CAUGHT ON CAMERA

Footage of Victoria Police officers beating, verbally abusing, and physically humiliating a disability pensioner has been released after CCTV cameras caught the incident in late 2017.

The Age today reports that Melbourne disability pensioner “John” suffered baton blows, punches to his back, multiple capsicum sprays to the eyes, verbal taunts and a jet spray blast to his face after his psychologist made an emergency call to police, one of whom filmed parts of the incident on their smartphone.

COAL COALITION

A group of Coalition backbenchers are set to confront Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over energy policy this week and lobby for the construction of new coal-fired power stations.

The Australian ($) reports that a group of backbenchers calling themselves the “Monash Forum”, including Tony Abbott, Eric Abetz, Kevin ­Andrews, Craig Kelly and Nationals MP George Christensen, are pressuring Turnbull to include new coal stations in the proposed “technology-neutral” National Energy Guarantee.

For context: not only are Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions the highest on record, but new coal stations are now substantially more expensive than wind and solar power and, contrary to Kelly and Christensen’s claims today, modern grid technology means there are no technical barriers to sourcing reliable renewable energy. And there’s no such thing as clean coal.

OOH, HEAVENLY PALACE ON EARTH

The Chinese space station “Heavenly Palace” has plummeted to Earth over the South Pacific.

Citing Chinese state media and the Aerospace Corporation, the ABC reports that Heavenly Palace (AKA Tiangong-1) burned up on re-entry yesterday, after the Chinese government lost contact with the station in 2016.

THEY REALLY SAID THAT?

“The years of imprisonment hardened me … Perhaps if you have been given a moment to hold back and wait for the next blow, your emotions wouldn’t be blunted as they have been in my case. When it happens every day of your life, when that pain becomes a way of life, I no longer have the emotion of fear. There is no longer anything I can fear. There is nothing the government has not done to me. There isn’t any pain I haven’t known.”

— South African anti-apartheid activist Winnie Mandela, known as “mother of the nation” and ex-wife to the late Nelson Mandela, passed away overnight. She was 81.

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Wall Street nosedives on tech selloff, trade fears

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Melbourne/Sydney/Newcastle: Players from each of the A-league clubs hosting matches this week will join with researchers and clinicians to launch the Cure Brain Cancer Foundation’s “Kick it For Brain Cancer” fundraiser.

Perth: WA Transport Minister Rita Saffioti, Perth MLA John Carey and City of Vincent Mayor Emma Cole will announce a suite of grants to improve Perth’s bicycle network.

Sydney: Former deputy mayor Salim Mehajer could leave Silverwater jail today depending on paperwork and a $200,000 surety, after being granted bail last Thursday for charges relating to the alleged staging of a car crash last October.

Brisbane: Pre-inquest hearing into October 2016 Dreamworld deaths.

Sydney: Ai Group’s monthly Australian Performance Manufacturing index will be released.

Australia: Start of “Adopt A Greyhound” month will include discount adoption prices at select charities. 

THE COMMENTARIAT

The fundamental operating model of Australian politics is breaking down — Lachlan Harris and Andrew Charlton (Sydney Morning Herald): “Is there any Australian left who hasn’t complained, or at least rolled their eyes about the state of politics in Canberra? Most of us tend to blame the politicians for all this, but a new analysis of voter data suggests a less comfortable truth. The problem is not just them. It’s also us.”

South African anarchy around the corner if Cyril Ramaphosa fails to act soon — David Connolly (The Australian $): “South Africa has reached a fork in the road. When it emerged from the horrors of apartheid, it was fortunate to find in Nelson Mandela a unique leader and a man for his times, who led the African National Congress with its redistributive socialist agenda into government without losing the goodwill of most South ­Africans and the world. These days those early hopes have been replaced by the grim reality that South Africa, with its fractured economy, remains one of the world’s most unequal societies.”

CRIKEY QUICKIE: THE BEST OF THURSDAY

Crikey’s taxonomy of cricket takes: from the hot and spicy, to the vague and dicey — Bernard Keane: “When a major news event sets media keyboards clattering, it can look like a commentary free-for-all. But in fact, the punditariat follows a careful pattern. Australian cricket’s ball-tampering scandal has allowed us to identify the media’s taxonomy of takes.”

Razer: I believe Andrew Bolt is the first robot to pass the Turing Test — Helen Razer: “Say what you like about the work of Andrew Bolt, but there’s an awful lot of it about. Forget, for a moment, the product of the man’s labour and marvel only at his capacity to produce. We needn’t hold with the ABC view that Bolt ‘clearly has a great intellect’ to freely applaud his true genius: staying awake. We may think poorly of his regular columns, frequent radio broadcasts, daily television program or incessantly updated blog. But, what we may not legitimately do is call the guy a loafer.”

Poll Bludger: will 2019 herald the triumphant return of the two-party system? — William Bowe: “Facing an already fractious Senate crossbench splintered still further by the Section 44 turmoil, the Turnbull government finds itself in the depressingly familiar position of being unable to pass a cornerstone item of its legislative agenda.”

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