STRIKES AND SUMMITS
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers: please note this article mentions deceased persons.
Prison officers will strike for the next 24 hours as NSW’s Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) — the state’s top prosecutor — moved to charge an unnamed prison officer with murder after the alleged shooting death of Wiradjuri man Dwayne Johnstone in 2019. Johnstone was shackled at the time, the SMH reports. He was running from two officers at Lismore Base Hospital after he had suffered an epileptic seizure when a third shot hit his back, impacting his aorta, liver and diaphragm. His death was the subject of an inquest before the state coroner, who took just three days to refer the matter to the DPP — the prison officer was charged with manslaughter, as SBS reports, but now the DPP wants to upgrade it to murder amid new evidence. But the state’s prison officers are demanding better clarity about firearm rules; the union says members escort “terrorists and murderers in the community all the time”. Johnstone was remembered as “a funny, bubbly rascal who was a family man at heart” by loved ones.
Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says he has spoken privately to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and is open to supporting an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, Sky News reports. But he needs more detail. Dutton told ABC he was listening “respectfully” to what the government says about the Voice, and said Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney was working hard to determine what it would look like in practical terms. “Reconciliation is incredibly important,” Dutton said. By the way, AFP Fact Check has debunked a post circulating lately that falsely claims non-Indigenous people would have no private property rights under the Voice. It comes as more than 50 leading First Nations women are coming together in Canberra for Oxfam Australia’s Straight Talk National Summit, the National Indigenous Times reports. They’ll sit down with parliamentarians, learning about the political system and how to realise “their right to self-determination”, executive lead Ngarra Murray said. Burney will host the summit.
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MINE FOR THE ASKING
ANU chancellor and former foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop works as a strategic adviser to a mining company, while the ANU has an investment policy that bars companies making more than a fifth of their revenue from coal, Crikey reports. An FOI to the uni that sought the notice that Bishop worked for MinRes came up with nothing, but the uni says she “complied with all requirements”. Last month, Bishop popped up in an induction video for MinRes, along with AFL player Jeremy McGovern and, strangely, Grey’s Anatomy actor Kate Walsh. When asked if there was a bit of a conflict of interest considering the ANU’s recent Below Zero initiative committed to reducing carbon emissions to below zero by 2030, the uni didn’t directly answer.
Speaking of mining, Resources Minister Madeleine King has told a Queensland roundtable to “wake up” over sexual harassment and assault in the mining industry, The West Australian ($) reports. She says the findings of the Enough is Enough report are a “serious and disturbing” insight into the dismal treatment of women in the sector who make up only one in five workers. Just this week, Kalgoorlie Miner deputy editor Amber Lilley alleged she was groped and sexually propositioned by a man working in mining at an event during Diggers & Dealers, a mining forum. Her newspaper (which is owned by The West) lodged a complaint with the man’s company and WA Police, ABC reports.
ALLEGED EXTORTION OF PUBLICAN
A Melbourne neo-Nazi has allegedly extorted a Melbourne pub after a staff member spat in his drink, according to The Age. The paper said the staff member recognised a far-right tattoo of a “black sun” on the shoulder of Jimeone Roberts as he drank with Neil Erikson and Stefanos “Stefan” Eracleous, and a heated debate ensued, the Herald Sun ($) says. Roberts had been convicted of being a public nuisance the day before for posting more than 50 swastikas in a Melbourne suburb after Victoria criminalised representation of the symbol (the law comes into effect at the end of the year, as the BBC reports). The paper says Eracleous allegedly wrote to the publican to demand $651 and an apology on Facebook, continuing that if it didn’t remain online he’d pursue the matter in court. The Age grimly continues that the number 51 holds significance as it is the number of victims in the Christchurch massacre. Victoria Police are investigating.
It comes as NSW has banned the display of Nazi symbols and memorabilia, The New Daily reports. It means anyone who waves a Nazi flag or displays swastikas can go to jail for up to a year, and receive an $11,000 fine. It passed the upper house yesterday with no objections, the second state jurisdiction to do so after Victoria. “This new offence sends a clear message that the display of Nazi symbols, and the hatred and bigotry they represent, will not, and should not, be tolerated,” NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman said. The only exceptions are academic, historical or educational settings — for instance, if Hindus, Buddhists and Jains wish to use it for its original meaning. Incredibly, ASIO said 40% of its counter-terrorism work related to neo-Nazi ideology.
