Israeli hostage speaks

HOSTAGE RELEASED

A freed Israeli hostage shook hands with one of her captors and said “shalom” — Hebrew for peace — after being released. “They treated us gently, and provided all our needs,” 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz told reporters who queried the move, by giving hostages shampoo, eating the same food as them, and bringing in a doctor every few days. They showed “care”, Lifshitz said. But the elderly woman described being painfully slugged in the ribs by a Hamas militant when she was kidnapped, saying she’d “been through hell”. The New York Times, CBS, Reuters, Financial Times and more all had some version of the headline “Freed Israeli hostage says ‘I’ve been through hell’”. Al Jazeera went with “Israeli captive endured ‘hell’ in attack, but treated ‘well’ in Gaza” and The Guardian went with “Israeli hostage, 85, shown shaking hands with Hamas captor after release”. A total of 222 people, including babies, were abducted on October 7, The Australian ($) reports, and only a handful have been released so far.

Meanwhile Australia has “one of the most secretive and unaccountable weapons export systems in the world”, Greens Defence spokesperson David Shoebridge says, adding Australian material might be used on Gaza. We’ve approved 322 defence exports to Israel in six years, Guardian Australia reports, though it can mean weapons as well as software, radios or chemicals that have civilian and commercial uses too, the government told the paper. It comes as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said we don’t want regional spillover, but rather “We want to see the people of Gaza have access to water and essentials”, adding innocent civilians need support. Back home and SA Police are looking into two alleged arson attacks on Adelaide mosques this week, The West ($) reports, but the cops said they’re not believed to be linked or racially motivated. Still, Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong says we must always reject Islamophobia.

SUB INTO PORT

Discussions about AUKUS’ critical legislation with Democrats and Republicans are “productive”, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says, even though the US House of Representatives is in a state of chaos with a vacant speaker seat. (Former speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted some three weeks ago, Guardian Australia reports, and they still haven’t agreed to a replacement.) The legislation would see sensitive information and technology shared between the US and UK without pesky permits, the SMH reports. But Guardian Australia says a speakerless government may not be the only obstacle to sealing our $368 billion AUKUS deal — congressional researchers say Australia is a bit iffy about joining the US in a war against China.

Meanwhile the blows keep on coming back home — Albanese evaded “scrutiny and accountability”, shadow Home Affairs spokesperson James Paterson says, over a Chinese-owned company’s lease of the Port of Darwin. The ABC jogs our memory — the then-Country Liberal Party NT government gave a 99-year lease to Landbridge in 2015, something even US president Barack Obama is rumoured to have objected to. (Scott Morrison shirked responsibility, saying he couldn’t intervene, but that’s not the full picture.) Anyway, as new PM Albanese launched a review involving Defence, Foreign Affairs and security agencies after becoming PM, Reuters reports, but it found no reason to cancel the lease. Paterson blamed Albanese for that result, for some reason — despite Sky News Australia adding that the lease was “agreed under a former Coalition government”.

NO SAFE PLACE

NDIS providers restrained kids with disabilities in a way that may have breached human rights, the ABC reports. Since the harrowing Four Corners episode, the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission has banned four providers and handed out more than $1 million in fines to 19 others. Now it’s launching an independent review, including one US practice that saw adults in helmets pin down children aged 10-14 in small, windowless rooms. But the broadcaster notes that the NDIS refused to say whether it will make the review public or even accessible to families.

To another topic that threatens one’s safety — climate change. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has confirmed we’ll double the Critical Minerals Facility subsidies to $4 billion; it’ll see more heap loans and guarantees for Australian critical minerals miners and processors, as the AFR reports. It comes as a multibillion-dollar phosphate project that could help “drive generations of EV” has been approved in the NT, the NT News reports. Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek says it shows NT is just as attractive for green investment as Western Australia and Queensland. It’s fast becoming too late. A new report found 20 of our Earth’s 35  “vital signs” are worse than at any time in human history, The Guardian reports, including greenhouse gas emissions, global temperature and sea level rise. It also found the top 10% of emitters were responsible for almost 50% of global emissions in 2019. We know who they are.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

Wildlife carer Debbie Gawley is used to seeing all manner of sickly or injured creatures, but something about Cottontail was different. The teenage kangaroo had lost her mum to a car accident that had also left the little eastern grey with a partial tail amputation. But kangaroos need their tails for balance, and watching orphaned Cottontail tripping over her feet was too much to bear. Gawley told the ABC that her own mother had been an amputee, though it hadn’t been possible for her mum to wear a prosthetic limb. So the carer picked up the phone, thinking, heck, it couldn’t hurt to ask. A local guy named Adrian Brown answered — he’s a senior prosthetist who makes limbs for humans. He listened to Gawley’s idea of a prosthetic tail, had a chuckle, and then said: “Why not? Let’s give it a go.”

