May: we live in interesting times

TAKING AN INTEREST

It’s interest rate day folks, the much-dreaded day economists predict the cash rate will start to climb from its historic low level of 0.1%. And it might keep growing — every month until Christmas where it could hit 0.5%, The Daily Telegraph’s ($) Terry McCrann predicts. OK, let’s not get ahead of ourselves — what do we expect to see today? It’ll probably jump 15 points to 0.25%, economists from Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, NAB, Westpac, and Nomura say, as The Courier-Mail ($) reports. It’s the first time the cash rate has increased since 2010 — it’s actually been cut 18 times since. So why now? Mostly inflation — at 5.1% it’s much higher than the Reserve Bank might’ve thought, mostly down to Ukraine’s conflict and pandemic supply chain disruptions. In real terms — a cash rate of 0.25% means repayments on the average home loan of $790,000 would rise by $65 a month to $3350, which will be a blow for low- and middle-income earners for sure.

Speaking of — Prime Minister Scott Morrison has predictably rubbished Labor’s shared equity proposal that would see the government pitch in for part of your new house — but as a reminder that the internet is forever, an interview with Sky News has resurfaced where Morrison says — verbatim — shared equity mortgages are a really good opportunity. Morrison responded to the old clip by saying he meant private sector shared equity. Sure Jan. It seems millennials are abandoning the great Australian dream of homeownership in favour of investing anyway, news.com.au reports — about a million people have opened a CommSec trading account, and two-thirds are in that cohort. And perhaps it doesn’t come as a surprise for some — indeed finance podcaster Bryce Leske says one of his clients had more than $100,000 for a house deposit yet couldn’t get a loan.

[free_worm]

AN INCREASE IN ENERGY

Tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes has become the largest shareholder of AGL Energy just weeks after his takeover bid was declined, The Australian ($) reports. On Monday Cannon-Brookes got an 11.28% stake and immediately promised to stop a de-merger of the company that would see it become an ASX-listed retail company and a coal generator. The Atlassian co-founder says that would be madness — and spell doom for climate action.

It comes as one in 25 Australian homes will be uninsurable by 2030, a Climate Council report has found, with places in Queensland and Victorian to cop the worst of it. And it’s not just a future problem, Guardian Australia reports — up to 80% of homes are under-insured right now, meaning a bushfire or flood can see people lose everything. You can enter your address to see if your home is headed for an uninsurable future. It’s a grim reminder that doing nothing about climate change is going to cost us far, far more than taking action.

And three-quarters of Australians feel like they are doing their bit on climate action, according to a new poll in the SMH, but only 42% think the Coalition government is doing its part. It comes after Scott Morrison accused Labor of a “sneaky carbon tax”, a falsehood that was dismissed by economists and climate experts alike, the paper adds. Labor’s Climate spokesperson Chris Bowen pointed out that the safeguard mechanism (which Labor wants to tighten so companies will emit less) was actually established under a Coalition government, as The Conversation reports. So what is it? It’s just a rule for 200 big polluters to keep their emissions at historical levels. If they exceed that, they pay by buying carbon credits to offset it — just like that checkbox option you might’ve seen last time you were at Jetstar’s online checkout.

MORE CHOICE WORDS

To some local battlegrounds now — a new poll in the safe Victorian Liberal seat of Goldstein shows incumbent Liberal Tim Wilson and his independent challenger Zoe Daniel are neck and neck — tied at 33% for the primary, AFR reports. As it stands, this means Daniel will thrash Wilson on two-party preferences. Where she would lay her loyalty is not clear — her electorate’s voters are split between Labor and the Coalition if there’s a hung parliament. The Age actually spoke to a bunch of Goldstein voters to get the inside scoop and it’s a fascinating insight into the upheaval in blue-ribbon seats.

