CLIMATE CONTROL
A new report by Deloitte Access Economics has found that Australia would lose more than $3 trillion and 880,000 jobs over the next 50 years if global warming remains on track to exceed 3 degrees Celsius, while a new COVID-19 recovery based on a net zero 2050 target could grow the economy by $680 billion.
As the ABC and — shock horror — The Australian ($) report, the modelling finds that Queensland, the Northern Territory, and Western Australia would feel the worst economic impacts under the “do nothing” scenario, with trade, tourism and mining some of the most-exposed industries. Australia as a whole would also experience “economic losses on par with COVID, getting worse every single year due to unchecked climate change” by 2055.
The news comes after last Friday’s National Bushfire Royal Commission’s final report emphasised that Australian governments must prepare for worsening, climate change-driven natural disasters by, as The Sydney Morning Herald reports, creating stronger peak agencies, better warning systems, and faster military deployments.
PS: For context, the November 2019 UN emissions report found the world is on track for a 3.2 degree increase even if countries meet their 2030 Paris commitments — which, as the Academy of Technology and Engineering found in June, Australia is on track to miss (at least without cheating with 2020 “carryover credits”).
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LABOR’S QUEENSLANDSLIDE VICTORY
Following Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s third electoral win on Saturday and — according to ABC’s latest figures — a state-wide swing to Labor of 4.8%, The Courier-Mail ($) reports that LNP MP and almost-challenger in June David Crisafulli has told a told a private roomful of supporters “I burn to win” and that “from the ruins of tonight must come change”.
With Deb Frecklington pledging to stay on as leader just months after seeing off an attempt to replace her with Crisafulli, The Guardian reports that LNP members have begun agitating for a post-election state council meeting to resolve conflicts between the party’s membership, its office bearers and its state leader.
Elsewhere, the Brisbane Times reports that One Nation and Clive Palmer are licking their wounds, while The Guardian notes that the Greens have taken the only seat lost by Labor — from former deputy premier Jackie Trad — and saw a large swing in the inner-city seat of Cooper.
ONLY A SMALL JUMP
According to the ABC, NSW health authorities will include a COVID-19 case linked to south-west Sydney’s Hoxton Park cluster in today’s case count, after the new case — a child who visited the Flip Out Trampoline Park in Prestons — was identified at 8pm on Saturday.
The news comes after Australia yesterday recorded our first day of no new cases due to community transmission since June. In light of this, according to The West Australian ($), WA will not require travelling Victorians — including Melbournians — to get permission before entering the state from November 14.
Elsewhere, The Age reports that Melbourne retailers enjoyed a stellar first weekend of trading in 15 weeks, but banks and economists are nonetheless bracing for a flurry of small business insolvencies ahead of the withdrawal of JobKeeper.
PS: On the international front, CNN reports that Boris Johnson has announced a second national lockdown following weeks of expert warnings, and has since been accused of “giving in to scientific advisers” by former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith.
FAUCI SLAMS THE WHITE HOUSE
Three days before the US election, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease Dr Anthony Fauci has slammed the White House in an interview with The Washington Post for allowing the national COVID-19 strategy to be shaped in part by a neuroradiologist with no training in the field of infectious disease.
Fauci is generally trusted throughout America and has generally bitten his tongue over Donald Trump’s handling of the pandemic, but, following the interview, CNN reports that White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere has accused the expert of “breaking with all norms … to choose three days before an election to play politics”.
Speaking of, The Guardian’s poll tracker puts Joe Biden ahead of Trump in at least six of eight swing states, while The New Daily reports that America has recorded 90 million early ballots despite a series of attempts by Trump’s campaign to suppress absentee voting. For example, The New York Times’ reports that Minnesota Republicans won an appeal to a Republican-controlled court on Thursday to block any mail-in ballots that arrive after 8pm on election day, a reversal of the state’s seven-day grace period.
PS: In depressing but not at all surprising news, Politico reports that a working paper by Stanford University economists has found that Trump rallies between June and September may have caused some 30,000 COVID-19 infections and more than 700 deaths.
THEY REALLY SAID THAT?
