Liberal MP Scott Morrison (Image: AAP/Mick Tsikas)
Liberal MP Scott Morrison (Image: AAP/Mick Tsikas)

SCOTT’S SHOT AT CHINA

Conflict in Taiwan would be worse for “liberty and democracy” than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a former prime minister, Scott Morrison, told Taipei’s Yushan Forum, the ABC reports. While leader, “I was as concerned about Beijing as I was about Moscow.” Morrison said Australia should work closer with Taiwan on “non-political, humanitarian, scientific and trade” arenas, including welcoming the nation into the World Health Organization, Interpol, the International Civil Aviation Organization and other UN forums, but within a “modernised One China framework”. (Officially Australia doesn’t recognise Taiwan as a country.) One expert told the ABC he agreed, but asked why Morrison hadn’t done this while he was leader. Just quickly — Cheng Lei is home from China! The Australian journalist arrived in Melbourne after 1154 days in a cell for a dubious sharing “state secrets” abroad charge. She’s happy and healthy, a source told The Australian ($).

Meanwhile some other former prime ministers — John Howard, Malcolm Turnbull, Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd and Paul Keating — all say Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt did not tell them about alleged nuclear submarine secrets he learnt from former US president and probable 2024 nominee Donald Trump. It’s alleged Pratt told “three former Australian prime ministers” and at least 42 others, including journalists, as the US’s ABC News reports. Cripes. Tony Abbott didn’t rule it out exactly, Guardian Australia notes, just said he couldn’t remember it. Morrison’s spokesperson said he can’t remember it either. Mhm. Trump denies the story so who knows if it’s even true — reportedly Pratt told it to special counsel Jack Smith’s team, which is looking into the whole, classified-docs-at-Mar-a-Lago saga.

CLEAN STATE

Western Australia’s Health Department has chucked out more than 130,000 bottles of expired hand sanitiser left over from the COVID-19 pandemic, WA Today ($) reports. Waste management outfit Cleanaway got a $187,000 contract to remove containers, boxes and pallets, including 134,580 bottles of sanitiser. Fewer than a third of the 200,000 bottles the government bought were needed, a spokesperson said, because of WA’s “successful management” of the pandemic (as of October 2022, the ABS said, 453 people had died with COVID in WA, fewer than NSW, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia, but more than Tasmania, the NT and the ACT).

To other health news now and e-scooter hoons in Queensland will face $6192 fines, The Courier-Mail ($) reports, in laws set to be introduced by Transport Minister Mark Bailey. They’ll also compel people using personal mobility device (those motorised wheelchairs) to stop and help at the scene of a crash and give their name and address to those at the scene. Speaking of rowdy residents… several Victoria Park residents in WA were thrown out of a council meeting by cops last month after local Sam Zammit, 75, and others refused to stand during the Acknowledgement of Country, The West Australian ($) reports. Correction, Victoria Park Mayor Karen Vernon said. They were thrown out for yelling things such as “censorship” during the public statement time, despite what her challenger Vince Maxwell claimed.

HAMAS VICTIMS MOURNED

Some 5,000 people gathered in Sydney’s east last night to mourn the victims of the violent Hamas attack in Israel at the weekend, a “date that will live in infamy” for its “butchery and savagery”, president of the executive council of the Australian Jewry Jillian Segal said via The New Daily. NSW Premier Chris Minns and federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton were both there, while Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told the Jewish community at St Kilda Shule: “We hold you in our hearts.” Hey, the SMH ($) has a really good explainer this morning if you’re wondering about the history of the Gaza Strip. It comes as the ABC reports “more than 1,200 people have been killed in Israel, and about 950 have died in Gaza” — phrasing that some people have taken objection to on Twitter, now known as X.

Qantas reparation flights will take Australians from Tel Aviv to London (5.5 hours) free, Sky News Australia reports, with options for Australians who need “onward support from London”  in the works, Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong said (there are no direct flights to Australia — too far). Speaking of Qantas, the Transport Workers’ Union has called to extradite chairman Richard Goyder, the SMH ($) reports with a twinkle in its eye. A typo, perhaps, for expedite as the soon-to-retire Goyder had not left the country and hasn’t been accused of any crimes. Hey, we all make ’em. Goyder is finally admitting defeat and walking away this time next year, along with two other directors next February, something even Reuters describes as “welcome news” after the storm of PR crises the national spirit has flown through.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

An Alaskan brunette who enjoyed a “single girl summer” where she practised self-care by becoming as fat as possible has been crowned the winner in the world’s most important competition, to this Worm writer anyway. Folks, happy Fat Bear Week. A brown bear named 128 Grazer earned no fewer than 108,321 votes this year in the poll celebrating the bulking season for the grizzlies in Katmai National Park. She was described as “thicker than a bowl of oatmeal”. Bears typically snooze through most of the snowy winter, so they spend the months beforehand gorging on salmon sashimi to put on as many kilograms as possible. Every year, fans pick their favourite 12 plump bears dabbling in the dumbfounded salmon as they watch on via the Alaskan park’s live stream.

Last year, Grazer was a mum and had to fuss over her rollicking cubs to make sure they ate all their dinner. This year, however, the kids were all grown up and “Grazer was single,” the park’s Naomi Boak said, “so she could just concentrate on herself and job one, which is getting fat.” The full-figured four-year-old feminist hero is also a prolific angler, Boak added — better than all the boys, including last year’s aptly named winner 747. But Fat Bear Week was nearly cancelled this year. The US government shutdown would’ve caused a ban on the park’s official social media channels, forcing it to postpone the poll. Unbearable! Thankfully President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached an agreement mere days before the competition kicked off on Wednesday. It turned out to be a nailbiting finale — Grazer faced off against 32 Chunk in the polls, who park rangers fondly described as having a “prominent posterior”. But Grazer “stuffed so much salmon in her face” that it was she who joined the “Hall of Chompions”.

