(Image: Supplied)

WHAT AILS YOU

Alcohol-related deaths were at a 10-year high in Australia last year, according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). The death rate increased 5.8% compared with 2020, news.com.au reports, showing any solace found in the bottle is short-lived. The eerie stat will undoubtedly bolster Australia’s growing defection from booze, as the BBC reports — BWS and Dan Murphy’s reckon sales of alcohol-free beer more than doubled between 2020 and 2021. More broadly, the ABS found the leading cause of death for men in 2021 was heart disease; for women it was dementia. Interestingly, deaths from respiratory diseases were the second-lowest on record last year — COVID was our 34th cause of death. There’ll be two ways to read this: restrictions were overblown, or restrictions worked really well.

The former is certainly the conclusion of an independent review of Australia’s COVID-19 response that The Australian ($) reports on. The review, which has input from 200 health experts, unions, economists and more in 160 submissions, found rules were “too often formulated and enforced in ways that lacked fairness and compassion”. For instance, we shouldn’t have closed schools once we knew they weren’t “high transmission environments”, the SMH continues. It also found our lockdowns and border closures happened too often and for too long. Other quick stats: COVID deaths for people born overseas were 2.5 times higher than Australian-born people, the poorest 20% of us were three times more likely to die than the top 20%, and women were 30% more likely to leave the workforce than men in the early months of the pandemic. It comes as a new Omicron sub-variant causing grief overseas could soon become a dominant strain back home, The Courier-Mail reports.

[free_worm]

GETTING UP TO SPEED

In another sneak peek at the budget, more than 1.5 million homes and businesses will get full-fibre NBN access by 2025, Guardian Australia reports. The $2.4 billion project will mostly take place in the outer city and regional areas. Here’s a quick breakdown: 330,000 premises in NSW (such as Cecil Hills, Yass and Cessnock), 240,000 premises in Queensland (from Bowen to the Glasshouse Mountains), 215,000 in Victoria (such as Bendigo, Gisborne and Clifton Springs), 150,000 in WA (such as Margaret River, Denmark and Albany), 120,000 in SA (such as Mount Gambier and Renmark) and 45,000 in Tassie (Huonville and Old Beach). Our internet is dismal — Australia ranked 12th in the world for mobile speeds and 71st for fixed broadband speeds last month, Speed Test reckons, which is encapsulated in this meme that reads: “Australian culture is using 4G in your own house at least once a day.” So why is our wi-fi so crap? When Kevin Rudd’s government established the NBN Co he wanted 93% of premises to be connected for $43 billion, as The Australian ($) explains, but the surplus-obsessed Coalition led by Tony Abbott promised to do it on the cheap for $29.5 billion using the rickety old copper network. It blew out to $57 billion anyway, and there were a lot of problems for Australians.

Speaking of the web — cyber attackers have threatened to contact 1000 of Medibank’s “most prominent” customers with their stolen personal data, the SMH reports, which comes as cybercrime has been quietly added to Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus’ list of responsibilities. The Medibank threat listed “most followers, politicians, actors, bloggers, LGBT activists, drug addictive people, etc”. It’s at odds with the private health insurer’s assurance on Monday that no sensitive customer data had been taken — and maybe it hasn’t and this is just a bluff. Still, Medibank says it’s taking the threat, which demands an unknown ransom, seriously. Oh, speaking of big needless bags of cash — the Bureau of Meteorology’s ill-timed rebrand cost an eye-watering $220,296, Guardian Australia reports, triple the original figure of $69,300. Agencies The C Word and Era-Co worked on the project for 18 months — “error-co” writes itself, but I’ll let your imagination run wild on which C-word you see fit to fill in there.

COURT OF OPINION

In 2018, NT cop Zachary Rolfe boasted about having “smashed the whole community” in Borroloola, one year before he fatally shot Indigenous teen Kumanjayi Walker in 2019, the NT News reports. Rolfe was acquitted in March on all charges related to Walker’s murder. A senior constable who arrived on the Borroloola scene told the inquest into Walker’s death that Rolfe had been exaggerating, and that he did not see force being used. The senior cop could not say why Rolfe used those words in the text messages. The inquest is seeking to understand the context of Walker’s death, including exploring whether Rolfe held preconceived views about violence or Indigenous people.