Brown brought his kit to the centre and set about making a tiny cast of Cottontail’s tail while the roo happily guzzled down lunch. Whatever he made, he thought, it’s got to be flexible, because actual kangaroo tails are full of tiny vertebrae that allow a range of movement. So he went with shoehorn-shaped carbon graphite attached to a mount, weighing just a few grams in total. There was a nailbiting moment when they fastened the prosthetic tail to Cottontail’s stump — what if she kicks or tries to “take me eye out”, Brown wondered. But she was cool as a cucumber and took the tail in her stride. She’ll wear it for 12 months as she builds her strength before she’s released into Dipperu National Park to join a mob of kangaroos there. It’s awesome, Gawley said, to see them be free with their own kind.

Hoping you remember it doesn’t hurt to ask today.

SAY WHAT?

How u go from Tracy Chapman/To the black Pauline Hanson?

Dan McAleer

The former bandmate of shadow spokesperson for Indigenous Australians Jacinta Nampijinpa Price released a diss track slamming her for her political views. The band, Alice Springs-based hip-hop troupe Catch the Fly, can be heard on triple j Unearthed.

CRIKEY RECAP

How Trump went from Anthony Pratt being a ‘great gentleman’ to ‘red-haired weirdo’

DAANYAL SAEED

“American federal law generally requires one-party consent to recording phone conversations — that is, you can record a phone call or conversation so long as you are a party to that conversation. A few states, however, relevant to Trump (including Maryland and Florida), are exceptions to this.

“A number of recordings were also obtained by American federal investigators, given Pratt’s status as a witness in the Trump classified documents trial … Pratt’s business dealings in the US allowed Trump to brand himself as a job creator, and Pratt earned himself the former president’s favour.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Are social media giants censoring pro-Palestine voices amid Israel’s war? (Al Jazeera)

Iceland’s PM strikes over gender pay gap (BBC)

AI risk must be treated as seriously as climate crisis, says Google DeepMind chief (The Guardian)

Nigeria’s paramilitary raids birthday party, arrests 76 gay people (CNN)

China ousts defence minister, the second senior leader to leave in three months (Reuters)

UN: Two-thirds of Gaza health facilities ‘ceased functioning’ after massive Israeli airstrikes (Euronews)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Economic plan to help Aussies in face of global volatility — Jim Chalmers (The Australian) ($): “This combination means we have a lot going for us, even when there’s a lot coming at us from around the world. The 560,000 jobs created on our watch are more than any other first-term government on record and we’re only half way through our first term. We’ve maintained historically low unemployment and near-record high labour force participation, and wages are growing at around their fastest pace in a decade. Inflation has passed the quarterly peak recorded in the March quarter before the election, although it remains higher than we would like, and petrol prices are expected to put upward pressure on the new numbers we get on Wednesday.

“We’ve delivered the first surplus in 15 years and overseen the biggest nominal budget turnaround in Australian history, from a $78bn projected deficit under the Coalition to a $22.1bn surplus under Labor. We’ve delivered the kind of responsible economic management and spending restraint that would be unrecognisable to our predecessors – banking more than 87 per cent of upward revisions to revenue across two budgets and finding more than $40bn in savings. We’ve done this while rolling out around $23bn of relief through our 10-point cost-of-living plan. From the energy rebates the Liberals and Nationals voted against, to cheaper childcare, tripling Medicare bulk-billing incentives, cheaper medicines, a boost to income support payments, fee-free TAFE training, more affordable homes, expanded paid parental leave …”

[UK] Labour has betrayed British Muslims over Gaza – that’s why I resigned from the party — Shaista Aziz (The Guardian): “I am one of least 23 Labour councillors who have resigned from the party since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war. At Oxford city council, where I now sit as an independent, eight of us have left. The reason I quit is because the leader of the Labour party, Keir Starmer, horrifyingly endorsed the collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza … It appears that his team’s strategy to dig themselves out of this hole is to gaslight British Muslims and heap further harm and disrespect on our devastated communities. A cynical photo opportunity at an Islamic centre in south Wales – after which Starmer published a poorly phrased tweet that referenced Hamas’s hostages – only made things worse.

“The Israel and Palestine conflict is not fundamentally a Muslim or Jewish issue, it is a human rights issue, but the conflict disproportionately affects Muslims and Jews across the world and here in the UK, where people live in increasing fear of hate crimes and for our wellbeing and safety. For Muslims of different national backgrounds, the human rights situation in Palestine is a unifying issue and this is why the resignation of Muslim councillors and activists, and the demoralising of potential Labour voters, really matters. While it remains to be seen if the much discussed ‘Muslim vote’ holds for Labour, what is very clear from the events of the past two weeks is that we are seen as politically disposable.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Online

• OzHarvest’s Ronni Kahn, Grow It Local’s Paul West, and the Australia Institute’s Nina Gbor will talk about food waste in a webinar.

Yuggera and Turrbal Country (also known as Brisbane)

• Writer David Marr will talk about his new book, Killing For Country, at Avid Reader bookshop.

Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)

• Ambassador for the State of Israel in Australia Amir Maimon will speak to the National Press Club.