In Kooyong, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg scored a front-page story with his family in the Herald Sun’s Sunday edition, Crikey reports. The story, which is pointedly headlined “Why you need to vote for me”, includes a family album of Frydenberg and his kids, with a rather repetitious at times interview that declares his independent challenger Monique Ryan “strange”. It’s a pretty good get for the Frydenberg camp — Crikey continues that a single-page newspaper ad usually costs about $51,000. Frydenberg’s campaign will reportedly spend more than $2 million on his local campaign, including his new “Keep Josh” billboards launched last weekend, The New Daily notes.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

Nina, an elderly yiayia (the Greek word for grandma), was calling over her back fence in suburban Melbourne to the two young strapping guys living next door. She had a hot dish of homemade food — maybe it was meatballs packed with garlic and herbs, or a cheesy flaky pastry roll called maznik, or a complete plate of a Sunday roast’s finest, much to Daniel and Luke Mansuco’s delight. Her ongoing kindness and care moved the brothers to start an Instagram page called YiaYia Next Door, and a growing fanbase was quickly besotted with her. The Age’s Tom Cowie was buoyed by the tale and went to meet the boys to write a story. If fans were expecting a jaunty tale — perhaps “they’re too thin!” or something similarly grandmotherly — Cowie was met with something different.

The boys’ mother Teresa was tragically killed by their father in 2013. Yiayia called the police for help, and had taken Daniel and Luke under her wing ever since, with countless sumptuous dishes travelling over their shared fence. Daniel and Luke have continued their feel-good Instagram page, and just released a cookbook packed with Yiayia’s favourite recipes. Yiayia Nina’s identity has never been released — she doesn’t want the notoriety — and really, Cowie muses, “it doesn’t matter what she looks like because it encourages people to connect more deeply with the story. Yiayia could be anyone’s neighbour or grandmother and her instinctive kindness is a lesson for us all”.

Hope you’re kind to a stranger today, folks.

SAY WHAT?

It’s not our policy to have a referendum on the Voice, so why would I be doing that?

Scott Morrison

A Voice to Parliament would allow Indigenous Australians to give advice on policies that directly affect them — but don’t expect to see even a vote on whether it should exist under a Morrison government, the PM says. Don’t even mention a treaty, which would allow decision-making on policy. Incredibly, Australia is the only Commonwealth country to not recognise the Indigenous population in our constitution — unlike Canada, New Zealand, and the United States.

CRIKEY RECAP

Morrison serves up raw chicken curry — and that’s not a political metaphor

Imogen Champagne

May 02, 2022

36

“One thing we know for sure about Prime Minister Scott Morrison is that he loves to take photos of himself cooking curry and posting them to his social media. One thing we do not know for sure is whether the man actually cooks said curry, or if it’s all just a big publicity stunt. And Morrison’s Sunday night chicken korma post did absolutely nothing to clear this up …

“It’s not the first time Morrison’s curry nights have come under the spotlight. Last year he cooked a massaman curry, allegedly using two cans of coconut milk, one can of coconut cream and potatoes, yet somehow managed to produce a massaman sadly lacking in any creaminess or potatoes. And just last week his media team came under fire for seemingly, errr… slimming down the PM’s belly as he hovered over his colonial curry.”

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Frydenberg and Deves get the full News Corp treatment as Murdoch’s election bid turns desperate

Amber Schultz

May 02, 2022

44

“The article, peppered with Hallmark-esque photos of Frydenberg buttering toast and playing sport with his two kids, is labelled ‘full and frank’. Simon Holmes à Court, climate campaigner and backer of Frydenberg’s opponent, independent candidate Monique Ryan, is labelled “strange” by Frydenberg no fewer than four times, while infographics on the page compare how much parties have spent and the latest pledges. A poll asked readers who they thought would manage cost-of-living pressures better, with 84% voting Liberal.

“A softball interview is also the perfect way to get in Frydenberg’s good books should Morrison lose the election. Frydenberg is likely the next in line to lead the Liberal Party — aside from overseeing JobKeeper rorts, he’s generally controversy-free and popular. A three-page spread practically guarantees access to the potential leader.”

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Christian schools are running anti-trans Facebook election ads

Cam Wilson

May 02, 2022

15

“A group representing Australian Christian schools is targeting women across the country with Facebook advertisements calling on them to pressure their local candidates about trans women, including supporting embattled Liberal candidate Katherine Deves.

