Labor labours over tax cuts for all

THE GOING RATE

If you earn up to $150,000, you’ll be better off under proposed changes to the stage three tax cuts, The Australian ($) reports, but if you earn more than that you’ll be a little worse off (though you’ll still get a tax cut — everyone will). If you earn more than $200,000 you’ll miss out on about $1,000, the Herald Sun ($) calculates. Here’s how. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has reportedly suggested we keep the 37% tax rate but instead apply it to people earning more than $135,000, rather than creating a 30% tax rate for everyone earning between $45,000 and $200,000. Albanese will also suggest the 45% tax rate should start at $190,000, and the low-income tax offset would be raised for those earning less than $50,000. That’s according to the AFR ($), which headlined the story a blunt “Albanese poised to break stage three tax cut promise”, nearly identical to the Oz’s headline, so make of that what you will.

To another bloke who loved to break election promises (the federal watchdog, 47 commuter car parks, a billion trees planted, maintaining our refugee intake, etc) and Scott Morrison is leaving politics to work alongside Trump-era figures Mike Pompeo and Robert O’Brien, Sky News Australia says. He’ll work for DYNE Maritime, a new Australian-founded US-based military venture capital firm, and another firm called American Global Strategies. He’ll travel frequently to the US, possibly meaning iron ore will no longer be our most damaging export. It ends a 16-year career in politics — incidentally, when he was appointed Liberal leader to swerve the party away from Peter Dutton, Morrison had been in politics for just 11 years — the same amount of time fellow leadership contender Julie Bishop had been second-in-charge as the deputy Liberal leader.

TRIPLE-O WHAMMY

Some 2,697 people tried to call triple zero last year during the Optus outage and couldn’t, the AFR ($) says, more than 10 times the number (228) former chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin told a Senate hearing. Cripes. And Optus didn’t do welfare checks on 90% of them — even though the Australian Communications and Media Authority requires it to. The telco regulator is investigating. Meanwhile 5% of flights in December were cancelled (up by 1.6% since 2022), The New Daily reports, and only about 63% took off and landed on time (down from around 70% in 2022). And 2022 was a shocker! Cast your mind back and you may remember lost baggage and cancellations galore amid pandemic chaos. Qantas did the best, the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics found (67% arrived on time and 70% took off on time).

Meanwhile 228 taxi drivers are still overcharging passengers, Guardian Australia reports, even though they’ve been disciplined for it before. Drivers must use their meters, can’t negotiate an upfront fare, and can’t refuse a shorter trip, the paper reminds us. But 536 did, with half being first-time offenders, so to speak. From cash grabs to pinching pennies, and Victoria’s Allan government has warned of another “very, very” tight budget, The Age ($) reports, in the face of rising interest rates, ballooning construction costs and net debt heading towards $177.8 billion by 2027. Victorian Labor promised $5 billion for health and about $2 billion for education and transport before the 2022 election, but smaller projects will likely be paused.

AUSTRALIA DAY STUMPED

Cricket Australia will not mention the term “Australia Day” at the final Test match at Brisbane’s Gabba that will run across January 26, the National Indigenous Times reports, which NSW Premier Chris Minns called “extremely strange” and called for a rethink. Genuine question Minns: do you think you’ll be on the right side of history on this one? Australia is the only former British colony to celebrate its national day on the anniversary of its colonisation beginning. New Zealand’s national day marks the anniversary of Treaty, and July 4 in the US celebrates its independence from Britain, as SBS reports. Not only that, Minns, but most voters under 35 want the date changed, as The New York Times ($) reported, and it is Coalition voters who tend to be older and non-Indigenous, Guardian Australia adds. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s response was that people should “stop looking for areas in which we can be outraged” — which could go either way on that one, depending on your read.

Meanwhile Victorian Opposition Leader John Pesutto will not apologise or resign over his U-turn on Treaty in the state, Sky News Australia reports, despite Nira illim bulluk man of the Taungurung Nation and former chair of the First People’s Assembly Marcus Stewart calling for him to do so. Stop making it so personal, Pesutto whined, seemingly missing the fact that there could be little more personal than the pursuit of a Treaty for many Indigenous peoples. It comes as Indigenous leaders in Uprising of the People have been charged $8,000 to hold an Invasion Day march in Darwin just five days out from the protest because local council refused to pay for traffic control, the NT News ($) reports. The community quickly rallied and the group raised the money in just four hours, but you can still donate here if you would like to.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

If you’ve got the day off on Friday but you’re a little uncomfortable celebrating the day that marks the beginning of a genocide, the SMH’s Ben Groundwater has a suggestion: book an Indigenous tourism experience. The travel writer says it could be in your area or elsewhere, now or in the future, with a sliding scale of cost. He suggests having a look at state tourism board or Discover Aboriginal Experiences to find something fun to do. It could be anything: “Go on a 4WD tour, stare at the stars, go fishing, walk around the city, spear mud crabs in the mangroves, explore caves, go birdwatching, learn about art, go snorkelling, listen to stories, go boating, paddle a kayak, swim in a waterhole, sit around a fire and watch the sunset and listen to the land.”

