Dutton goes even lower

TELLING BLACK LIES

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has falsely claimed in a social media post that Indigenous leader and Voice advocate Marcia Langton said No voters are racist and stupid. Chip-off-Dutton’s-old-block Sussan Ley, the deputy Liberal leader, got up yesterday and also incorrectly declared Langton had “accused No voters of opposing the referendum because of, quote, ‘base racism or sheer stupidly’”, Guardian Australia reports. Langton’s recorded quote referred to both Advance and Fair Australia lobby groups, reading thus: “Every time the No cases raises one of their arguments, if you start pulling it apart you get down to base racism. I’m sorry to say it but that’s where it lands, or just sheer stupidity.” Dutton, Ley and the No group’s devious tactic to change her words to “voters” is unsurprising — all have been accused of spreading misinformation, and we all know how Hillary Clinton’s election misstep in calling Donald Trump supporters “deplorables” turned out. Langton is seeking legal advice about the false claims. Crikey’s Cam Wilson screengrabbed headlines from The Australian and Sky News wrongly referring to “voters” too.

Meanwhile Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and “every member” of the caucus will campaign for the Voice to Parliament, The Courier-Mail ($) reports, even though her state leans towards a resounding “No” vote (53%) and it could dent her popularity. She blamed conservative voices for the polling — the paper notes Dutton, One Nation’s Pauline Hanson, and Nationals leader David Littleproud are Queenslanders — but the Sunshine State has been called “ground zero” of the Voice referendum by Cape York leader Noel Pearson. And finally, a fake letter has been stuffed in letterboxes in Victoria, The Age ($) reports, claiming to be from the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria and urging the landed gentry to protect their property from Indigenous traditional owners taking it back. It’s signed Dylan Clarke, a Wotjobaluk man and an assembly representative, who confirmed he did not create the letter and called the scare campaign “terribly sad and extremely frustrating”.

SLOW BURN

Firefighters are burning some 684 hectares around a smoky Sydney ahead of the mercury set to climb this weekend, the SMH ($) reports. Less than a quarter of the hazard reduction burn target (280,072 hectares) was burned last year, RFS commissioner Rob Rogers said. It’s going to be a hot, dry spring — and combined with the soggy conditions of three La Niñas creating a lot of green growth, it’s sizing up to be the worst bushfire season since Black Summer, as Crikey reported. People on Sydney’s northern beaches and parts of the upper north shore, the Hills Shire and southern Sydney that border bushland are most at risk. Meanwhile the richest person in Australia, Gina Rinehart, is throwing bags of cash at green mineral lithium, some $500 million, in fact. Hancock Prospecting acquired a 7.72% stake in lithium miner Liontown Resources, news.com.au ($) reports, bringing its value to $6.65 billion.

This comes as Australia’s largest coal producers — such as Glencore, Peabody, TerraCom and Macquarie Group — are reportedly set to receive a notice to sue from subsidiaries of state-owned Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO), Michael West Media reports. The Korea Herald article says it’s coming after ALS specifically — the coal testing group allegedly boosted coal quality results to make them cleaner, and it’s not the first time this has come up. In February, ASIC accused TerraCom of using reports that were allegedly amended by ALS too. The corporate watchdog added TerraCom got PwC in to do an investigation, but the embattled Big Four consultant reportedly didn’t speak to any ALS employees or directors.

ON THE HOUSE

The Greens will continue to fight for a rent freeze, with Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather to attach the demand to a bill introducing a shared equity scheme for housing. The minor party was holding out for the freeze in the housing stoush, but agreed to pass the contentious bill when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese offered $1 billion for social and affordable housing. Meanwhile independent Allegra Spender is lobbying Senate crossbenchers to support a citizens’ assembly on housing — it’d be a group of everyday people of all ages who would work on the problem and give their thoughts to the government, the AFR ($) explains, but the concept doesn’t have a great history. The last time a citizens’ assembly came up was when then-PM Julia Gillard suggested one for climate change back in 2010.

Meanwhile Greens candidate for Brisbane lord mayor Jonathan Sriranganathan is slinging mud at Greens leader Adam Bandt, tweeting at him it was “a kinda shitty thing” that he’d “given up your leverage without extracting enough concessions”. The SMH ($) adds Sriranganathan probably wanted them to consult the rank-and-file membership before taking Albanese’s deal, otherwise politicians become too powerful. It comes as 1091 “distressed home listings” were listed in NSW in the last week of August — that means people who were forced to sell as money got too tight. It’s up from 722 in January last year, but down from 1779 in October 2020. In Victoria, there were 814 distressed listings in August — down from 1096 in October 2020. Different things are helping folks weather the rates storm, Domain says — spending less, renting out rooms, refinancing loans, or selling investment properties.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

Mark Dickey and two others were nearly a kilometre underground in Türkiye’s third-deepest cave when he started to feel a little bit under the weather. Dickey, a much-loved explorer, had been mapping the intricate cave system in the Taurus mountains for the Anatolian Speleology Group Association, and it was a rather inopportune moment to become sick. The claustrophobic underground tunnels of Morca Cave are filled with steep vertical sections, The New York Times ($) reports, with mud and freezing water complicating things further. When Dickey started throwing up blood and wondering whether he’d live, one of the trio resolved to make the difficult ascent through the maze to get help.

