Chalmers gets philosophical while Dutton goes after corporations

While the treasurer is talking about the 'fourth economy', Peter Dutton is living out the transition by attacking corporations for gouging consumers.

In case you were wondering, we’re living in Australia’s fourth economy — at least according to Treasurer Jim Chalmers.

In a speech titled “Patterns of Progress”, Chalmers argued yesterday that Australia had first a colonial economy, then an industrial one, then the open trading economy of Hawke and Keating. Now, after a wasted decade of Coalition rule, we’re in a fourth economy — of renewables, services, and AI (because it’s now compulsory for politicians to invoke AI). Chalmers added fragmentation, not so much because it fit with his neat 1940s/1980s/2020s schema but because it gave him an excuse to attack Peter Dutton as divisive.

Dutton, meanwhile, was in Queensland campaigning on the cost of living — and happily fielding questions about the Nationals going after Bunnings via a Senate inquiry into “big box retailers”, with accusations the hardware chain was price gouging. “Our role is not to ensure margins for big businesses, it’s to make sure that consumers are getting hardware items and grocery items at reasonable prices,” Dutton said. “We can’t have price gouging, particularly where you’ve got market concentration … we want a free market to operate effectively, and a free market is not where consumers are being ripped off.”

Well! That left the Financial Review apoplectic that Dutton was betraying the Liberal Party’s core values in one of the funniest editorials from the business tabloid in years — and one riddled with basic errors. “Clear fault lines in the relationship between big business and the party of free markets first appeared in July when Opposition Leader Peter Dutton backed the call by the neo-Marxist Greens and the agrarian socialist National Party for a divestiture power…” it ranted, before adding that not even Kamala Harris (presumably the AFR’s yardstick of Soviet-style command economy policy) wanted a divestiture power.

That might be because, erm, the United States has had a divestiture power for well over a century, chaps.

And the “fault lines” between big business and the Dutton-era Liberals were obvious on the first day of Dutton’s leadership when he said “I think the Liberal Party in recent years has become quite estranged from big business and I want to focus on small business.” It’s taken the AFR this long to work out that Dutton — who hails from the Queensland LNP, not the NSW Liberals like the past five Coalition leaders — is happy to go after large corporations (except on industrial relations, where he still toes the employer line).

The AFR blames Dutton’s antipathy to big business on big business itself — they’ve been too mouthy on culture war issues like the Voice referendum and too quiet on demanding a return of WorkChoices and company tax cuts. “Look what you’ve made him do,” is the AFR’s resentful lament. But Dutton’s antipathy is more reflective of a transition that began during the Coalition’s years in office, and which complicates Chalmers’ “fourth economy” argument.

Certainly, the Coalition’s three terms were wasted in terms of the transition to renewables. But the dramatic enlargement of Australia’s health and caring sectors Chalmers touched on in his speech was the product of expanded funding under the Coalition for health care, child care and home care for seniors, and the runaway expenditure on the NDIS that marked the Morrison government. If Chalmers believes ageing and services are a characteristic of the “fourth economy”, that began under Malcolm Turnbull and continued under Morrison — the health and social care workforce consisted of around 1.5 million people when Tony Abbott was dumped; it was over 2 million when Morrison was defeated.

The other transition was the political outbreak of resistance to neoliberalism, led by the right, initially centred on free trade and open borders. Hostility to open borders helped propel Brexit and Donald Trump in 2016, with Trump going on to embrace protectionism for US manufacturing — all of it a reaction not merely to globalism but perceptions of an economic system stacked against ordinary people.

The reaction was slower to set in here because Australia has a stronger safety net and derives a large proportion of national income from exports to China. But again it was the Coalition that did it with a permanent increase to the size of government to well above 26% of GDP under Morrison, a level only previously seen briefly at the height of the Rudd government’s stimulus package. Under Labor, that larger role of government will be driven not only by continuing investments in health and caring, but also by an embrace of manufacturing — less damaging than Trump’s but every bit as illogical — courtesy of the Future Made in Australia program.

