ROUGH HOUSE
Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather was allegedly verbally abused in Parliament by Labor MPs, independent Helen Haines and the Liberal National Party’s Michelle Landry say. The pair complained to the lower house Speaker Milton Dick separately, and not at the prompting of Chandler-Mather, 31, the SMH ($) reports. He had been talking about the $10 billion housing future fund the Greens are threatening to block in an impasse between the government and the powerbroking minor party. Chandler-Mather told the paper that Labor MPs ought to think about “why they get so angry at a young renter for suggesting that the millions of people doing it tough deserve more than crumbs”, though added he wasn’t fazed. Haines, on the other hand, found it disturbing to watch “loud”, “persistent”, “vicious” and “personal” shouting at the Brisbane MP on May 10 that “crossed a line” in her view. Labor MPs told him to “Sit down, moron,” the paper says.
It’s not just federal politics — a budget estimates hearing in Western Australia heard chair Margaret Quirk ask Opposition Leader Shane Love yesterday whether he was “slow”, WA Today ($) reports. Cripes. Meanwhile, in Chandler-Mather’s home state, more woes for Labor. The Palaszczuk government has received blowback for reviving its cash-for-access program, The Courier-Mail ($) reports. The corporate donor program will help the party raise dosh, with the Queensland Business Partnership Roundtable seeing corporate donors pay $10,000 annually for monthly dinners and lunches. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk banned her and her frontbench from the fundraisers last July over concerns it being unseemly, but Brisbane Times ($) reports the LNP in Queensland has built a war chest four times the size since — $752,000, compared with Labor’s $167,000.
HEALTH. PERIOD.
The rebate for healthcare workers inserting IUDs should be higher, abortion pills should be easier to get, and hormonal contraceptives should be on the pharmaceutical benefits scheme so they’re cheaper — these are some of the 36 recommendations from the reproductive healthcare Senate inquiry which Health Minister Mark Butler and Assistant Health Minister Ged Kearney were waiting for before announcing reforms. It was established by the Greens but made up of senators across the floor, the ABC reports, with bipartisan support for all recommendations. But the inquiry was split over what an “affordable abortion” was. The Greens say we shouldn’t be out of pocket for one, but couldn’t get a consensus, though everyone agreed that public hospitals should provide abortions.
Meanwhile nearly two-thirds (57%) of people born after 1980 are struggling to afford pads, tampons and reusable period items, Guardian Australia reports, and it was 64% for gen Z-ers. Plan International Australia’s boss Susanne Legena told the paper it was a “fixed cost” for many, but increasingly out of reach amid inflation soaring. About half of those who earned less than $50,000 a year said they were going without painkillers too, even though it was affecting their mental health. It comes as Victoria’s Andrews government confirmed it would install 1500 pad and tampon dispensing machines at as many as 700 libraries, public hospitals and train stations. Scotland just passed the Period Products (Free Provision) Act that will see authorities and education providers offer the products free.
FEET ON THE GAS
Don’t count on us for support of your petroleum resource rent reforms, Greens Leader Adam Bandt has warned Labor via Guardian Australia, because it doesn’t go far enough. The reform is supposed to generate $2.4 billion over four years by introducing a 90% cap on deductions that can be offset, but that’s a measly $600 million a year from fossil fuel giants who are printing money at the moment. Plus Bandt said it would just bring forward tax that would be paid in later years, not create revenue. The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association supports the reform — a major red flag, Bandt added.
Meanwhile Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says he’ll try to squeeze less red tape and shorter approval times out of Labor for gas projects in return for the Coalition’s vote on the PRRT, The Australian ($) reports. He called the Greens “crazy” and “economic wreckers”, saying the gas industry doesn’t want Labor to work with them. Gee, I wonder why. But Labor’s not much better, Dutton says, claiming unnamed “countries are starting to talk about sovereign risk in Australia” for the first time in his memory.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
A few months ago, Gert-Jan Oskam was standing around, drinking beer with some mates. They could not believe it. Indeed Oskam himself was in awe, sipping his beer, as they laughed and jostled each other. Standing there in that bar was “pretty cool”, he told The Guardian. See, Oskam is paralysed. In 2011, when the Dutchman was in his late 20s, he was riding his bike in China when he was struck in a traffic accident. As he lay in a hospital bed, doctors gravely informed him his neck was broken. It was the sort of break, they explained, that meant he would never walk again. A decade of hard work followed as Oskam adjusted to his disability as best he could, but cycling, or standing around in a bar, seemed impossible.
Meanwhile, at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, researchers had been hard at work too. They’d created an implant they believed would reconnect the brain to the parts of the spinal cord that control the legs. One day, a neurosurgeon installed it in Oskam’s head. When he woke up, he didn’t exactly stroll out of the hospital — he did dozens of tough training sessions until he realised it had worked! He tried to move his legs, and the neural activity fed into an algorithm that turned it into pulses. The few nerves left unscathed in Oskam’s spine were tickled by the pulses, and that moved his muscles. He could walk — so far more than 100 metres in total, using railings or a walker for support. Remarkably, even when the implant is turned off, Oskam has found he has better control over his legs than before. The reconnection, boffins say, is actually regenerating his spinal nerves. Cheers to that.
Hoping something fills you with awe today, and have a restful weekend.
SAY WHAT?
