Working like a Chalmers

MONEY TALKS

It’s budget day, folks. Our deficit has been cut in half, according to forecasts from Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who says it’ll be $36.9 billion for 2022-23 compared with the $78 billion forecast by the Coalition government in March (thanks to lucrative coal and iron ore exports and big, big budget cuts). The Age reports that shorter-term improvement will also see the $224.7 billion deficit we thought we’d accumulate in the next four years slashed to about $180 billion. (But the AFR ($) points out that our $40 billion saving will be short-lived — yearly deficits will climb to March’s forecasted level in the next three years.) So what’s it going to cost us between now and then? Australia’s interest bill mostly — it’ll reach almost $34 billion in 2025-26, which is the equivalent of how much we spend on aged care services at the moment. On interest! Cripes.

So what’s in the budget? A $548 billion, four-year spend on our struggling health and aged care sectors, The Australian ($) continues, including $10 billion to bolster hospitals and nursing homes. We’ll also see an extra $33 billion for welfare and pension payments, more than $1.4 billion on flood payments, a $900 million commitment to foreign aid in the South Pacific and “net spending of more than 80% for ­Coalition-era legacy programs that can’t yet be terminated”, the paper says. Brisbane Times adds that the budget will include a commitment to build a million homes through a joint state-federal-private sector investment, though the government wouldn’t confirm that. The budget will also forecast our power bills will increase by 30% next year, with the ACCC to investigate how we can lower them, the AFR ($) adds. If you want to delve into everything we know so far about the budget, check out this handy explainer from the ABC.

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INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS

Boxing and NRL legend Anthony Mundine is backing netballer Donnell Wallam, the Herald Sun reports, after Gina Rinehart dropped her $15 million sponsorship for Netball Australia. The Diamonds got behind Wallam after the “absolutely disgusting” comments about sterilising Indigenous people made by Rinehart’s late father, Lang Hancock, resurfaced, and Wallam had some reservations about wearing a uniform with Hancock branding on it. But the player was reportedly “devastated” by Rinehart’s decision. Mundine reckons the billionaire easily “could have apologised for her father’s comments, distanced herself from them and told us that she doesn’t believe those things. Instead, she pulled her money out.” But Indigenous Senator Jacinta Price backed Rinehart’s decision, saying the mining boss had been “extremely generous” in supporting Indigenous peoples, Sky News reports. Price posted on Facebook that Netball Australia’s “woke sense of self importance” should have stayed a private opinion.

Meanwhile, an Indigenous boy, Cassius Turvey, 15, has died and a man has been charged with murder after the teen was violently attacked in Western Australia in an alleged “hate crime”. The Australian ($) alleged that “racial abuse” was hurled at Turvey during the attack from “white men said to be armed with a machete and a metal pole”. A 21-year-old fronted court yesterday in Midland and was charged with murder. To a completely different court case now and there’s a really interesting saga playing out in the Top End, as The Australian ($) reports. Former Australian of the Year Galarrwuy Yunupingu, on behalf of the Gumatj clan, has launched a compensation claim over the Commonwealth’s decision to allow Nabalco to mine its country in north-east Arnhem Land way back in 1968. Yunupingu says the land was taken without consent — but the Commonwealth’s lawyer reckons the claim could threaten all other areas where native title was extinguished, indeed “everything done by the Crown in relation to land between 1911 and 1978” — like building roads. Stay tuned.

FOLLOWING THE LEADER

Rishi Sunak, 42, is the new prime minister of the UK — he’s the third leader in seven weeks, the first PM of colour (and the first Hindu), one of the wealthiest people in Britain, and the country’s youngest PM in two centuries — phew. He was finance minister until recently, and a former hedge fund boss before then. His father-in-law is billionaire N.r. Narayana Murthy, known as the “Steve Jobs of India”, who started a wildly successful tech company in the ’80s. Sunak is batting away calls for an early election — the Conservatives don’t need to call one until January 2025, Reuters reports, and it’s a good thing (for the Tories, that is) considering Labour had held a record lead of more than 25 points since Liz Truss almost toppled the financial markets with her mini-budget.