WHOOPS!
Folks, yesterday your Worm newsletter read that Mark Butler is energy minister, when in fact it is Chris Bowen. The web version has been corrected, but newsletters live forever. Apologies. Both are henceforth free to refer to me as the Slug editor as penance.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
It’s September 2021 and Melbourne woman Anna Spargo-Ryan has decided to take the plunge — literally. She said to herself: every Tuesday night, I will go to the pool and swim laps. It might sound simple, but it’s no easy task to start doing something new — it takes guts to break our patterns and put ourselves out there. Spargo-Ryan would arrive at the pool at 7pm when she noticed a guy who ran a swimming squad. He was hard to miss — “inhumanly” tanned, wearing a Hawaiian shirt, and fist bumping every swimmer who arrived to join his squad with warmth and buoyancy. He was no novice — she’d even heard he’d conquered the notorious English Channel several times. The coach would cheer the squad on and bark orders as they swam their methodical laps. Sneaking glances, she says: “I longed to be included.” Then she noticed the lollies. A hefty four-litre tub of the good stuff — “bananas, teeth, raspberries, musk sticks, jelly babies,” she says. The motherload.
Spargo-Ryan was swimming a kilometre by this stage, and feeling pretty chuffed — “My own English Channel.” One day as she was leaving the pool, the coach looked directly at her, smiled and nodded. She was quietly thrilled. A “tiny inclusion”, she says. “Not a fist bump or a lolly, but something.” She kept at her laps, even when she didn’t really feel like it, and noticed that she was swimming longer, and faster, and stronger — keeping pace with the squad in the next lane. After one evening swim, she shared a convivial conversation with a squad swimmer in the change rooms. As the squad filed out to dutifully collect their “raspberries and their bananas and black cats” the impossible happened. The coach extended the lolly tub to Spargo-Ryan. “Oh,” she responded, “I’m not in the squad.” “I insist,” he responded with a smile. A little red jelly baby lay in her hands, six months after she’d begun her laps. Keep your English Channel bragging rights. A prize never tasted so sweet.
Hoping you celebrate the little wins too — and have a restful weekend.
SAY WHAT?
With the cameras there, I mean you can’t eat it from the side because the sauce drips off like Bill Shorten, so it leaves one angle and it’s not a great one.
Peter Dutton
During an interview with 2Day FM, the opposition leader broke his silence on the unflattering photographs of him eating a dagwood dog at the Brisbane Ekka. Truly there is only one way to eat the show staple — from the saucy top. Queue the memes. Twitter is divided over one question it raises, however: is it a dagwood dog or a pluto pup where you’re from?
CRIKEY RECAP
The ANU has no record of Julie Bishop declaring her mining company ambassador role
“The ANU adopted a socially responsible investment policy in 2013, which includes excluding companies that derive more than 20% of their revenue from coal. (The decision was heavily criticised by Bishop’s then-colleagues including Joe Hockey and Jamie Briggs). More recently, the ANU’s Below Zero initiative committed to reducing carbon emissions to below zero by 2030.
“A freedom of information request submitted to the ANU regarding Bishop and MinRes was refused as staff were unable to find any relevant documents relating to it. Essentially, there’s no paper trail showing that Bishop told the university about her new role and the video. Crikey put questions to the ANU about whether Bishop had told ANU about her role with MinRes and whether there was a conflict of interest promoting a mining company while the university sought to move away from fossil fuels.”
EXCLUSIVE: Top-secret search warrant for Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home revealed
“In order to consolidate power, Xi Jinping has carried out a decade-long anti-corruption campaign that has served the dual role of trying to weed out some of the more egregious corruption in the CCP and PLA but also as a tool to crush rivals. A prime example was the arrest and removal of politburo member Sun Zhengcai, widely seen as Xi’s ultimate successor, in the lead-up to the 2017 19th Party Congress.