RIP the amazing Tina Turner. Thank you for the joy you brought us. R.E.S.P.E.C.T
Prue MacSween
The Sky News contributor appeared to mistake the late Tina Turner for fellow African-American singer Aretha Franklin, whose 1967 hit “Respect” spelt out the word in the chorus. MacSween said she didn’t confuse the two and had meant she respected Turner. Mhm.
CRIKEY RECAP
“Following the queen’s passing in September, Morrison joined the long list of parliamentarians to pay tribute to the monarch. The former PM used the opportunity to quote biblical scripture, citing a ‘deep and abiding faith in Jesus Christ’ as the reason for the queen’s longevity.
“Morrison pulled religious references from two of the queen’s Christmas messages (which he noted he’d ‘taken the time to go back over and read’), describing Jesus Christ as ‘an inspiration and an anchor’ and God as a guide through ‘good times and bad’, but he landed on his own excerpt about the righteous leader being one ‘who rules in the fear of God’ as the ‘best description of her majesty’s reign’.”
“Priests who’d lost God, and saw their lives as amounting to nothing, suddenly became super-predators. Political movements whose meaning and purpose have collapsed become sexual harvesting cults. The barely spoken-of element, that makes it all possible, is the desperate desire of a certain type of young woman to attach, and the limited and patriarchal barriers to the exploitation of such that a traditional culture offered.
“Once that was stripped away, liberation eventually cedes to predation. Then a surveillance morality is installed in place of the now-vanished traditional culture, and the middle period — the ’60s revolution sitting at the centre of the 20th century’s second half — is then extensively re-evaluated. Girls and women who would once have been, and were, told to go away, were listened to. As they should be.”
“Musk’s own beliefs have been apparent for a long time. While publications like The New York Times paid lip service to his claims that he’s not a conservative, Musk’s staunch anti-regulation and anti-union stances, flirtation with COVID-19 denialism and anti-vaccine rhetoric, obsession about the ‘woke mind virus’ and cancel culture, and interest in the culture war over gender (despite his own daughter being transgender) all place him comfortably on the Republican side of the ledger.
“That he owns an electric car company that has received a healthy amount of support from government has just become an ideological quirk. It’s one thing to hold political views, but what’s significant is that Musk’s beliefs are undeniably shaping Twitter in his own image. Musk’s choice to host — technically but also literally — a main right-wing candidate’s run for president is just the latest thing he’s done to turn the platform into Fox News …”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Pakistan minister defends trial of Khan supporters in army courts (Al Jazeera)
New superbug-killing antibiotic discovered using AI (BBC)
German economy in recession after high prices take toll, revised figures reveal (The Guardian)
Microsoft calls for AI rules to minimize the technology’s risks (The New York Times)
‘Hate crimes’ against footballter Vinícius Jr spark plans for new anti-racism law in Spain (euronews)
More than 5000 new species discovered in Pacific deep-sea mining hotspot (The Guardian)
From Russia with gold: UAE cashes in as sanctions bite (Reuters)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Work conditions put Australia behind Nordic countries in Happiness Index. We must learn from them — Chris F Wright and Søren Kaj Andersen (The Age) ($): “The limited role of government in the Nordic countries does not mean workers lack protection. On the contrary, multi-employer collective bargaining and works councils enable workers to engage with employers on equal terms. These mechanisms give workers voice and empower them to identify productive work practices, which is good for business. This requires recognition that managerial prerogative does not always deliver the best outcomes.
“The relationship between Nordic employer groups and unions is sometimes characterised as a ‘conflictual partnership’. This alludes to the tension between workers’ desire to improve wages and conditions and employers’ aims to reduce costs and increase profits. However, and unlike Australia’s adversarial industrial relations tradition, the Nordic countries’ partnership approach includes mutual respect for the legitimacy of different interests. This mutual recognition helps employer groups and unions to jointly develop arrangements that are both efficient for employers and fair for workers.”
Labor’s national conference looms but the party’s rank and file has lost its bite — Michelle Grattan (The Conversation): “There is one issue, however, where the government is at risk of losing control. Not at the national conference, where there will be furious agreement, but in the electorate, which is far more serious. That issue is the Voice to Parliament. While it is too early for the government to panic about the decline in support for the Yes vote in some polling, it should be worried about the turn the debate is taking. For Indigenous leaders to engage in personal attacks, as Noel Pearson did against Mick Gooda (both on the Yes side), is neither respectful nor tactically wise.
“For assistant minister Malarndirri McCarthy to be drawn into a shouting match at Senate estimates with maverick crossbencher Lidia Thorpe was to fall into a trap. The further descent into claims about racism could be harmful for the Yes case. Peter Dutton, in his speech to this week’s House of Representatives debate on the referendum legislation, used as one of his arguments against the Voice that it would ‘re-racialise’ the nation. Anthony Albanese, in his contribution on Thursday, denounced Dutton’s speech as ‘simply unworthy of the alternative prime minister of this nation’.
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas will talk about the 2023 state budget and take questions at a lunch at Park Hyatt Melbourne.
Muwinina Country (also known as Hobart)
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Yes23’s Thomas Mayo and journalist Kerry O’Brien will discuss their Voice to Parliament Handbook at The Stables.
Yuggera and Turrbal Country (also known as Brisbane)
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Former senators Margaret Reynolds and Claire Moore and historian Michelle Arrow will chat about the new book, Women and Whitlam: Revisiting the Revolution, at Avid Reader bookshop.
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