The UK's Channel 4 investigated Sewa International, to which the WA government is promoting donations (Image: Channel 4)

Charity case A tipster pointed out something we missed: in response to India’s horrifying experience of COVID-19, the West Australian government has been promoting donations to Sewa International since early last month. And look, obviously we’re not knocking the WA government for attempting to help a truly dire situation, and we make no specific allegations about the conduct of the WA branch. ButSewa is an interesting choice. Also the charity du jour for Google, Twitter and Microsoft, Sewa International has allegedly worked to spread Hindu nationalist ideology in India and internationally for decades. As Slate reports:

A 2002 investigation by the UK’s Channel 4 tracked money raised from British donors by Sewa International for earthquake relief and found that they went towards Hindu nationalist organisations and projects in India, without proper disclosure of how the funds were being used. These findings were bolstered in a 2004 report by the UK-based, South Asia–focused human rights group Awaaz, which detailed how internationally raised relief funds went to groups that directly incited communal violence in 2002 during the Gujarat riots, which saw months of attacks on Muslims by Hindu extremists.

An odd Joyce Yesterday was Barnaby Joyce’s second first question time as deputy prime minister, since Michael McCormack was ousted by his colleagues (though it seems a stiff breeze could have done it). Looking to capitalise on the optics of someone with unresolved sexual harassment claims over his head returning to the party’s top job, Labor’s Julie Collins asked: “In his capacity [as] minister for regional development, what does the deputy prime minister say to women in agriculture?” To which Joyce provided the auto-complete conservative bloke answer to that kind of question:

I thank the member for her question, might I say, as a father of four daughters … I have an incredible vested interest in making sure women in agriculture and every section of society have the best opportunity in the safest environment they could possibly live in.

Apart from the resort to short-sighted sexist cliché, it’s a strange way to illustrate his moral fortitude and commitment to women’s issues. After all, Joyce had four daughters back in 2018 when he was forced to resign. Hell, he had daughters back in 2006 when he opposed an effective HPV vaccine for women on the grounds it may give young women a “licence to be promiscuous”.

The Australian spruiks a carbon price Today’s Australian reports on a “strong push among ministers and backbenchers to promote nuclear energy as a greenhouse gas reduction measure and reduce Australia’s reliance on coal- and gas-fired power stations”. Certainly, according to many experts, there is a path to nuclear energy as a viable option in Australia, but we don’t think many Coalition figures are going to like it.

As we’ve long reported, there are several barriers to nuclear power in Australia, primarily that the whole thing is incredibly expensive because Australia doesn’t have any nuclear infrastructure. There is only one way, in the eyes of many credible nuclear spruikers, for nuclear energy to compete with existing energy sources: impose a carbon price.

Dr Ziggy Switkowski, who undertook a review on the viability of nuclear power for the Howard government in 2007 (before being appointed chair of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation) is a big fan of nuclear energy.

But his 2007 review found that nuclear became viable compared with coal and gas only if there was a carbon price. Economist and Crikey contributor John Quiggin has also recently argued in favour of nuclear energy in Australia — his figures, too, rely on a carbon price.

Jabber Hutt A sad day as the Hutt River property is put up for sale. Located nearly 600km north of Perth, the Hutt River Province lasted as a micronation for 50 years after a dispute over the state’s wheat quotas between the government and the late founder Leonard Casley. It became an international tourist attraction, and even briefly declared war on Australia in 1977.

Prince Leonard died in 2019 at the age of 93 and last August a little chapter in Australia’s sovereign citizen movement came to an end when the nation formally dissolved under the weight of COVID-19 and a huge tax bill.