“Corruption probes have also extended into the commercial sector where a string of wealthy entrepreneurs have been taken down, as Xi has drawn the nation’s go-go business sector closer to the CCP, including a crackdown on party cells inside all businesses — foreign companies included.”
No war for Taiwan! Stupidity and imperialist thinking march us to disaster
“Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Defence Minister Richard Marles should do one thing and one thing only with regards to China and Taiwan: publicly rule out any possibility that we would ever join with the US in a war to defend Taiwan against Chinese attack. To do anything less will be a betrayal of the Australian people.
“They won’t, of course. With our ever-greater drawing into US defence command systems, as per the AUKUS agreement, we are losing the capacity to do what we were once capable of: maintain a defence alliance while refusing specific adventures within it. We did this when we withdrew from Vietnam in 1972, and from Iraq in 2007-08. We did not join the British in the 1956 Suez adventure, and the UK itself refused to enter the Vietnam War with the US.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Hostage standoff at Beirut bank ends with gunman’s surrender (Al Jazeera)
Subpoena preceded search warrant in push to retrieve material from Trump (The New York Times)
Palestinian hunger striker moved to hospital as health worsens (Al Jazeera)
UN alarm as Ukraine nuclear power plant shelled again (BBC)
Twitter reintroduces election misinformation rules ahead of US midterms (Reuters)
Amazon, eBay and other online marketplaces found to sell illegal weapons (Euro News)
French PM sounds climate crisis alarm as ‘ogre-like’ wildfire rages (The Guardian)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Australia’s news media bargaining code led the world. It’s time to finish what we started — Rod Sims (The Conversation): “In settling the details of the news media bargaining code in discussions with Google and Facebook, the federal government commendably held its ground. It did make several changes, most of which were of no consequence. One change that meant a lot to Google and Facebook was a provision that said before considering ‘designating’ a platform as subject to the code, the treasurer would consider whether it had already made a ‘significant contribution to the sustainability of the Australian news industry through agreements relating to news content of Australian news businesses’.
“In order to avoid designation, Google and Facebook did deals quickly. It meant deals were done commercially, rather than by arbitration. There remains, however, a problem. Google has completed deals with essentially all qualifying media businesses. But Facebook has not, by quite some way, leaving companies employing 15-20% of Australian journalists out in the cold. Among others, Facebook has not done deals with the SBS, Australia’s multicultural broadcaster, or The Conversation, which brings together Australian academics and journalists to publish research-based news.”
How to make America the green investment capital of the world — Andrew Forrest (The AFR): “Here in Australia, where two-thirds of coal plants are scheduled to close before 2040, we are taking the same approach to two major facilities in NSW, which together account for 40% of the state’s emissions. Why do I have faith in what I am saying? Because I am an industrialist. I built my career by developing some of the largest iron ore mining infrastructure in the world. I also built it on never giving up and putting certain values at the core of everything we do: frugality, integrity, safety, humility, courage and determination, enthusiasm, family, generating ideas. Fortescue emits as much greenhouse gas as the whole of France. We are no shrinking violet when you factor in our steel-making customers, our armada of iron ore carriers and the diesel trucks we use to haul red Pilbara dirt across our mine sites.
“But we see the writing on the wall. We know that climate change is real — and that if we don’t change, our customers will go elsewhere. When I talked to leaders in the coal industry in the US last week about the green jobs I want to bring to America — seriously tough, rusted-on men and women with seriously tough values — they looked at me as one of them. They understand that we need the Inflation Reduction Act. They understand that green jobs give America a plan B to go with its plan A — not instead of it. They understand that the act will create an America that is not only a fossil fuels superpower but also a green energy superpower. They understand that the Inflation Reduction Act will give everyday mums and dads — not just the coal workers, but teachers, electricians, small business owners, financial analysts, hairdressers, butchers, mechanics, construction workers — a way out.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
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Greens activist Tim Hollo will launch his book, Living Democracy, which offers bold ideas and a positive vision for the future, at Gleebooks bookshop.
Larrakia Country (also known as Darwin)
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More than 500 health professionals and experts will gather in Darwin this week to discuss the future of healthcare in the Northern Territory at the 2022 Compass Conference.
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