If there’s a fourth economy in place, it’s not quite as straightforward as Chalmers suggests. It’s an economy in recovery mode from three decades of neoliberalism, with both sides of politics no longer content to keep government on the sidelines while free markets and large corporations do what they like. It’s an economy that is, and will be for decades yet, characterised by constant growth in the health and caring workforce — a workforce that will depend heavily on immigration because Australia, like other Western economies and China, is going to start running out of workers, shifting bargaining power away from employers, who until recently have enjoyed a three-decade long increase in power under neoliberalism. And despite the transition to renewables, it’s going to be an economy routinely affected by the higher costs inflicted by the climate emergency, which won’t be halted while governments like Chalmers’ are devoted to expanding fossil fuel exports.

If Hawke and Keating indeed ushered in Australia’s third economy, attesting to the role individual politicians can play in major transformations, the fourth economy is one that will proceed driven by demography, climate and the seething discontent neoliberalism generated. Individual politicians like Dutton — or Trump — will try to exploit that discontent with tribalism and racism, but in the end it’s not about individual politicians.

Is Dutton right to go after price-gouging corporations? Should Labor follow suit? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.

‘Kicking the can down the road’: Qantas pilots criticise Labor’s aviation white paper

It's clear the Wily Old Roo still holds an iron grip on Canberra.

The Albanese government’s long-gestating aviation white paper, finally delivered on Monday, is a disappointing win for the Qantas-Virgin duopoly and a slap in the face for airline passengers.

That’s despite positive headlines, presumably won due to the government leaking the document to mainstream media. Take this from Guardian Australia: “New Australian aviation ombudsman could force airlines to pay cash compensation for delayed flights.”

Note: could. The Albanese government’s document, ominously subtitled “Towards 2050”, is big on promises and possibilities, but falls short on substance and any immediate action to improve competition and the sagging customer experience.

The upside is government recognition, finally, that one of the nation’s most concentrated sectors — Qantas and Virgin control more than 90% of the domestic market — is under-regulated. The paper outlines that the Aviation Customer Advocate, the toothless industry self-regulator funded and run by the airlines, will be replaced by an Aviation Industry Ombuds Scheme and Customer Rights Charter. Both are yet to be finalised and detailed — and won’t be until at least 2026.

Qantas and Virgin had agreed to support an ombuds scheme, at least conditionally, knowing that increased oversight was unavoidable. Crucially, this means they have dodged an automatic passenger compensation scheme for cancellations, delays and lost luggage, such as exists in the EU and was recently legislated in the US. The new ombuds scheme will instead “resolve disputes” between airlines and customers — and we all know it’ll be taxpayers who will pay for costs.

“Why do we have to wait further for what the compensation will be? This just means Qantas will run interference. Wasn’t the point of the white paper to come up with the compensation, not kick the can down the road?” one Qantas pilot told Crikey.

The aviation white paper also promises that the government will “take further steps to improve competition to support better customer outcomes”. Yet it only offers previously announced initiatives and a future Productivity Commission inquiry into the economic regulation of airports.

The paper also fails to substantially address the structural concerns plaguing the aviation industry, such as the lack of pilots and aircraft maintenance engineers. There are plenty of platitudes, but beyond “policy settings” there is no financial commitment to the growing problem.

Airline engineers told Crikey that understaffing was an ongoing issue and that it was partially due to a lack of trained staff, a result of former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce winding down the airline’s previous apprentice scheme.

“In the absence of Qantas or Virgin having to train pilots and engineers, why doesn’t the government invest in programs?” another pilot said.

Qantas’ FY24 result, due Thursday, is forecast to show billions in revenue, highlighting how the government-backed company is still being run for shareholders and executives, not customers or staff. The Qantas share price popped up a handy 1% to $6.34 on the white paper’s release.

The fact that customer service issues won’t be addressed for several years — and with no guarantee that any ombudspeople will be properly resourced or have sufficient teeth — shows that the Wily Old Roo still holds an iron grip on Canberra.

Meanwhile, Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson has been quietly cleaning house, announcing to staff last week that two senior figures of Alan Joyce’s inner circle — general counsel Andrew Finch and head of sustainability Andrew Parker — will leave the company.

Finch was the company’s top legal officer during its industrial-scale, illegal sacking of 1,700 ground staff during COVID, as well as during the company selling tickets on cancelled “ghost” flights, which resulted in a fine and remuneration agreement costing the airline around $120 million. Qantas is facing a class action lawsuit launched last week over subsidiary Jetstar’s refusal to offer cash refunds.

The Federal Court is still mulling the compensation Qantas will pay its illegally sacked staff. Yet thanks to the glacially moving Transport Minister Catherine King, it will be some years before the airline, or any other airline in Australia, will be forced to automatically refund customers inconvenienced by cancellations and delays.

