Dutton’s mad Rinehart dash

WAR AND PIECEMEAL

Taxpayers paid $5,931 for Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s staff and security to go to Australia’s richest woman Gina Rinehart’s birthday party in Perth, Guardian Australia reports, though he paid his own way. The AFR reported he flew from Canberra to Melbourne to Perth before returning to Melbourne that evening for the Dunkley by-election, with one source saying Dutton spent less than an hour at the party that included a “horseriding performance, multiple large cakes and onstage pyrotechnics”. The revealing freedom of information request showed flights the next day, so it appears that staff stayed the night.

Meanwhile, Dutton’s predecessor Scott Morrison announced an extra $50 million for the $500 million Australian War Memorial upgrade before a business case existed, the SMH reports. It was two months before the 2022 election, and one month before the War Memorial council agreed to formally seek the additional funds. The auditor-general also found Xact Project Management’s contract was increased to just $1 beneath the figure that would require the Veterans Affairs minister’s approval. Meanwhile, the Australian Electoral Commission has warned voters in Morrison’s old seat of Cook about “low participation” in Saturday’s by-election, the SMH reports, mere months after Morrison’s farewell dinner in his Sutherland Shire heartland had to be “postponed” because nobody wanted to go. It’s probably because Labor isn’t bothering with the seat, which has a 12.4% Liberal margin, but it’s funnier to imagine voters don’t care.

MUPPETS

Former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann’s karaoke song is Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You and it’s driving his new neighbours nuts, according to the SMH. They alleged he and his mates were everything from “inconsiderate human beings” who have “horrific parties”, to “complete ferals” who can be heard down the street screeching until dawn some nights. He moved out of his North Sydney ocean-view apartment last week following the end of Seven’s deal to cover the rent and into another place in the suburb that sold for $4.1 million in 2021 (meanwhile, Sydney rents have hit a record high, SMH says). The homeowner told the paper she was “appalled and upset”. We’ll learn of the verdict of his defamation trial against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson on Monday.

To another high-profile trial now — a court heard Giggle founder Sall Grover ran a two-year “public campaign” against trans woman Roxanne Tickle after the latter was kicked off the app in 2021. Tickle received just one email about her exclusion and sent eight others trying to find out more, which Grover claimed made her feel “harassed and intimidated”. The ABC reports that “offensive merchandise” was sold by a third party to raise money for Grover’s legal fees, and Grover’s silk Bridie Nolan misgendered Tickle repeatedly. From Sesame Street references to The Simpsons and Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan quoted Lisa Simpson in a since-deleted tweet about “choo-choo-choos[ing]” to introduce a regional fair cap that has saved commuters $50 million, the Herald Sun reports. “Are you 12?” one person asked (this reference first aired in 1993, a golden decade for the series, which makes the reference age-appropriate for the then-20-year-old Allan, but whatever. Discuss this with me at eelsworthy@crikey.com.au)

GRATIFYING

Productivity Commission chair Danielle Wood says Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s proposed subsidies for the green manufacturing sector would “take jobs and capital investments from elsewhere in the economy where they could generate higher value”. But that appears to be freely acknowledged in Albanese’s own first guiding principle: “Move beyond a ‘spray and pray’ approach where the priority is minimising government risk, rather than seeking to maximise national reward,” as The Australian ($) reports. It’s Wood’s first major intervention in government policy since being appointed after serving as the former Grattan Institute boss. Speaking of — international students will pay way more for their visa applications, AFR reports, though insiders say the May budgetary figure won’t be the $2,500 the Grattan Institute suggested. It said the government should channel the funds into a rental assistance program.

Meanwhile, Michelle Grattan herself spoke to Labor MP Josh Burns, who is Jewish and represents a large Jewish population in Melbourne’s Macnamara. He told The Conversation he desperately wants a peace agreement between Palestine and Israel, recalling how the conflict drove his WWII veteran grandfather from the latter country post-war. Right now, Burns said, it’s “probably the most difficult period that I can think of in my lifetime to be a Jewish person in Australia” and then spoke in admiration of Muslim ministers Ed Husic and Anne Aly. “I think it’s very important that we have a space where we can have these respectful dialogues and disagreement, which is okay,” he said. It comes as Israel’s Foreign Ministry has rejected the Australian special adviser, former Defence chief Mark Binskin, appointed to investigate the death of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom, according to Sky News Australia’s Sharri Markson.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

A smatter of late-night commuters stood on the Sydney train platform at a few minutes to midnight on Friday, avoiding eye contact with each other as rain pummelled down around them. Some may have been thinly disguising inebriation from some after-work drinks gone a little too long, others may have only just clocked off from restaurant jobs and were dreaming of the cold pizza in their fridge. Suddenly, a horse walked onto the Warwick Farm platform, peering up and down before cantering the length of it. Commuters stared. After all, what is one to do when one encounters a horse where a horse does not belong? Who among us can fashion a quick lasso from the fire hose and mount the wily beast? I can barely walk a confident dog, for Christ’s sake. The train pulled up, and the horse “regarded it,” as the SMH described, “not unlike a passenger”.

