Clare O’Neil puts the boot into Dutton

CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil says criminals coordinated “the worst crimes that can be committed”, such as human trafficking and sexual slavery, because Opposition Leader Peter Dutton spent years “starving” the system as then-immigration and then-home affairs minister, Guardian Australia reports. During that time, immigration compliance staff numbers plummeted from 360 to 203, the ABC adds. Just two days ago, Guardian Australia noted Dutton had not held a single press conference in Canberra in a little over two months (Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has held 11), but he promptly called one when he heard O’Neil’s comments. A fired-up Dutton told reporters he’d cancelled more than 6,000 visas of criminals, and called Labor a “weak government” that “presided over the greatest immigration debacle in our country’s history”. I think you hit a nerve, O’Neil.

Her comments come as the Nixon report was handed down — it found the 10-year wait to appeal asylum decisions is seeing dodgy actors file bogus claims to live and work here for a decade. And it’s clogging the pipeline for genuine appeals — so Immigration Minister Andrew Giles will announce today a $160 million package to sort through the backlog of asylum claims, including $54 million for processing new ones, The Australian ($) reports. The review also found 15% of international VET students had withdrawn from their course but remained in Australia — the government is knocking back half of all VET study applications because of “integrity issues”, O’Neil said. Speaking of education, mobile phones will be banned in all NSW public schools from Monday, the same as “Western Australia, South Australia, the Northern Territory and Victoria”, Premier Chris Minns said via news.com.au. But one parent pointed out it’ll make school a “lot harder for many neurodivergent students”.

TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

Warning: this item mentions domestic violence and murder.

WA cops have refused to show up to an inquiry into missing and murdered First Nations women and children, Guardian Australia reports, something the state’s first female Indigenous Senator Dorinda Cox called a “complete slap in the face to families”. Police Minister Paul Papalia should force them to appear, Cox added, because it sends a message that victims are “responsible in this state for what has happened to them”. But the cops said Papalia shouldn’t, as per the “separation of powers”. Meanwhile Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has blamed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for the future damage a No vote could cause Australia on the international stage, even though Dutton himself is hoping, pushing and campaigning for a No vote. OK? The Australian ($) continues that Dutton claimed Albanese didn’t tighten up the wording because former Qantas boss “Alan Joyce and others were telling him not to”.

By the way, folks, the Yes23 camp says it did not remove purple merchandise from its website after a nudge from the AEC, as Sky News Australia reported yesterday and your Worm summarised. In a statement, a spokesperson said Sky’s reporting was incorrect: “Due to shipping deadlines, there is now a very limited amount of merchandise available for sale given the referendum is in nine days.” Meanwhile the NT Supreme Court has ruled public housing landlords are legally required to supply safe drinking water to tenants, the National Indigenous Times reports. Residents in Laramba, near Mparntwe (Alice Springs), were drinking water with three times the maximum safe level of uranium in it (!) — the NT Civil and Administrative Tribunal said the landlord wasn’t responsible for it, but the Supreme Court basically said: yes they bloody well are.

A DEAD END

Qantas left corpses in coffins on the tarmac after an IT system outage that affected a quarter of Australia’s inbound items, Brisbane Times ($) reports. Qantas moved to a cloud-based system on September 24, but it “did not go as planned” and cost the airline hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to a letter sent to freight customers. Crates of unrefrigerated fresh produce and pharmaceuticals were ruined, the paper adds, particularly at Melbourne Airport where “more than 300 units of cargo have piled high at terminal one for the past 10 days”. Yikes. Meanwhile the SMH ($) has published a story about the housing crisis this morning with the headline “If Mum stops breathing, I’m not resuscitating — I’m going house-hunting”. Folks, an instant Australian meme, if I’ve ever seen one.

To more queasy news and Coles and Woolworths workers are going on strike to protest against “poverty” wages and an unsafe work environment, The New Daily reports. “They’re fed up with being threatened by someone and worrying that when they finish their shift they’ll see them in the car park with a shiv,” union secretary Josh Cullinan says. Cripes. They’ll also partially strike on Friday by refusing to clean up vomit, bodily fluids and the manager’s toilet. But Coles is going to withhold their entire pay in return, The Age ($) continues, even if they turn up to work and do all their other duties. “It is our legal right to do this,” Coles warned staff, which the paper says is right — though it’s also lawful for Coles to just deduct smaller amounts from wages too. Pretty lousy stuff, the union said.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

Some 3,000 eager spectators poured into the tiny town of Wycheproof (pop. 610) to watch the “toughest foot race in Australia” at the weekend. It involves dashing up a mountain with a 60kg sack of grain on your back (20kg for the women for some reason). And toting that sack is no walk in the park. Guardian Australia reports: “It is equal to 12 bags of ice, 30 bricks, or about 15 cats.” Huh. The paper spoke to one guy at the finish line who weighed the same as the sack — he really wished he’d been better prepared for the weight. Mount Wycheproof, however, is actually the world’s smallest mountain, standing at just 42 metres. Whether it is a mountain or a hill has long divided the small town, which is technically located on its summit. Safe to say “it is not as prominent as Mount Everest, the tallest mountain”, as one site quips, though more people have actually reached the summit of Everest.