Another pilot noted to Crikey that it’s a government white paper of which Yes Minister’s Sir Humphrey Appleby would be very proud. “Whether its promised path to better consumer protection pans out, well, we shall have to keep waiting.”

Should Australian airlines be forced to compensate customers affected by cancellations and delays? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.

Qantas will have to end era of neglect of passengers with a disability

For decades Australians with disabilities have endured poor treatment from airlines like Qantas. Will new regulations change that?

If you think airlines treat their passengers badly, try being a passenger with a disability. Bad experiences are routine for travellers with a disability; according to the aviation white paper released today, “people with disability have been left stranded in airports without wheelchairs, have been denied boarding because of their assistance requirements and have been subject to dangerous or humiliating treatment during air travel.”

So pervasive is the shabby treatment of travellers with disabilities that the head of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability Ronald Sackville wrote to airlines and airports early last year about airline and airport failures, including “damage to wheelchairs not rectified by airlines, being dropped on the floor because the hoist that accommodates wheelchairs is not used correctly, limited access to safe ramps and discrimination against people who rely on assistance dogs”.

Most travellers with disabilities use Qantas, and one survey shows a majority of respondents say their travel experience is “poor” or “very poor”. Sackville’s letter didn’t stop damage to mobility equipment by Qantas, or the airline humiliating wheelchair users or forcing them to pay business class airfares in order to travel — although some people with disabilities say Jetstar makes them feel even worse. For an airline that says it proudly sponsors Australia’s paralympians, the constant poor experiences Qantas inflicts on Australians with disabilities is contemptible.

For years, the problem has been a lack of meaningful requirements for airlines to provide services to passengers with disabilities, including allowing airlines to adopt what was effectively a two wheelchair policy, which limited disabled passenger access to flights. The federal government is proposing to bring that era to an end with aviation-specific standards as a schedule to the transport disability standards.

The new standards, to be drafted by the government in consultation with people with a disability, will require airlines and airports to give equal access to people with disabilities and specifically require greater coordination between airports and airlines so that passengers with disabilities have a more seamless service from the moment they arrive at the airport (and don’t have to face a blame game between airline and airport over damage or loss).

The standards will require airlines to set up “assistance profiles” listing accessibility requirements for passengers that can be used to book travel and automatically upload safety information about issues like assistance animals and wheelchair battery specifications. Labor is also proposing to review airline policies with an eye to prohibiting “two wheelchair policies”. It will also lift the amount of compensation passengers can obtain from domestic airlines when wheelchairs are damaged.

Policing the new standards will be one of the tasks of the new Aviation Ombudsman, which is the centrepiece of the white paper and which will replace the industry-funded and toothless “Airline Consumer Advocate”. The ombudsman will draft an Aviation Customer Rights Charter that will cover “what the ombudsperson considers to be reasonable conduct by airlines and airports, giving customers greater clarity and confidence about what they are entitled to when services are not provided as expected. The charter will set out expectations including minimum customer service levels and the prompt payment of refunds, across all fare types, when flights are cancelled or significantly delayed.”

Airlines will also have to report the reasons for delays and cancellations as part of greater reporting and transparency around delay and cancellation rates.

Whether the scheme is strong enough to deliver better on-time performance — there’s evidence from Europe that forcing airlines to pay compensation for long delays leads to better performance — will be a key test. But for travellers with a disability, more basic performance will be a key metric for the new aviation consumer regime.

Are you a person with a disability who has had a negative experience flying with an Australian airline? Let us know your experience by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.

Nine text messages that reveal how the Bruce Lehrmann saga unfolded in the media

Crikey brings you the story behind the story.

Last week, as part of Senator Linda Reynolds’ defamation action against her former staffer Brittany Higgins, hundreds of texts were tendered between news.com.au political editor Samantha Maiden and David Sharaz, now Higgins’ husband. They detailed some of the discussions that would lead to one of the most consequential political stories of the past decade after Higgins went public with her allegations that she was raped by fellow Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann at Parliament House.

This tranche of texts is just the latest release of material across more than a dozen court cases and inquiries into the matter. Together they have collectively revealed reams of private correspondence, including more than 1,000 text messages offering unprecedented insight into how the media operates. In nine texts, here is the story behind the stories.