“ValuEd Voices is a campaign run by Christian Schools Alliance, a religious school lobby group that claims to represent 148 schools with 72,000 students nationwide. In the past, the campaign has focused on pushing for the unamended religious discrimination bill that would allow schools to expel LGBTIQA+ students or fire teachers, as well as for increasing independent school funding. But with neither issue at the forefront of the 2022 federal election, the campaign has pivoted to focusing on trans rights, despite it being seemingly outside the purview of an education-focused group.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Scorching weather forces India to face climate change head on (Al Jazeera)

Piles of garbage, no showers: What lockdown in China looks like (The New York Times)

Ukraine war: Hundreds trapped in Mariupol steelworks despite evacuations (BBC)

Spanish prime minister’s phone ‘targeted with Pegasus spyware’ (The Guardian)

Israel condemns Russian foreign minister’s Nazism remarks (Al Jazeera)

PM Jacinda Ardern’s message to President Joe Biden before US trip: Get on board with free trade (Stuff)

EU prepares ban on Russian oil (The Wall Street Journal) ($)

Ex-NYPD officer guilty of assaulting police officer at US Capitol riot (CNN)

Bangladesh shutters dozens of schools set up by Rohingya in camps (The New York Times)

‘Accessible, not speculative’: Barcelona housing co-op wins architecture award (The Guardian)

THE COMMENTARIAT

‘Independents’ want to override our democracy — Tim Wilson (The Australian) ($): “Despite claims that so-called independent candidates want you to find your voice at the ballot box, the real agenda is to shut it down. More than a decade ago, left-wing academic Clive Hamilton spoke about the frustration of climate activists who could not get their way at the ballot box. Hamilton said that following speeches on climate change, ‘invariably, during the question and answer session, someone would express frustration at the political process and ask whether the only answer is to suspend democracy’.

“Dismissing this idea, Hamilton rightly asked: ‘What would it mean? How could it happen? A military takeover? A government handing power to a panel of experts? It does not make sense.’ The party of candidates claiming to be independent has answered Hamilton’s questions. This was demonstrated most clearly in 2020 when chief independent and member for Warringah Zali Steggall proposed a bill to establish a climate commis­sion. The commission had many objectives, including developing economic and social plans for Australia informed by decisions of the UN, not Australians or their elected members of parlia­ment. But the worst part of the bill was it gave these unelected commissioners the power to veto the decision-making of elected members of parliament.”

The interest rate rise we had to have and how it will help — Jessica Irvine (The SMH): “In short, interest rate hikes work via four distinct ‘transmission channels’, of which the hit to mortgage-holder hip pockets is just one part. But as it’s the one most commonly reported on, let’s start there: the so-called ‘cash-flow channel’. Remember that roughly a third of Aussie households have mortgages. The other two thirds are roughly evenly split between renters and people who have paid their mortgage off. For households with a home loan — provided they’re not on loans with a fixed interest rate — higher interest costs eat a chunk out of their disposable income, defined as income left over after taxes and all living expenses.

“Such households are likely to cut back on other purchases, reducing spending in the economy, and taking pressure off prices. What about the remaining two thirds of households? Well, higher interest rates actually help households with cash savings — such as in term deposits — which can include renters aspiring to be first home buyers, but mostly comprise retirees. Higher interest rates boost the disposable incomes of such households. However, there are fewer of them, compared with borrowing households, so the Reserve Bank is confident the net effect of higher interest rates is to crimp households’ ability to spend.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Online

• Guardian Australia’s Katharine Murphy and Essential Media’s Pete Lewis will discuss the fortnight’s political news in a webinar for The Australia Institute.

• Barton Deakin’s Andrew Humpherson, Hawker Britton’s Simon Banks, and Roy Morgan Research’s Michele Levine will talk about polling, electorates to watch, and swing voters in a webinar held by CEDA.

Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)

• Author Liane Moriarty will discuss her new novel, Apples Never Fall, at The Capitol.

• Greens Leader Adam Bandt will be at a screening and discussion of ABC’s Big Deal, a documentary about democracy, held at Library at The Dock.

• Australian of the Year Dylan Alcott will give the keynote speech at The Actuaries Institute’s 2022 summit.