Craig Kelly
Former Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly (Image: AAP/Mick Tsikas)

Ita loses touch ABC chair Ita Buttrose’s comments that millennial workers lacked resilience and were always after a hug are causing a bit of a stink.

Given the context — a global pandemic, historic recession and collapsing media industry, all of which are hitting young workers the hardest — Buttrose’s brainfart seemed utterly out of touch. But the comments are particularly callous in light of the ABC’s recent record with young casual workers.

Last year, the ABC admitted it had been underpaying 2500 casual staff (generally young, early-career journalists) over six years. And as Inq reported many casual radio producers were doing unpaid shifts. By May, the ABC had back paid $12 million to casuals. That money will surely be wanted more than a hug. 

Don’t join the Kelly Gang Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly is a tangle of all the hard right’s obsessions — and he’s not always overly reliant on “science“or “facts” in putting those obsessions forward.

Recently, Kelly argued on his strikingly popular Facebook page: “A new peer-reviewed study Maher et al. (2020) suggests that following the recent global warming ‘slow down or hiatus’ we may experience a ‘global cooling trend during’ over the next decade.” Given the usual quality of his contributions, it’s good he’s at least citing a peer-reviewed paper, right?

Except he’s not. As the study’s lead author Nicola Maher points out: “Australian Liberal MP Craig Kelly, has been cherry-picking my research to further his climate denier agenda”. She’s taken to his comments section and he’s… telling her she’s misinterpreting the research she did?

If he feels any of this discredits her science — which again, he’s relying on to make a point — it hasn’t moved him to delete the original post.

Mad Katter’s party Yesterday was a busy day for Member for Kennedy Bob Katter.

First, he approvingly shared a Betoota Advocate article implying he was going to shoot quarantine hotel escapees. It reminded us of his 2016 election ad, dropped days after the Orlando nightclub shooting, where he murdered representatives of Labor and the LNP before turning to camera and giving the eeriest grin this side of It.

Katter then called for an inquiry into “Chinese Communist Party influence” at the University of Queensland (“Are we watching the re-colonisation of Australia?” he wondered aloud, helpfully). It was certainly appreciated by dicked-over former student, pro-Hong Kong activist, and, given the darkening timeline, probable future Outsiders co-host Drew Pavlou.

ABC’s planet This week the ABC launched Your Planet — a “new series of programs and resources to explore the urgent environmental challenges facing the planet”.

Only it wasn’t always called that. A tipster pointed out the series was originally titled Your Planet Matters, but was recently changed to avoid impressions Aunty was trying to usurp the Black Lives Matter moment. At the time of writing, that was still what appeared in Google.

An ABC spokesperson told Crikey they had considered a number of names, including Your Planet Matters, before deciding on Your Planet.

Kerry’s stoked A trove of emails obtained by WAtoday under freedom of information laws show billionaire Kerry Stokes used political connections to avoid isolating in hotel quarantine. A federal minister, senior public servants and Labor Premier Mark McGowan’s chief of staff had all taken time out of fighting the pandemic to give Stokes special treatment. 

It’s more evidence of Stokes’ sizeable influence — when he used the front page of his newspaper to demand Scott Morrison be nicer to China, McGowan had his back. And as we reported, thanks to his ownership of The West, Stokes virtually controls the media in WA.