To another high-profile legal case and the jury has heard closing arguments in the trial of Bruce Lehrmann who is accused of raping his former Liberal colleague Brittany Higgins. Defence told the jury Higgins doesn’t remember the evening and she may have convinced herself that it happened, The Age reports, adding that there were no DNA evidence or medical complaints. But the prosecutor countered that she had been a credible and honest witness with an unwavering story.

Meanwhile overseas, and Julian Assange’s lawyer has warned that the WikiLeaks founder will die behind bars unless an urgent political fix is secured, The New Daily reports. The Australian journalist has been in the UK’s high-security Belmarsh prison for more than three years and has suffered a mini-stroke, depression and suicidal thoughts, as well as COVID. He’s waiting on a UK High Court appeal on his extradition to the US. His lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, said it wasn’t a legal fix — it was a political one, and that our government is “complicit” in Assange’s imprisonment.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

Vale Eclipse, the licorice-coloured labrador who regularly took herself to the park on Seattle’s buses to muck around and then right back home again, as The Washington Post ($) reports (read a free version here). It all began in 2015 when Eclipse slipped onto her usual bus bound for the park while her owner, Jeff Young, was dawdling over a ciggie. Eclipse couldn’t wait — there were birds to be chased and fresh dirt to be rolled in, after all. Young freaked out, jumping on the next bus to follow her and hopping off at the park, praying she’d be there. She was, shooting him a pink-tongued smile before zooming off across the grass. After that, Eclipse became a regular on Seattle’s buses, taking two to three solo trips a week. She’d hop on, snooze lazily on two seats, dutifully accept some pats from commuters, and look out the window contemplatively. At the park’s stop, she’d bang on the front door as if to say “This is me!” and then be on her way.

Eclipse’s park commutes caught the attention of a local radio host, then the national media and then the internet, and she was officially famous. She starred in Seattle’s public transportation system’s highly produced music video “Bus Doggy Do”‘, which finishes with the line: “Get around like Eclipse. Plan your next trip.” Next minute, Young had written a tell-all book about Eclipse called Dog on Board: The True Story of Eclipse, the Bus-Riding Dog, much to the delight of her 122,000-strong fan club. But all this fame didn’t change Eclipse — she and Young were as close as ever. He brought her home when Eclipse was just a 10-week-old flopsy puppy, and the pair had spent only three nights apart since. Eclipse died in her sleep last week. She was 10. Seattle’s public transport system tweeted that she was a “true Seattle icon”: “You brought joy and happiness to everyone and showed us all that good dogs belong on the bus.” We can only hope Eclipse is now in a better place, riding buses to parks far beyond our wildest dreams.

Wishing you the courage and adventurousness of Eclipse, today and always.

SAY WHAT?

Apparently [your biography] is going to be out by Christmas. Is that the release date or the title?

Keir Starmer

In a rare example of politicians being genuinely funny, the UK’s Labour leader zinged UK Prime Minister Liz Truss when Starmer asked whether her new book title would reflect a rumbling that the PM’s troubled leadership will be short-lived.

CRIKEY RECAP

The BoM rebranding is a prank, surely?

Oct 19, 2022

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“It’s possible to imagine future generations sifting through the wreckage of our time like the archaeologists at Pompeii and Ercolano, searching for insights into the last generation with memories of a time before the cataclysm — and the first generation to have some idea of the cataclysm to come.

“‘What did the scientists tasked with extreme weather warnings say, when the floods first came?’ they will ask as they power up the ancient computer, found in the underwater cavern that used to be the Bureau of Meteorology’s office and meticulously repaired. There will be a long, baffled pause. ‘They put out a press release insisting they be called the Bureau.’ “

Jerusalem shift angers Israel lobby, reveals Australia has its own foreign policy

Oct 19, 2022

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“In all the intractable and complicated aspects of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, the status of Jerusalem is one of the more straightforward: Israel’s claim to West Jerusalem has never been recognised, because the United Nations Partition Plan in 1947 identified Jerusalem as having a separate body status. That still holds under international law …

“The rage emanating from Israel and the Israel lobby in Australia over the Albanese government’s decision to return to the international status quo and withdraw recognition of West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is thus fury that Australia has chosen to observe international law, rather than pander to an apartheid state dedicated to suppressing and immiserating Palestinians.”