January 11, 2021: ‘She’s going to come out with a story, and it’s going to be tough and it’s also going to be big’

In January 2021, David Sharaz, a former journalist, texts news.com.au political editor Samantha Maiden, telling her Higgins is going to “come out with a story” that will be “big” and that Higgins has decided Maiden is “going to be the person she gives it to”.

The pair are in regular contact in the coming months as the story and its repercussions develop.

On January 29, just over two weeks before the story’s release, Sharaz asks, “Do you think this will make a splash or will it be one story and no follow up. Is it worth her doing this?” He adds, “Ultimately … she just wants it to not happen again”.

Maiden insists the story will have an impact. Later, after the story has broken, Sharaz complains that the Prime Minister’s Office media team “undermined a rape victim” and “got away with it”, which Maiden rejects (“we’ve had this discussion before but they didn’t get away with anything”). Sharaz also claims to “know for a fact [the government] outsourced bots” to attack him. Maiden remains sceptical.

Maiden also tells Sharaz to avoid giving the impression that he’s pushing Higgins to go public too early, or acting as her “agent”.

Sharaz replies: “I’m not her agent. I’m her partner. I’m in a weird space about leaving her alone and not letting her feel she’s gotta do it all. But I’ve never been in this situation before and I don’t want to fuck it up”.

January 20, 2021: ‘I have an explosive political story for Sunday Project’

In parallel to Sharaz’s texts with Maiden, Higgins and Sharaz are discussing the story with Channel Ten’s show The Project. Sharaz had emailed Project host Lisa Wilkinson with detailed allegations under the subject line: “everything you need to know”.

On January 20, Wilkinson texts producer Angus Llewellyn, then on holiday, that she has a story concerning an “extraordinary coverup involving Linda Reynolds, Michaelia Cash and the PMO”.

From January 26, Llewellyn starts exchanging texts with Sharaz. On January 28, the day before Sharaz’s exchange with Maiden around whether he ought to “step back”, Sharaz tells Llewellyn “on background” that Maiden was “trying to convince Britt to let her drop her story next week”.

February 15, 2021: ‘Any [gossip] on who the Canberra rape guy is?’

News.com.au breaks the story of Higgins’ allegations on Monday, February 15, 2021. The Project interview with Higgins airs that night. Neither identify Bruce Lehrmann.

Throughout the day, text messages circulate among Lehrmann and his colleagues as to who the accused could be. Former Liberal Party media adviser/”dirt unit” veteran John Macgowan texts Lehrmann asking if he has any gossip on “who the Canberra rape guy is”. Lehrmann says he does not and that “no one has approached me”.

As the night winds on, Lehrmann texts “They wouldn’t name would they?” and “Pretty slanderous” to Macgowan.

April 2021: ‘They know little detail. But, much better that they break it than News Limited’

In April — the same month Lehrmann is interviewed by police regarding the alleged assault — text messages are exchanged between Lisa Wilkinson’s husband Peter FitzSimons, Higgins and Sharaz regarding contact FitzSimons had received from a Nine reporter about the size of an advance Higgins was to receive for a memoir.

“They clearly have a source from one of the publishers that didn’t get over the line,” FitzSimons wrote. “They know little detail. But, much better that they break it than News Limited. It won’t have a negative spin.”

The frequency over the following years that Higgins’ texts, often with Wilkinson and FitzSimons, find their way into the media becomes a topic of great interest to those watching the trial.

Later, a picture of a screen that features Higgins’ personal correspondence is made public, on which a reflection can be seen that bears a striking resemblance to then producer at the Seven Network, Mark Llewellyn.

October 21, 2022: ‘Bruce wants to do one big exclusive sit down interview at the end of this’

In October 2022, Lehrmann and Macgowan meet with Taylor Auerbach, then a producer with Seven. Following the meeting, Auerbach texts Spotlight’s supervising producer Steve Jackson.

On October 23, Auerbach texts Jackson to say that he had “just been on the piss with Bruce Lerhmann” and “I’ve got the yarn”.

This is followed by a more detailed rundown that appears to be the text of an email that Auerbach has sent to Mark Llewellyn, saying “we’ve got the yarn if we can agree on terms I believe!” He adds that Lehrmann has had several approaches already, including “some print journo” who said, “‘I can’t offer you money but I can offer you integrity!'”. Auerbach says, “don’t worry, they weren’t impressed by this, and in any case I said what I needed to say”.

