Former US president Donald Trump
Former US president Donald Trump (Image: AP/Sue Ogrocki)

TRUMP CALLS FOR PROTEST!!!

Former United States president Donald Trump has said, via his Truth Social platform, that he expects to be arrested in relation to the long investigation into the “hush money” paid to adult film actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. More ominously, he called on his supporters to “PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!!” Citing “illegal leaks from a corrupt and highly political Manhattan district attorney’s office”, Trump said (referring to himself) that the “leading Republican candidate and former president of the United States will be arrested on Tuesday of next week”. He did not say exactly why he expects to be arrested, and his team said after Trump’s post that it had not received any notifications from prosecutors.

The district attorney in question has vowed that his staff will not be intimidated. In an email obtained by Politico, Alvin Bragg told his office employees: “We do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York. Our law enforcement partners will ensure that any specific or credible threats against the office will be fully investigated and that the proper safeguards are in place so all 1600 of us have a secure work environment.”

Top Republicans have rushed to Trump’s defence. “The idea of indicting a former president of the United States is deeply troubling to me, as it is to tens of millions of Americans,” said former vice-president Mike Pence, while house Speaker Kevin McCarthy said a possible indictment would be “an outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA”. But former speaker Nancy Pelosi put out a statement saying: “The former president’s announcement this morning is reckless: doing so to keep himself in the news and to foment unrest among his supporters. He cannot hide from his violations of the law, disrespect for our elections and incitements to violence.”

[free_worm]

AUKUS MOMENTS

Defence Minister Richard Marles insists that Australia “absolutely” did not promise to support the United States in any military conflict over Taiwan as part of the AUKUS deal to acquire nuclear-powered attack submarines. Asked whether Australia had given the US any commitment to help during a conflict over Taiwan in return for access to the submarines, Marles told the ABC: “Of course not, and nor was one sought.”

Marles insisted that Australia’s access to American Virginia-class nuclear submarines was “not about” a potential conflict over Taiwan but to protect trade routes through the South China Sea. Meanwhile, Trade Minister Don Farrell said on Sunday that he was confident a scheduled visit to China to meet his counterpart Wang Wentao would go ahead.

This more conciliatory tone follows a week of increasingly bellicose rhetoric from all sides: hours before meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during Albanese’s visit to the US last week, The Australian ($) reported that British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak gave a speech saying China was a country with “fundamentally different values to ours” that had become “increasingly authoritarian at home and assertive abroad” and posed an “epoch-defining systemic challenge”, while China’s President Xi Jinping gave a speech promising to build the People’s Liberation Army into a “great wall of steel” to protect China’s “national sovereignty” while promoting “reunification of the motherland”.

DEEMED UNFIT FOR DUTY

The Age ($) is reporting that Victorian Opposition Leader John Pesutto will move to expel controversial Liberal MP Moira Deeming from the parliamentary partyroom after she attended a rally that has was also attended (or “crashed” per the Herald Sun) ($) by neo-Nazis. 

Deeming attended the “Let Women Speak” rally organised by British anti-trans rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull at Victoria’s Parliament House on Saturday. On Sunday night, Pesutto announced he had met with Deeming to discuss her part in “organising, promoting and participating in a rally with speakers and other organisers who themselves have been publicly associated with far right-wing extremist groups including neo-Nazi activists”.

“At our meeting I informed Ms Deeming that I will move a motion at the next partyroom meeting to expel her as a member of the parliamentary Liberal Party as her position is untenable,” he said. Deeming insisted to the Hun: “Nobody endorsed those Nazis. We all condemned them. But nobody listened to what the women actually said.” The Hun reports further that “several” Liberal sources believe the motion to expel Deeming would be likely to pass, but only narrowly.

SAY WHAT?

These houses are really beautiful, high quality, welcoming and I quite like your interior designer. I need some advice myself.

Suella Braverman

Via some not the least bit nauseating coverage at the UK’s The Telegraph ($) Britain’s home secretary engages in some light banter with the builders of a 2500-house “town” in Rwanda intended for thousands of asylum seekers who are to be deported from the UK.

CRIKEY RECAP

‘Election circus’: Keneally’s doomed Fowler run still looms large in southwest Sydney

Mar 17, 2023

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“The furore unleashed when Labor picked Kristina Keneally to run in Fowler is still palpable in Sydney’s southwest where voters will decide on their new state MPs next Saturday. In the overlapping state seat of Cabramatta, where Labor’s preselection dragged on until mid-February, one of the hopefuls was Kate Hoang, who sponsored Keneally’s bid to run for Labor in Fowler. Another was the ex-senator’s internal rival, Tu Le.

“Keneally’s selection as the Fowler candidate over Le was roundly criticised because the former NSW premier lives far away from the electorate, on an island in Sydney’s northern beaches. Hoang has now quit the Labor Party and will run as an independent. She has levelled accusations of bullying against supporters of Le, which she claims is related to her work in the Fowler campaign.”