Speaking of elections — another blow for NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet as Health Minister Brad Hazzard is the latest to announce he’ll quit politics at the March election, just one day after colleague Transport Minister David Elliott announced he was doing the same. Hazzard is one of NSW’s longest-serving MPs, the SMH reports, having spent 25 years on the frontbench holding 17 portfolios. He described his time in the Health Department as “the best of times and the worst of times”, with “many anguished nights” during the “gruelling and a deeply upsetting” pandemic. Perrottet’s rather moving tribute described Hazzard as a breath of “effervescent energy, colour and life, and a generous mentor and friend to many members, both within the government and across the political aisle”. Interestingly, Hazzard has never been involved with any faction in his 32 years in Parliament.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

Nedd Brockmann has this saying: “Get comfortable being uncomfortable.” It’s another way of saying that we all can discover extraordinary strength inside ourselves if we can only be brave enough to push beyond what we think we can do. It might mean finally writing that first chapter of a book, or booking that solo trip abroad you’ve been thinking about, or perhaps giving up booze once and for all. For Brockmann, it meant a casual 4000-kilometre run from Western Australia across to NSW. The 23-year-old adrenalin junkie arrived at Bondi beach last week to a rockstar welcome from hundreds of screaming fans, having raised an astonishing $2.5 million for homelessness during his 46-day run across the whole bloody continent. “I’m chuffed, I’m elated, I’m tired, I’m everything,” he told ABC. “Just happy to be home.”

Brockmann set off  from Cottlesloe Beach, WA, in early September, and it was tough from the start — knee pain quickly turned into severe tendonitis, which he drove a 28-hour round trip to receive treatment for. The next week, he ran 700 kilometres. “It is just incredible what the body can withstand when the mind doesn’t give in,” he says. Blisters were a regular occurrence, and the soles of his feet were so sore he could barely hobble to the bathroom each night. But he couldn’t stop. Brockmann says he wanted to push his barriers to see how far he could go, and to raise as much awareness as he could for the homeless. The support from his fanbase spurred him, but as he jogged across the hot, dry Nullarbor, it really came down to a deeply held self-belief, he says, an “intrinsic motivation”. It blew his mind when the donations grew from $500,000 to $1.85 million in the last 10 days before he arrived in Sydney, before hitting $2.5 million. Just imagine how many lives will be changed from that, Brockmann marvels.

Hope you can feel comfortable being a little uncomfortable today, too.

SAY WHAT?

How about saying thank you rather than ‘I don’t want [the money]’?

Barnaby Joyce

The former deputy prime minister says the Diamonds — including Indigenous player Donnell Wallam — should’ve been grateful for Hancock Prospecting’s brand being splashed across their uniforms, even though the late Lang Hancock said in an ’80s documentary he “would dope the water up so that [Indigenous Australians] were sterile”.

CRIKEY RECAP

Australia’s submarine debacle, and how the carousel keeps spinning for retired US Navy officials

David Hardaker

Oct 24, 2022

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“When Australia announced its ill-fated contract with the French Naval Group in 2016, then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull named a number of retired US Navy officials for their role in overseeing the ‘rigorous and independent’ selection process: Rear Admiral Stephen Johnson, Vice Admiral Paul Sullivan, Rear Admiral Thomas Eccles and former US Navy secretary Professor Donald Winter.

“The American influence reached its high water mark shortly after, in 2016, when the government announced a new Naval Shipbuilding Advisory Board. It coincided with Australia’s decision to unleash billions of dollars in funding for defence industries, a move sold as being ‘central to the government’s broader economic plan’. The Naval Shipbuilding Advisory Board was chaired by Winter; its 10 members included Eccles and Sullivan as well as Vice Admiral William Hilarides (all retired).”

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Gina Rinehart could have mined another path in netball row: racism is a bigger evil than virtue signalling

Michael Bradley

Oct 24, 2022

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“One thing of which we can be sure is that if there is a commercial benefit to corporate sponsorship of sport, that sponsorship will exist. If no such benefit exists, meaning the dollars don’t add up, then that begs a different question. If swimming, netball, volleyball or any other sport relying on what is essentially corporate philanthropy can’t ‘survive’ otherwise, then it isn’t a business, it’s a charity.

“The second point is that you can’t put the genie back in the bottle. Like it or not, athletes have opinions, values and beliefs. They are employees, yes, and can be contractually constrained in their expression and performance of those beliefs. They have no greater right than anyone else to act inconsistently with the commercial imperatives of their employers, subject to such protection as they get from anti-discrimination laws.”