The next day Auerbach tells Jackson that “Sam Maiden just called me” about “trying to do a story about TV interest in [Lehrmann]” and the possibility of paying to interview him. “I just played dumb,” Auerbach says.

In November 2023, it was revealed that Seven paid Lehrmann’s rent for a year to help secure the interview. In early December, the Walkley nomination the interview received was revoked.

A few days after fielding the inquiries from Maiden, Auerbach texts Jackson again, saying Macgowan has asked to meet and asks if he can “buy a few rounds of alcohol on the card?”

“Yes. Within reason,” Jackson replies.

November, 2022: ‘Can you refund credit card and I give you cash’

Early on November 26, 2022, Taylor Auerbach emails his bosses and attempts to resign: “Last night, in a drunken daze, I put thousands of dollars of charges on a corporate credit card for nothing that had to do with work.”

His resignation is not accepted. Jackson texts Auerbach a screen capture of Google translate and the phrase “can you please cancel credit card charges from Friday night. I pay you cash instead” translated into Thai script.

After Auerbach sends Jackson a screen capture confirming that he has sent this phrase and a list of transactions to an unspecified number, Jackson texts “I reckon you might survive”.

In April 2024, Auerbach would tell the Federal Court that the texts concerned a two-day “bender”, during which he claimed to have spent $10,000 on Thai massages and over which he had tried to resign.

The credit charges were made without the knowledge or consent of Llewellyn, Jackson or the Seven Network.

January 5, 2023: “He’s on the warpath again”

On January 5, 2023, Auerbach texts Jackson: “He’s on the warpath again” and “This is fucked”. Asked for clarification, Auerbach texts “Let’s just say, it was no anomaly”.

July, 2023: ‘are you free for lunch on Friday?’

In October 2022, Bruce Lehrmann’s trial for the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins collapsed over juror misconduct, and prosecutors stated that pursuing a retrial would pose an “unacceptable risk” to Higgins’ health.

Following comments from then ACT director of public prosecutions Shane Drumgold SC that he had been pressured by police offers to not prosecute Lehrmann during the trial, there is a flurry of inquiries over the matter.

First an inquiry headed by former solicitor-general of Queensland Walter Sofronoff makes “several findings of misconduct” against Drumgold. In turn, Drumgold launches legal action, which yields yet more insight into the meshing of power and journalism with the release of Sofronoff’s extensive communication with The Australian’s Janet Albrechtsen.

Over the course of his inquiry into the handling of Higgins case, Sofronoff racked up 273 interactions with Albrechtsen including 51 phone calls — out of a total of 65 he made to all media — text messages, emails and a private lunch meeting in Brisbane.

This leads ACT Supreme Court Judge Stephen Kaye to conclude that Sofronoff could be reasonably seen to have had his findings influenced by Albrechtsen.

August 2024: ‘MESSAGE DELETED’

Linda Reynolds is now suing Brittany Higgins for defamation. Under questioning from Higgins’ lawyer, Reynolds concedes she had deleted text messages she had exchanged with Lehrmann’s barrister during the rape trial. She tells the court this was a matter of “cyber hygiene“.

The same day, Reynolds is asked why she had leaked confidential personal documents regarding Higgins to Janet Albrechtsen and only Albrechtsen. Reynolds said she chose Albrechtsen because she had “respect for her professionalism and her even-handedness”.

Correction: A previous version of this piece said that Lehrmann and Macgowan first met with Auerbach in October 2021. This has been corrected to reflect that the meeting took place in October 2022.

‘This protest is now a public funeral’: Disability ‘sicko’ activists picket Shorten’s office over NDIS

'I can’t go on doing this. I can’t fill out any more forms. I can’t keep having to prove that I’m sick, that I need help.'

Disability rights activists operating under the title of the Sicko Liberation Organisation picketed outside the office of NDIS Minister Bill Shorten last Thursday. 

“Ritalin has the mic right now,” said the organiser, leading a small huddle of aggrieved protesters who felt blindsided by Labor’s recent reforms to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). 

After nearly 100 amendments, the final law will change how NDIS participants receive plan budgets, with many services altered or removed. The NDIS head will also have more power to prevent top-up payments on a participant’s budget. People with Disability Australia president Marayke Jonkers has said the changes would limit access to necessary support.