Until this election, [Queensland] had a system where people could just vote ‘one’ or for as many candidates in a preferential order as they wanted. It was yet another Labor fiddling of the books that changed it to compulsory preferential, because they thought they would be the beneficiaries of Green preferences by doing so.
It reflects a great gerrymander that’s going on here. They changed donation laws so only people of their point of view can donate to elections. They changed the signage laws so Labor and the unions can have up to 100 signs for their candidate, [but] the Liberal Nationals candidate can have six.
LNP Senator Amanda Stoker
In a truly wild weekend for post election whinges — including that an “LNP/Greens coalition” cost Jackie Trad’s seat (Anthony Albanese) and fishermen will “be raped” (One Nation’s James Ashby) — calling compulsory preferential voting, donation caps, and (non-discriminatory $) sign laws gerrymandering has got to be up there.
CRIKEY RECAP
Littleproud threatens financial stability on behalf of coal donors
“For an outfit mired in sleaze and corruption like the Morrison government, the scandals are usually about the wasting of taxpayer money or a minister trying to look after their own and their family’s commercial interests.
“But the corruption at the heart of this government now threatens something much worse: the stability of the financial system.”
Holgate v ScoMo: mate against mate as CEO angles for (large) cheque in the mail
“When a highly paid executive parts ways unhappily with the government it’s always the taxpayer that foots the bill.
“And that’s how things are shaping in the case of Christine Holgate, the Australia Post CEO who’s been returned to sender by Prime Minister Scott Morrison over watchgate.”
The ABC needs its leaders to defend it, not white-ant it
“The Australian media has undergone unprecedented structural and ideological change over the past quarter-century. As it fractured and balkanised, so too did our political climate.
“In an unvirtuous cycle, the more partisan, shrill and dishonest our media becomes, the more degraded and cretinous our political culture becomes.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Multimillion-dollar icare contracts were awarded in ‘sham tender’
NSW police strip-searched 96 children in past year, some as young as 11
South Australia’s coronavirus hotel quarantine system ‘close to capacity’, says state coordinator
WA Liberals promise to end Synergy’s electricity monopoly, bring down power prices
‘It’s irresponsible’: Ex-Liberal leader savages government over lending reforms
Pink recession turning blue: Trend suggests more men losing jobs
Two dead, five injured and suspect arrested after fatal Halloween stabbing in Quebec
Walmart returning guns to sales floor reversing earlier decision related to election unrest
THE COMMENTARIAT
Qld election 2020: Annastacia Palaszczuk must pick own Cabinet ($) — Editorial (The Courier-Mail): “Annastacia Palaszczuk’s extraordinary election victory on Saturday night is intrinsically linked to the leadership she demonstrated during the COVID-19 crisis, rather than the plan she has to tackle the problems it has created. And apart from ‘pulling up my sleeves’, Ms Palaszczuk made no reference in her acceptance speech as to what her re-elected government’s priorities would be in attempting to resuscitate the Queensland economy and drag the state off the bottom of the unemployment pile.”
You don’t need hindsight to see Boris Johnson has made the same mistake twice — Bevan Shields (The Sydney Morning Herald): “Sir Ian Diamond, the United Kingdom’s mild-mannered chief statistician, cracked a joke six weeks ago which pretty much summed up Britain in 2020. ‘This is becoming a nation of 58 million epidemiologists,’ he deadpanned. ‘And the great majority of them — unlike myself — have the benefit of hindsight.’ Boris Johnson has the same problem: everyone’s suddenly an expert. And unlike the first coronavirus wave, where unity was strong and compliance with the rules high, the second wave is accompanied by deep division over the balancing act between health and the economy.”
After the virus: A green recovery — Kevin Rudd (The Saturday Paper): “COVID-19 is the biggest economic and social crisis we have faced since the Great Depression and World War II. Australia’s failure then to understand and grapple with the direction of the international economy meant our recovery was much slower and much more painful than it was for almost all our major trading partners. These were lessons my government imbibed deeply during our response to the global financial crisis a decade ago, spurring demand and preparing our nation for the future.”
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WHAT’S ON TODAY
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Senate inquiries will examine the JobMaker hiring credit laws, sports rorts, and the Juukan Gorge destruction.
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