‘Fabrications’ and a media ‘fight-back’ strategy: Lehrmann denies he received defamation advice

Mar 17, 2023

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“On the day news broke of Brittany Higgins’ allegations of rape at Parliament House, Bruce Lehrmann messaged a friend saying he had retained criminal and defamation lawyers and told his then girlfriend his advice was he would be ‘up for millions’ — but on Thursday he told the Federal Court neither statement was true. “ ‘Rome was burning,’ he said. ‘I [was trying] to put on a brave face.’

“The former federal Liberal staffer commenced defamation proceedings last month against journalists Samantha Maiden, Lisa Wilkinson and their respective employers, News Corp and Network Ten, over interviews with Higgins broadcast and published on February 15 2021.”

Democracy on the slow train to Goulburn, where the Big Merino rules

Mar 17, 2023

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“ ‘Some may say we have tough times now, but let’s just remember what it was like last time Labor was in. This government has delivered. The only state with a AAA rating, $178 billion on infrastructure, $112 billion committed in this election campaign alone, for a better future.’ Rat-a-tat-tat, full machine-gun style. It was not unimpressive.

“Wendy Tuckerman, seated in the middle of the candidates’ row, is the Liberal member for Goulburn, a city-based seat with hinterland stretching towards Yass (Labor candidate, Michael Pilbrow, is a Yass man), held by the government with a 3% margin.

“This is pretty much the Plimsoll line for the Minns insurgency. If it gets Goulburn on an evenish statewide swing, it should be able to form government. It has high hopes and a presentable candidate — Pilbrow is a neat-suited business type, but worked in the cooperative sector for decades. Plus there’s enough dissatisfaction within the seat to see it leave the non-Labor camp for the first time in six decades.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Credit Suisse Aussie team in the dark on UBS takeover (The Australian Financial Review)

Unions push for CPI-linked pay rises (The Australian)

Credit Suisse bank: UBS is in talks to take over its troubled rival (BBC)

300,000 in housing insecurity: Queensland’s grim homeless fears revealed (The Courier-Mail)

Labor’s Manuel Brown says support for a Voice to Parliament in Arafura helped secure byelection win (ABC)

Kuwait court nullifies 2022 vote, reinstates previous parliament (Al Jazeera)

Eighty-two Australian children have been abducted in Japan — and it’s legal (The Age)

‘Crisis of confidence’ in global banking system grows (WAToday)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Arrest warrant may signal the beginning of the end for Putin — Geoffrey Robertson (The Age) ($): “Vladimir Putin is a man who kills children. He is someone who kidnaps them from home and family. That is the contention of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC): its judges have examined his evidence and found every reason to believe it, issuing two indictments against Putin. There will be more to come, but the murder and the abduction of innocent children crosses a red line. Although he will not stand in the dock at The Hague any time soon, he is now confirmed as an international pariah, with predecessors like Pinochet, Milosevic, Gaddafi and Al Bashir — all of whose indictments were a prelude to their fall from power.”

Gareth Ward poses dilemma for election winner — George Williams (The Australian) ($): “The next premier of NSW may result from horsetrading after the election as each major party seeks to shore up enough seats to form a working majority in the state’s lower house. The kingmakers of the next parliament may include the holder of one particularly intriguing seat, Kiama, on the south coast. It has been held since 2011 by Gareth Ward, a former Liberal minister, who is recontesting as an independent, despite having been suspended from Parliament and expelled from the Liberal Party.

“If he wins he may present a dilemma for the major parties should they need his vote to form government. Ward was suspended from Parliament after being charged with offences involving historic sexual abuse. He maintains his innocence and his matter has yet to go to trial. The suspension excludes him from the parliamentary precincts, meaning he cannot take part in the proceedings of Parliament. However, he has continued to receive his salary, can use his electorate office and remains the local member.

“Politicians in Ward’s position tend to exit Parliament at the first available opportunity. Instead, he has doubled down by indicating he has every intention to continue to serve his community. It looked like the Liberal Party might gift the seat to Ward or Labor due to the local branches failing to preselect a candidate.”

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Eora country (also known as Sydney)

  • The Parliamentary Budget Office is due to issue a final budget impact statement showing all the costed policies and a summary of their net total financial impact.

  • The NSW government response is due following the inquiry established on March 29 2022 to inquire into and report on the status of water trading in NSW.

  • The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) will hold a public inquiry starting today as part of an investigation it is conducting concerning the conduct of employees of Inner West Council (IWC), Transport for NSW (TfNSW) and others (Operation Hector).

Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)

  • Both houses of the federal Parliament sitting in Canberra.

  • Bondi Partners chair and former US Navy secretary Richard Spencer to speak at the National Press Club.

Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)