The organiser of the protest outside Shorten’s office ran the crowd of 40 or so people through some prickly chants:

ALBO, WONG,
SHORTEN TOO
WHEN SICKOS RISE UP 
WATCHA GONNA DO?

THE MEEK WON’T INHERIT
WE’RE TAKING WHAT WE NEED
OVERTHROW LABOR
END AUSTERITY.

“We are disabled, dying and protesting in bed,” said an organiser. Another speaker relayed their experiences in group homes, the “unending trials and tribulations” of navigating the NDIS, and the overwhelming sense of betrayal and abandonment.

“Disabled activists and their allies have gathered at Shorten’s office today to protest the outcomes from the disability royal commission and the dire living circumstances of the disabled community in so-called Australia,” an organiser said.

The protesters’ demands were clear: Labor must accept and implement all recommendations of the disability royal commission, including amending the Fair Work and Disability Discrimination Acts, and provide intensive support for First Nations disabled people and disabled people experiencing houselessness, family violence and other forms of marginalisation. 

Pre-recorded speeches played over the loudspeakers. One detailed the horrors of being lost in the system, of misdiagnosis and expense, homelessness and hardship, of a life spent slipping between cracks that were then themselves paved over. 

“I want to die,” one person said. A nod of familiarity rippled through the crowd.

Soon after, news came through that Parliament had passed Labor’s NDIS bill. The organiser announced this to boos and jeers, stating, “This protest is now a public funeral for what little the NDIS gave us as of five minutes ago.” 

A small group took the ironically wheelchair-unfriendly elevator to Shorten’s office’s door, where they sat reading their demands and ringing the doorbell. 

It was a bleakly comical scene when 10 or so huge police officers spilled out of the tiny lift to loom menacingly over a frail person with a degenerative muscle disorder and a wheelchair-bound person waving a sign. The police handed out move-on orders and herded the little contingent back into the lift and outside the building. 

Masked and anonymous, these “sickos” were just that: the disabled, the chronically ill, the undiagnosed and untreatable. They sat in wheelchairs, walked on crutches, and leaned on their canes. They fatigued quickly, and the energy they were expending just being there would come at a high cost.

“I’m going to have to spend the next two-to-three days in bed,” one laughed, “but that tells you just how pissed off I am.” 

Back on the street, protesters made links between Labor’s ongoing support for Israel and the party’s disregard for the disabled community. “Genocide and disability injustice go hand in hand,” a speaker said. 

“I just… can’t see a future for myself,” one protester said between chants. “I can’t go on doing this. I can’t fill out any more forms. I can’t keep having to prove that I’m sick, that I need help.”

“I am an educated, employed, healthy woman in her 30s who should be thriving,” said a woman in a pre-recorded speech. “Instead, I am spending most my days caring for my sick and dying mother, with little to no help or support from a government that promised to help me.”

“The money is laughable,” someone said. “My landlord just raised my rent for the second time in six months. I’m already skipping meals. I’m so hungry, so tired. I just don’t know what’s next.” 

The protesters’ growing sense that they’d been left to fend for themselves had been what brought the Sicko Liberation Organisation about to begin with. This overlooked community had come together at real personal cost to have their voice heard by a minister who dictates not only the course of their lives but their very ability to live. 

The continuity between this government and the last with regards to the disabled community is indifference. The general sense among those who participated in or simply paid attention to the royal commission was that their often painful testimonies were ultimately ignored. 

They are now beyond demanding to be heard. What they want — what they desperately need — is radical reform of a system that can’t help but radicalise those who tangle with it. Groups like the Sicko Liberation Organisation are the inevitable result of exclusion and deprivation. 

“Cripples are expensive,” an organiser told me. “They see us as a bad investment. At the end of the day, we just need more money,” they sighed as a nearby busker began playing “Pennies from Heaven”.

“We think we’re worth it, even if they don’t.”

‘Very hush-hush’: Three large stingrays die at Melbourne Sea Life due to unknown cause

One aquarium staff member told Crikey the whole incident had been kept quiet, which the aquarium denies.

Two eagle stingrays and one guitarfish have died suddenly at Melbourne’s Sea Life Aquarium, an incident that one staff member alleges the aquarium is keen to keep from the public.

According to internal emails and messaging seen by Crikey, the animals died between August 8 and 15. The aquarium employee confirmed the deceased animals were the three large rays and that aquarists had not yet been able to discover the reason behind the deaths.