And 54 more people aged between 18 and 65 can add their names to the “I conquered Mount Wycheproof” list this year, the first time the race has been held since 1988. At least two runners came back for the event — one said they were rather less hungover than they were in the ’80s and had been long awaiting another shot at “the Mount”. Melburnian Thomas Rogers was ultimately crowned king of the mountain, and Boort’s Carly Isaac the queen, while the town was flat out serving fans all weekend — “The pubs were full at various stage”, “the bakery was flat out in the morning” and “crowds poured into Centenary Park later on to watch the footy”, the paper says. Plus, one local added, it brings loads of good vibes to the little town. “And all we’ve done is put a bloody race on.”

Hoping something gets your blood pumping today.

SAY WHAT?

What that slogan is saying is if you’re a dinosaur or dickhead who can’t be bothered reading, then vote No. If you don’t know, find out what you don’t know.

Ray Martin

The Nine TV presenter, who is of Indigenous heritage, added that the words of the referendum question “could not be simpler than they are” and said the details of the advisory body, which can’t make or alter any laws or prospective policy, were “irrelevant”.

CRIKEY RECAP

Could Yes still stage one of the greatest turnarounds in political history?

GUY RUNDLE

“Our separateness is based not on ethnicity/race per se, but on the simple duality of presence and arrival, with dispossession and violence serving as the vinculum of that ratio. The only way in which unity could be achieved would be total assimilation and dissolution, and an engineered forgetting.

“If that sounds incredibly familiar, it’s because that drive to unity lay at the basis of the White Australia/Stolen Generations policy, and such a memory should make clear the profound contradictions of the drive to ‘unity’. These earlier policies were an answer to the question of how this persisting duality might be dealt with. Their answer — that one side of the division should be abolished entirely — is not ours, to put it mildly.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Pakistan’s plan to evict thousands of Afghans ‘unacceptable’, says Taliban (Al Jazeera)

Apple CEO Tim Cook makes $41m from biggest stock sale in two years (Reuters)

EU countries agree new rules to manage future migration crises (euronews)

In Manitoba, Wab Kinew to become Canada’s first First Nations provincial premier (CBC)

Certificate to own car in Singapore rockets to $106,000 (The Guardian)

Here are the 8 Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy as House speaker (CNN)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Why employment target must be inclusive, sustainable — Jim Chalmers (The Australian) ($): “It is clear labour market outcomes vary significantly across the country. It is also clear for too long the cost of unemployment has been borne disproportionately by some groups in the community — the young, seniors, First Nations people, women, those with a disability, migrants and those living in disadvantaged areas. This indicates more can be done to reduce structural under­utilisation, expand employment opportunities, and increase economic potential. When monitoring the labour market, economists frequently refer to an indicator known as the NAIRU — the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment. The concept is about what level of unemployment is currently achievable that is consistent with low and stable inflation.

“The RBA and Treasury use the NAIRU as part of their assumptions and forecasts for the economy; it’s necessary and important but also a narrow and technical way to look at the labour market. The NAIRU informs and complements the government’s broader and longer-term goal to create an economy where everyone who wants a job can find one without having to search for too long. We don’t see the NAIRU as set in stone, we want to drive it down over time — by reducing the structural barriers to work. That’s why we’ve adopted twin goals of sustained and inclusive full employment. Sustained full employment is about minimising volatility in economic cycles and getting employment as close as possible to the current maximum level consistent with low and stable inflation. Inclusive full employment is about broadening opportunities, lowering barriers, and reducing structural underutilisation over time to increase the level of employment in our economy.”

Why I moved from No to Yes on the Voice — Meriki Onus (IndigenousX): “But a No is a worse option. Right now we have the Yes and No binary on our doorstep, and true to the Australian way, it’s not consensual. I agree with the view that non-Indigenous people shouldn’t have a say on Blackfulla business. However, Australians will cast their vote on the 14th of October and it will be on the basis of how they feel and what they think of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I don’t want the outcome to be No, that’s why I’ll be writing Yes in just over a week’s time. I don’t want to wake up on the 15th and feel even more hated than I do right now. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people around the country are facing overt racism at work, in class and in their local shops, with people telling them they don’t care about Blackfullas with the current racist No campaigning.

“There is a lot of justified mistrust and concern of what the body will look like. What isn’t widely known is that there are already Indigenous advisory bodies in Australia that function in a very similar fashion to the proposed representative body. One of them is The First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria. This body is democratically elected by Victorian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their role is to prepare for negotiations and to reach an agreement on a treaty with the Victorian government. This advisory framework is very similar to the proposed Voice to Parliament. Don’t just take it from me, I encourage everyone to do their own reading and research. This has helped me cut through the nauseating sensationalist campaigns, racism, misinformation and disinformation.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

• Author Robyn Davidson will talk about her new book, Unfinished Woman, at Better Read Than Dead bookshop.

• Author Charlotte Wood will talk about her new book, Stone Yard Devotional, at Glee Books.

Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)

• Historian and author Santilla Chingaipe will give the E.W. Cole Lecture on how history is recorded, by whom, and what other histories may be erased in the process at The Wheeler Centre.