But then it took off. The horse was headed straight for a man in a blue shirt, whose eyes presumedly bulged out of his head like a Looney Tunes character before he sprinted out of the train station. Meanwhile, train drivers nearby were receiving the strangest radio message in a long time warning about a horse on the tracks. The cops turned up at the station with a man haltering and loading it into a truck to go home. It was super weird, Sydney Trains boss Matthew Longland told the paper, no doubt met by a nod of agreement by reporter Angus Dalton on the other end of the phone. Usually it’s cows we find on the train tracks, Longland added. Wait, what? He continued that we were lucky the horse didn’t try and board the train — indeed it stayed behind the yellow line the whole time. The unharmed horse was returned home to the neighhhhhbouring farm.

Hoping the smiles come easily today, and have a restful weekend.

SAY WHAT?

But separating Hamas and a Palestine state is, like, kind of separating the milk and the dark chocolate in the Cadbury Top Deck. I mean, it’s just about impossible, isn’t it?

Karl Stefanovic

It’s hard to think of a more cringe-worthy comparison than the Today host’s yesterday. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese quickly responded, “that’s not right, that’s not right”.

CRIKEY RECAP

As Facebook seeks legal immunity, Forrest’s lawsuits reveal deep challenges

ALICE DAWKINS

“Love him or loathe him, Dr Forrest’s dogged pursuit of a legal remedy from Facebook has exposed some alarming and inconvenient truths. Australians would be surprised to learn that social media companies operate with such an advantage and immunity — and, worse, that they can because of a US law that Australians are powerless to do anything about.

“If the Forrest litigation fails, Australians are staring down the reality of continued unchecked legal immunity for a serial online harm offender, one that cannot be compelled by current Australian law to fix the platform.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Vietnam tycoon Truong My Lan sentenced to death in $12.5bn fraud case (Al Jazeera)

OJ Simpson, NFL star acquitted in ‘trial of the century’, dies aged 76 (BBC)

Poland is debating an end to its near-total abortion ban, setting up a heated political fight (CNN)

Mexico calls on UN to expel Ecuador over embassy raid as tensions soar (The Guardian)

US airlines, unions urge Biden administration not to approve more China flights (Reuters)

Massive Russian strike knocks out major power plant in Kyiv region (euronews)

Global stockpile of cholera vaccine is gone as outbreaks spread (The New York Times) ($)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Albanese government can’t be accused of excessive caution any longer — Michelle Grattan (The Conversation): “Albanese is extremely comfortable with the interventionist pivot. After all, it takes him back to his political roots, when as a young left-winger he was critical of Labor’s embrace of the free market. It also taps into a broad Labor pro-manufacturing strand, partly but not only based in the union movement. Remember Kevin Rudd saying ‘I never want to be prime minister of a country that doesn’t make things anymore’? To a degree Albanese’s interventionism is driven by the acute needs of the energy transition — that requires a massive capital injection only realisable by tangible government encouragement (like its underwriting scheme and other incentives to come).

“Australia can’t compete with the US incentives but it will be trying a mini-me approach. Albanese’s interventionism will be reflected in the May 14 budget but it will also stretch right up to the election, gathering together a wide range of current and future initiatives under a ‘Future Made in Australia Act‘. The obvious question is: what does Treasurer Jim Chalmers think of this? Treasury has traditionally been a manufacturer of free-market Kool-Aid, selling it to its political bosses where it can. So you’d expect Chalmers might be sceptical. But the treasurer, while he might not be the interventionist zealot Albanese is, walks a separate path towards a similar destination.”

The BBC, Ofcom and now the British Museum — why do the Tories keep interfering in cultural appointments? — Charlotte Higgins (The Guardian): “Often these cases do not come to public light, taking the form of appointments subtly but fatally weakened. More than one person has told me that under Boris Johnson the social media accounts of candidates for positions on boards were raked through, with anti-Brexit positions seen as a red flag. In Johnson’s No. 10, the Tory fixer Dougie Smith and longtime Johnson adviser Munira Mirza were in charge of trying to ensure figures friendly to the government ended up in public positions — such was the deep paranoia about the supposed ‘cultural Marxism’ raging through museums and other organisations. Remainers, it seemed could not be trusted to leave their politics at the door — though figures such as Dacre and Moore could.

“Take Mary Beard. The government vetoed her as a trustee of the British Museum when her name was put to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (now the Department for Culture, Media and Sport) for sign-off in 2020. She had been through an appointments process, and indeed, it is hard to think of anyone better qualified for the role — but she had expressed pro-Europe views in public. Fortunately, out of the 25 seats on its board, five may be appointed without any reference to the government, so the trustees simply went ahead and appointed her themselves.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Online

• Writer Lech Blaine will talk about his new Quarterly Essay, Bad Cop: Peter Dutton’s Strongman Politics, in a webinar.

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

• Infrastructure Minister Catherine King will speak about federal government infrastructure priorities at the 2024 Infrastructure Conference.