Crikey understands the animals were the only large rays owned by the aquarium, with other smaller stingrays alive and in good health on a different floor of the facility. The rays’ deaths have resulted in the closure of the aquarium’s “Night on the Reef” exhibit, which also displays the facility’s larger sharks.

The staff member said that the whole incident had been very “hush-hush”.

“Staff have been instructed to tell people who ask why the oceanarium is emptier to just say some of the animals ‘need extra love and care’,” the source said, adding this was established verbally during a morning staff briefing. 

A Sea Life Melbourne spokesperson only confirmed the death of the guitarfish to Crikey but didn’t deny the other two deaths were the two large eagle rays, only that a “small number of creatures” had recently died. They categorically denied the staff member’s claim about misleading the public, saying the aquarium “strongly refutes any suggestion that staff were asked to mislead guests”.

“The passing of creatures is not always announced as it is a deeply sensitive and upsetting time for the teams, who remain focused on supporting those animals we continue to care for,” the spokesperson said.

“Staff at the aquarium have been kept informed throughout this difficult period and have supported us in ensuring that we sensitively communicate information to guests and the wider public.”

Sea Life is run by UK company Merlin Entertainments, which runs 45 different Sea Life aquariums worldwide. Sea Life facilities overseas have come under scrutiny in the past for “disturbing” mortality rates and for providing poor conditions for captive animals.

“[The rays] were initially exhibiting odd behaviour,” the source claimed. “They were then removed from the oceanarium for observation, and after that was when they passed away.”

An exhibit closure notice sign set out at the aquarium’s front of house reads: “A few of our animals require some extra care, so our Night on the Reef exhibit — home to our larger sharks and sting rays — is currently closed. To reflect these closures, we are offering discounted tickets.”

“Being asked to not refer to anything medical and specifically say that animals need ‘extra love and care’ rather than the reality that they’ve passed … is still misleading at the end of the day. It’s suggestive that the animals will be back when they won’t be,” the source said.

“It definitely does suck to have to say [this] to people’s faces over and over.”

Interest rate cuts coming for the US. Will Australia’s RBA finally see the light?

Suddenly the inflation hawks who have previously written about how the Fed lifting rates 'puts pressure' on the RBA to do the same are nowhere to be seen.

With US Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell flagging an interest rate cut — just in time to turbocharge Kamala Harris’ surging campaign against Donald Trump — the Reserve Bank of Australia is looking very lonely in its stolid insistence that it could lift interest rates yet again.

The Bank of England has cut rates, the European Central Bank has cut rates, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (which has clobbered the Kiwi economy into a deep malaise, with annual growth of just 0.2%) has cut rates, while the People’s Bank of China has cut rates twice this year. Rate cuts have come from other central banks in Canada, Denmark, Hungary, Switzerland, Sweden, Chile, Brazil and Czech Republic.

Suddenly the inflation hawks who have previously written about how the Fed lifting rates “puts pressure” on the RBA to do the same are nowhere to be seen.

On Friday at the Kansas City Fed’s annual Jackson Hole conference, Powell was, for a central banker, blunt: “The time has come for policy to adjust. The direction of travel is clear, and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks … My confidence has grown that inflation is on a sustainable path back to 2%.”

“There is good reason to think that the economy will get back to 2% inflation while maintaining a strong labour market,” he said — the ideal outcome from a Democrat Party point of view.

Powell then added something that you would be very unlikely to hear from RBA governor Michele Bullock: he didn’t “seek or welcome further cooling in [the] labour market.”

There are three remaining Fed meetings this year across September, November and December, and a flood of economists, analysts and commentators are tipping rate cuts in at least two of the three.

The incoming data Powell referred to includes the coming second estimate of June quarter GDP (any lowering of the initial result of an annual 2.8% will probably bring forward a rate cut). Friday brings the Personal Consumption Expenditure spending, income and price data, which the Fed favours as providing a more accurate core price index. There’ll also be a headline inflation data for August right before the September meeting.

But the August jobs data released on September 6 will be the most telling figure. The Fed is worried about the rise in the unemployment rate from 4.1% to 4.3% in June and the sharp fall in the number of new jobs in July (to 114,000 and well under the most recent average of around 174,000).

If there’s another low figure for August and a steady or higher jobless rate, then a rate cut of 0.5% is on the cards.