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BoM is under the weather, but the minister is in the clouds

Tony Jaques

Oct 24, 2022

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“When she demanded an urgent briefing, the response from senior Bureau managers was reportedly ‘cagey’ and ‘unsatisfactory’. But BoM staff were reportedly told that they were to move full steam ahead and that the minister’s office was happy. Neither the rebranding nor long-standing staff unrest at the Bureau was new or unexpected. The rebrand idea began well before a consultant was brought on board in September 2021. The issues of debilitating staff turnover and investigations into toxic work culture were underway long before that.

“To be fair, while Plibersek is a very experienced cabinet minister, she is new to the massive environment portfolio and was sworn in as recently as June 1 2022. So it may be that the Bureau was not seen as a high priority. It may even be true that the minister and her office were not aware of the disastrous timing of the Bureau’s rebrand announcement. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t know, or shouldn’t have known, that the potentially risky exercise was under way.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Rishi Sunak to become first British PM of colour and also first Hindu at No. 10 (The Guardian)

Russia could plan ‘dirty bomb’ pretext, Western countries say (Reuters)

Dutch [member of the European Parliament] quits far-right group after suspension over ‘Go, Putin!’ stance (EuroNews)

Fossil fuel protesters cover King Charles III waxwork with chocolate cake at Madame Tussauds (CNN)

The top US Senate races to watch in 2022 midterms (BBC)

Outspoken Pakistani journalist Arshad Sharif killed in Kenya (Al Jazeera)

The state of Canada’s economy and whether a recession is a ‘necessary evil’ (CBC)

Officer pleads guilty to manslaughter in George Floyd’s death (The New York Times)

THE COMMENTARIAT

It’s the beginning of the Sunak era — and the end of Britain’s Brexitist delusions — Timothy Garton Ash (The Guardian): “Reality has caught up with the Brexitists and the British public is beginning to catch up with reality. If there were a general election tomorrow, and people voted as they currently tell the pollsters, the Tories would be virtually wiped out. Even more tellingly, the residual belief in Brexit among those who voted for it, which held up for many years, seems to have snapped. In a recent YouGov poll, only 34% of those asked said Britain was right to leave the EU, while 54% said it was wrong.

“Of course, not all Britain’s economic woes are due to Brexit. Even before the 2016 vote, the country had a chronic productivity problem, excessive reliance on the financial sector and a major deficit in training and skills. But as the COVID pandemic effect fades, we can see the Brexit effect more clearly. On many indicators, such as business investment and trade recovery after COVID, the UK economy has done worse than any other in the G7. The number of small companies with cross-channel relationships has fallen by about a third. On official projections, the country will lose about 4% of its GDP as a result of Brexit. The rating agencies Moody’s and S&P have both reduced the UK’s economic outlook from stable to negative. Yes, it’s the Brexit, stupid.”

Dan Andrews’ sales pitch for renewables plan appears doomed — Karen Maley (AFR) ($): “But [Dan] Andrews’ investment pitch to them is far from enticing. The Victorian premier is proposing to set up a new state electricity commission — its predecessor was privatised during the 1990s as part of the Kennett Liberal government’s privatisation push — and give it a controlling stake in new renewable energy projects. You can only imagine how enthusiastic the big industry funds will be to come in as junior partners with the same people who demonstrated their operational ineptitude by their spectacular bungling of the Victorian hotel quarantine program.

“The big industry funds have all accumulated much more expertise in running complex infrastructure projects than the yet-to-be-formed state electricity commission, so it’s hard to believe that they’d agree to relinquish management or operational control of these projects. Even if they were foolhardy enough to invest, say, $900 million to take a minority stake in the Andrews’ renewable energy scheme, that would still leave a gaping funding shortfall. After all, $1.9 billion doesn’t get you very far when it comes to developing new clean energy projects. Perhaps Andrews has convinced himself that the big super funds will chip in the bulk of the funding, but leave it up to the newly hatched state electricity commission to build and operate the new clean energy projects.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Online

• Economist Ross Garnaut and scientist Tim Flannery will chat in a webinar about the exciting prospects ahead for climate action from the Albanese government with pressure from the teals and Greens.

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

• Author Chris Hammer will chat with ABC’s Kate Evans about his new book, The Tilt, at Better Read Than Dead bookshop.

Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)

• Academic and author Larissa Behrendt will speak about the role that music has played in her life — at the Wheeler Centre.

Yuggera Country (also known as Brisbane)

• Author Christine Wells will chat about her new novel, One Woman’s War, at Avid Reader bookshop.