The predicament of Dickey, himself a well-respected cave rescuer, spread throughout the international caving community fast, and suddenly no fewer than 190 doctors, paramedics and cavers had poured into the remote region to help. One Hungarian doctor volunteered to go straight down to treat Dickey — from then on, a doctor was constantly by his side. Above ground, rescuers were sizing up his evacuation — they ended up widening several of the narrow passages of the cave, rigging ropes to pull him up shafts, and even setting up makeshift medic camps along the way. At long last Dickey emerged from the depths Tuesday morning local time, very weak but safe, to elated cheers all around. He’s doing much better now, a Türkiye official confirmed, and his parents say they felt “incredible joy” for his community’s rescue effort.

Hoping you feel the love around you today.

SAY WHAT?

[Peter Dutton] knows that the legal nonsense that he has repeated for month after month has been dismissed by the former chief justice of the High Court of Australia, Robert French, by the leading constitutional lawyer, Bret Walker, who said of that sort of question that it was too silly for words.

Mark Dreyfus

The fired-up attorney-general said Dutton knew the constitutional provision was clearly worded, but was stopping at nothing in his “campaign of disinformation and misinformation” in backing the No side of the Voice to Parliament debate.

CRIKEY RECAP

Peter Dutton bids for the mantle of conspiracy-theorist-in-chief

BERNARD KEANE

“However factually wrong Dutton was, it’s as serious an allegation as it’s possible to make about Australian democracy. The parallels with, and derivation from, Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s election denialism in the US are obvious. US-derived conspiracy theories about the AEC and state election bodies are already rife within the far right in Australia, including the old trope of voter fraud — which is also a persistent claim from the Liberal Party — leading to harassment of election workers.

“With the AEC now part of the elite conspiracy to impose a Voice by referendum (Dutton himself wants to impose one by legislation, but that’s a minor detail), he leaves the way open to claiming the next federal election will be rigged as well, in the event the Coalition loses. The Voice isn’t the only conspiracy theory put forward by Dutton …”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Why it costs more to be poor: Anglicare report sheds light on the ‘poverty premium’ (SBS)

Libya floods wipe out quarter of city, death toll passes 2,000 (Reuters)

Kim Jong Un’s ‘Moving Fortress’ North Korea train: What to know (Al Jazeera)

McCarthy calls for formal impeachment inquiry into Biden amid pressure from conservatives (CNN)

Protests in Israel as Supreme Court hears challenge to judicial curbs (The Guardian)

Switzerland: Hundreds of sex abuse cases ‘tip of the iceberg’, say researchers (BBC)

THE COMMENTARIAT

I’m a consultant, but I support a $3bn spend on the public service — Christopher Pyne (The SMH) ($): “Coalition governments tend to cut the public service because it saves money in the short term and makes the budget bottom-line look better. For the Coalition, lower government spending is an end in itself; it proves the government is getting smaller and mostly, the Coalition likes small government. Labor governments, on the other hand, tend to care less about small government and, as such, only make cuts to the public service when they have no other choice. They also generally gain more support from public servants, not least because the public service is one of the most unionised workforces in Australia. For Labor, a larger public service isn’t exactly an end in itself, but they certainly aren’t averse to it.

“Coalition politicians are fond of calling the public service ‘bloated’ whenever Labor is in power. Not a term I would use, lest someone accuse me of being the pot calling the kettle black. All this chopping and changing, however, has the unfortunate outcome of making joining the public sector as a long-term career a less attractive prospect. That’s not to mention the remuneration and merit-based promotion opportunities within the private sector are usually much more attractive than in the public service. There is also a long-term societal change that has been occurring over many decades that is mostly overlooked in this debate. Throughout the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, when Australia was much less affluent, smart young men and women of the working- and lower-middle classes saw the public service as a worthy way to spend their professional lives.”

Rinehart raid another case of eleventh hour M&A antics — Peter Ker (The AFR) ($): “The pattern is now clear: anyone trying to buy a West Australian critical minerals asset should expect an eleventh hour call from one of the state’s billionaire mining magnates. Gina Rinehart’s veiled threat on Monday to block Albemarle’s $6.6 billion takeover of Liontown Resources unless given a seat at the lithium table comes straight from the same playbook that Andrew Forrest and Chris Ellison have used to great effect over the past 21 months … Forrest started the trend in January 2022, when he bought shares in nickel miner Western Areas at more than 2% above the offer price that IGO had lobbed just a month before …

“Rather, he was buying relevance; Forrest’s 9.8% stake would be almost enough to block the takeover if turnout at the deciding vote was low, and his star power had the potential to turn other shareholders against the deal. A month later, Forrest had extracted a promise from IGO to work together on a battery-grade nickel precursor factory in WA, in exchange for supporting the deal. Many Western Areas shareholders felt the agreement with Forrest sailed very close to rules that are supposed to ensure no shareholder is treated differently from another during a takeover bid. But Forrest is a skilled sailor; the deal went through and his private companies are now working with IGO on a nickel factory south of Perth at Kwinana. Ellison deployed a similar tactic in April …”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)

• Chair of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicides Nick Kaldas will speak to the National Press Club.

Yuggera and Turrbal Country (also known as Brisbane)

• Writer Yen-Rong Wong will talk about her new book, Me, Her, Us, at Avid Reader bookshop.