It’s extremely enjoyable, he says, but it goes beyond that. When January 26 rolls around each year he’s struck by the fact that he doesn’t know enough about the knowledge and lore of Australia, despite being an avid traveller. And if there’s one thing the failed Voice referendum made him think, it was that we need to listen more to First Nations folks, to really hear and understand their point of view. So — go meet someone, Groundwater says. Plus booking Indigenous travel experiences lets us pay the rent. Writing rather beautifully, he says it’s pointless to feel a heavy burden of guilt and shame while not taking action, however small. It would be much better to do what we can to give back to the land and the Traditional Owners, to bring us all closer. Sounds like something worth celebrating.

Hoping you can make a change, however small.

SAY WHAT?

It is abhorrent and incorrect that people would suggest that he has shown a lack of support for independent journalism and journalists. David Anderson has always been strong a supporter of the independence of the ABC and its journalists.

Ita Buttrose

Eyebrow-raising words from the ABC chair considering more than 100 ABC journalists including global affairs editor John Lyons and several former diverse staff including Stan Grant and Nour Haydar have unanimously declared there had been a lack of support from management.

CRIKEY RECAP

Even if the ABC wins Antoinette Lattouf’s case, it will still lose

MICHAEL BRADLEY

“What makes the amateurish incompetence unforgivable is the long history of fuck-ups that have preceded this. Its serial failures to defend its people from external abuse and ideological assaults (examples include Louise Milligan, Stan Grant and Sophie McNeill), its willingness to spend public money on defendable legal claims (Christian Porter, Andrew Laming, Bruce Lehrmann) …

“[Plus] the growing evidence of failure to protect employees from diverse backgrounds, and the obvious absence of a solid ethical or logical basis to how it enforces its staff social media policy — all have made it an easy target for criticism and ridicule.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Why has Belgium vowed to back the ICJ’s verdict on Gaza ‘genocide’? (Al Jazeera)

Oscar nominations 2024: The full list of nominees (BBC)

Chinese stocks have lost $6 trillion in 3 years. Here’s what you need to know (CNN)

Prime minister walks tightrope on Treaty of Waitangi issues (Stuff)

Wars and climate crisis keep Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds to midnight (The Guardian)

CIA tries to recruit double agents in Russia with new video (Reuters)

Germany’s top court rules far-right party’s ideology makes it ineligible for funding (euronews)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Shifting attitudes to Invasion Day give me hope — Ellen van Neerven (IndigenousX): “It feels like many were more outraged at supermarkets for stocking less merch than they were about rising prices of groceries and pressure on the cost of living. Is white Australia really that insecure about its national identity that it needs to cling to a flimsy Union Jack party hat that screams cheap and nasty? Tension about the celebration of this day is burdensome, especially as it makes people feel unsafe. However, it does hold a mirror up to a nation with the past rising to the surface. There are truths that no-one on this continent can fully ignore. Denialism is a choice.

“I spend the day in reflection, in protest, with family, and by myself. Sharing solidarity with other colonised people. Texting my friends and not reading the news. Sometimes I put on the tennis and sometimes I write. I can breathe better when the day is over. I can wash myself off from the dross and start the year … Perhaps we can shift more than just attitudes towards this date. Perhaps we are moving to something more significant. I still feel grief and anxiety on this day. A lot of us always will. But I also feel like we as mob are not holding it on our own and that the colonial fantasy world outside has been pierced by truth and lies on the hot ground like a deflated Australian flag floatie.”

As Morrison quits Parliament, his ‘legacy’ has little to recommend it — Frank Bongiorno (The Conversation): “And for that, we have all paid a price. Politics might look like a game if on your way up you’ve coasted from one bubble to another, one executive job to another, one ministry to another, one political ally to another, one policy to another, one suburb to another, one football code to another. But it’s no game if you are being pursued by Centrelink for a debt you don’t actually owe. It’s no game if your home has just burned down in a bushfire. And it’s no game if you can no longer sell your barley, wine or lobster to China because the government thought it a good idea to go front-running on a grand international inquiry into COVID-19.

“On the day of the 2022 election, Morrison tried another stunt — a public announcement that the government had intercepted a Sri Lankan asylum seeker boat. The news was then texted to mobile phones for the benefit of undecided voters. It was the political equivalent of a minor Bond villain’s last, desperate throw of the dice. It did the Coalition no good. But it was a reminder of what Morrison had never ceased to be: the marketing man who believed that, in the end, he had the punters’ measure.”

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• Journalist David Marr will speak about his new book, Killing For Country, in a webinar for the Australia Institute.