Wishing you the body confidence of a bear today.

SAY WHAT?

We should be grateful, and indeed, Indigenous Australia is better today than it would have been, thanks to the British settlement of this country.

Tony Abbott

The former prime minister has repeated claims from Coalition Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and former PM John Howard that colonisation was good for Indigenous peoples, with Abbott adding it wasn’t “blemish-free” but there was a “high-mindedness to a lot of it”. More than half of all massacres of Indigenous peoples were carried out by our police and other government forces right up until 1926.

CRIKEY RECAP

The woke money behind the No camp and the daunting data before the Yes camp

CHARLIE LEWIS

Alan Jones and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (Images: AAP)

“For his part, Fenwick has fought back against out-of-touch elites by throwing three-quarters of a million dollars at the No campaign since April via his donations to Advance, which loves saying things like ‘Go woke and literally go broke.’

“This notion of corporate elites spaffing a bunch of money on woke causes is a long-standing preoccupation of conservatives in the US, and is bleeding with dispiriting inevitability into the discourse over here. With that in mind, a tipster suggested we take a look at some of Fenwick’s current investments.”

The Hamas attack is an atrocity beyond the bounds of strategic violence. What comes next will be worse

GUY RUNDLE

“Both Zionists (in the 1940s) and Palestinians in the 1970s and ’80s, used civilian-directed terrorism, but there was a degree of calibration by both, a limit to the mayhem so as to keep the act political.

“This attack was something else, its scale and indiscriminate killing inviting comparisons with 9/11 and the Mumbai attacks, in which the aim was to simply pile high the bodies, the more hideous the death the better.”

Qantas directors loitering in Chairman’s Lounge when they should be booted out

BERNARD KEANE and GLENN DYER

“Goyder’s half-arsed retirement — in which he remains chair for another year despite presiding over every Qantas disaster over the past five years — is particularly insulting. The airline’s risible media release links the board turnover, such as it is, to ‘the significant reputational and customer service issues facing the group’ and that it recognises ‘that accountability is required to restore trust’.

“But what accountability? Two directors who’ve been there a decade moving on (in 2024) and a chairman deciding he’ll wander off at a time of his own choosing, with no boardroom succession or renewal plan in place.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

EU gives Meta 24 hours to explain Hamas videos action (BBC)

US in talks with countries including Israel and Egypt to allow safe passage of Americans and other civilians out of Gaza (CNN)

Stockholm to ban petrol and diesel cars from centre from 2025 (The Guardian)

Collective punishment of millions in Gaza not justified: Scotland leader (Al Jazeera)

Investors are calling it: The [US] Federal Reserve may be done raising rates (The New York Times) ($)

As a deadline passes, Canadian diplomats remain in India (CBC)

Australia, the US and UK treat Hamas as a terrorist group. NZ takes a different approach (Stuff)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Israel could be walking into a trap in Gaza — R. David Harden (The New York Times) ($): “Hamas knew that the attack on Saturday would give Netanyahu little choice but to retaliate with a ground invasion, and it knows that the Israel Defense Forces’ technology and military superiority would offer little advantage on the crowded streets of Gaza City; in Jabalia, Gaza’s largest refugee camp; or through Hamas’s labyrinth of underground tunnels. Gaza, 140 square miles with a population of more than 2 million, is one of the most densely populated places on earth. It appears Hamas wants to draw Israeli soldiers into a quagmire, as Hezbollah did in Southern Lebanon from 1985 to 2000.

“After years of fighting, Israel suffered a humiliating and chaotic withdrawal, leaving an empowered and threatening Hezbollah on its northern border. Why might Hamas want to draw the Israel Defense Forces into a bloody ground battle? Hamas is the uncontested power in Gaza, though elections have not been held since 2006. The Palestinian Authority; its main political party, Fatah; the business community; civil society; and family clan leaders cannot effectively challenge Hamas, which has become only stronger after each successive conflict with Israel. Despite an Israeli blockade and round-the-clock surveillance, Hamas has apparently been able to build and buy more rockets, steadily improve their range and accuracy, provide offensive combat training for its fighters …”

Minns’ bid to block protest could be costly for free speech — Greg Barns (The SMH) ($): “The intervention of the premier provides an opportunity to take a more high-level look at how to manage the right to protest when the topic is highly sensitive. Freedom of assembly and freedom of speech are core values in a liberal democracy, and particularly because of the context of political participation. Of course, they are rights that are not unlimited in scope. But there should be a presumption in favour of allowing protests in public places if the organisers pledge that the protest is non-violent in both a verbal and physical sense.

“Furthermore, it needs to be recognised that unfortunately protests can attract individuals and groups who wish to ‘gatecrash’ for nefarious purposes. That is no reason for governments to make it more difficult for peaceful protesters to gather. In fact, ‘commandeering our streets’ is a hallmark of protests in Australia, and has been for many years … It is a big reason to be concerned when political leaders such as Minns make statements that indicate an intention to make protests more difficult. It undermines what the United Nations Human Rights Committee has called ‘a valuable tool that can and has been used to recognise and realise a wide range of other rights, including economic, social and cultural rights’.”

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WHAT’S ON TODAY

Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

Yuggera and Turrbal Country (also known as Brisbane)

  • Author Melissa Ashley will talk about her new book, The Naturalist of Amsterdam, at Avid Reader bookshop.