of Victoria will launch its latest exhibit, “Japanese Modernism”.

  • Day one of RMIT’s two-day library symposium, “Libraries and the Community: Representing and Reflecting Cultural Diversity in Library Research, Policy and Practice”.

Hobart

  • Opening night of the Salamanca Arts Centre’s four day “Jazzamanca” festival.