A ketamine-like compound detected in the ACT is the newest illicit drug on the street

Oct 19, 2022

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“[ANU Associate Professor in chemistry Malcolm McLeod] said this was the first time it had been detected in Australia, although it was first detected internationally in a forensic lab in China. It was likely it had been made specifically for recreational use — as opposed to siphoned off from labs making ketamine for clinical or veterinary purposes — and was likely to have been imported from China, India or Myanmar.

“He said roughly five samples of CanKet had been tested. Although a few people had spoken about their experiences on the drug via the site’s follow-up evaluation — saying the drug produced a “different” effect to regular street ketamine — their experiences weren’t consistent and conclusions couldn’t be drawn. No one is known to have died or been hospitalised so far.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

[US] refugee wait times stretch to five years or more (The New York Times)

Ardern to travel to Antarctica for two days on the ice (Stuff)

Iranian climber who competed without hijab met by jubilant crowds in Tehran (The Guardian)

Russian President Putin announces martial law in four Ukrainian regions he claims to have annexed (CNN)

Inflation in Britain rises 10.1%, driven higher by food prices (The New York Times)

Berlusconi has ‘rekindled’ friendship with Putin and exchanged ‘sweet letters’ amid Ukraine war (EuroNews)

Canada’s inflation rate decelerates to 6.9% but food prices continue to climb (CBC)

India’s Congress party appoints first non-Gandhi president in 24 years (The Guardian)

Pro-Trump conspiracy theorists hound election officials out of office (Reuters)

THE COMMENTARIAT

We made shopping for power too hard for consumers — Clare Savage (The SMH): “Early in my term as chair of the Australian Energy Regulator I was asked to give a speech on consumer vulnerability. I think the topic of the speech was ‘getting to fairness’. I struggled over what I would say because I have been heavily involved in the development of the energy system over the last 20 years and ‘fairness’, in my experience, has just never been one of the objectives. As an economist, I railed at how to come to grips with ‘fairness’ when I was much more comfortable with terms like ‘efficiency’.

“In preparing that speech, I forced myself out of the textbooks and into my own personal experience. I reflected on an encounter I’d had at that time with one of my family members. I had spent hours helping her navigate the Victorian Energy Compare website searching for the best energy plan for her. It is a great website but it was still complex and confusing. Not even I was certain I had really found the best deal for her circumstances (which is frightening given I do this for a living). A week later, I asked her how she had gone switching to her new energy plan and she said she hadn’t done it.”

More sustainable NDIS is in all of our interests — David Coleman (The Australian) ($): “The National Disability Insurance Scheme is a wonderful thing, but its cost growth is completely unsustainable. On its current path the NDIS will challenge any federal government’s ability to produce a sustainable budget surplus. In the upcoming budget, the government must take serious steps to reform it. The NDIS began its full rollout only six years ago, in July 2016. Last financial year its $29 billion cost was similar to the entire Medicare system. There is no precedent in our history for this level of cost growth in a government program. The government now says the cost of the NDIS will rise by another $21 billion in just the next four years, reaching $50 billion by 2025-26.

“Today about 2% of all Australians are enrolled in the NDIS, with the number of participants reaching 535,000 by July. Once people are in the NDIS, they stay in it. The exit rate from the NDIS is less than half of the original long-term forecast. In 2021-22, only about one in 167 NDIS participants over the age of seven left the scheme. As few people exit and more people join the scheme each year, the number of participants will continue to rise. In 2017 the Productivity Commission thought there would be 583,000 people in the scheme by the end of this decade. But the most recent NDIS financial sustainability report estimates it will be far more — about 859,000.”

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

  • Human rights lawyers Jennifer Robinson and Keina Yoshida will be in conversation with commentator Jane Caro about the laws around the world that silence women, in a talk held at the Sir John Clancy Auditorium.

  • Authors Tim Bowden and Hilary Roots will speak about their new book, A Celebration of ABC Identities, at Gleebooks.

  • Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, independent MP Allegra Spender and journalist Leigh Sales are among the speakers at The Tax Summit, held by the Tax Institute.

Yuggera Country (also known as Brisbane)

  • Author Richard Fidler will speak about his new book, The Book of Roads & Kingdoms, at Avid Reader bookshop. You can also catch this one online.