But no matter the figures, the Fed has effectively left the RBA marooned, with Bullock and the board having talked themselves into a corner and unable to respond to an economy barely ticking over without worrying about their reputations as inflation fighters. Luckily, our jobs market looks to be stronger than America’s, with strong job creation and continuing record participation — no thanks to the RBA.

Does the RBA need to change its tune on interest rates? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.

Dutton ‘most divisive leader in history’: Chalmers

The treasurer has spectacularly attacked the opposition leader, calling him 'pathologically' divisive, and new research highlights how much gambling addicts turn to crime to fund their habit.

CHALMERS RIPS INTO DUTTON

Treasurer Jim Chalmers used a speech to flesh out his vision for Australia’s “fourth economy” — and to rip into Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, who he described as “the most divisive leader of a major political party in Australia’s modern history — and not by accident, by choice”.

“He divides deliberately, almost pathologically,” Chalmers said of Dutton in his 2024 John Curtin Oration. “This is worse than disappointing, it is dangerous.”

The Australian labels the treasurer Anthony Albanese’s “offence minister” in a headline this morning, calling it a “politically charged speech” where Chalmers “launched an extraordinary assault on the opposition leader’s readiness to lead the country”.

So what about that fourth economy? As Capital Brief explains, it’s a concept Chalmers has mentioned previously and an extension of ex-Labor prime minister Paul Keating’s idea of the country’s three past economies.

“The first was colonial, the second industrial and the third, which Keating presided over, was centred on opening up the economy, dismantling tariffs and introducing reform. The new fourth vision includes AI, an ageing population and the transition to renewable energy,” the outlet writes.

Meanwhile, the Coalition has launched an economic agenda of its own, vowing to save almost $100 billion by cutting Labor spending programs as part of what it calls a “back to basics” inflation-fighting move, The Australian reports.

GAMBLING’S CRIME LINK

Australia’s “love affair with gambling” causes problems for the entire community as people with betting addictions turn to crime to fund their habits, a researcher told The Sydney Morning Herald.

The lead author of a new paper by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre says a “substantial” link between crime and gambling has been found. The research claims cutting gambling expenditure by just 10% would result in 4,579 fewer assaults, 4,247 fewer break and enters, 1,398 fewer car thefts, 2,361 fewer stealing from motor vehicle offences, and 3,793 fewer frauds each year.

“We’ve known for a long time that problem gamblers cause all sorts of problems to themselves and their families,’’ researcher Don Weatherburn said. ‘‘What we didn’t know is the big picture — like how much extra antisocial behaviour does an increase in gambling expenditure cause across a whole community, and this study provides that answer.’’

In other gambling news, Channel 10 has been slapped with a warning by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) for breaching rules that say gambling ads must not be shown during live coverage of a sporting event between 5am and 8.30pm. The broadcaster showed 17 unique gambling ads during two soccer matches on October 14 last year.

“These rules are in place to minimise potential harm caused by gambling promotional content,” ACMA member Carolyn Lidgerwood told Guardian Australia. 

And in even more gambling news, Crown Resorts chief executive Ciarán Carruthers has announced he will leave the business by the end of the year after steering it “through a period of significant transformation and remediation” following a turbulent time during which the casino chain was “found to have facilitated money laundering and organised crime”, The Australian reports.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE…

Yesterday we told you about Maria Branyas Morera, who was the world’s oldest living person when she died earlier this month in Spain, aged 117 years. Her passing meant the title was inherited by Japanese woman Tomiko Itooka, 116.

Today, let us introduce you to the world’s oldest living man: UK 112-year-old John Alfred Tinniswood, who celebrated his birthday on Monday. He attributes his longevity to sheer good luck, according to The Guardian: “You either live long or you live short, and you can’t do much about it.”

Say What?

It’s the contrast. Four men talking about business, then four women come in, dolled up and scantily clad. What is the role of women at this company?

Unnamed Seven employee

Seven has had a rocky time recently, facing questions about its company culture. Earlier this month, some explosive revelations in a Four Corners episode heaped additional pressure on the broadcaster’s leadership. So staff were surprised when they were treated to a dance number by four women dressed as “sexy Santas” during a town hall-style meeting, which made one staffer feel like they were back in the 1980s (and not in a good way), The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

CRIKEY RECAP

Is Labor’s shellacking in the NT a warning of things to come?

WILLIAM BOWE

With nothing in the way of opinion polling to herald it, the scale of Labor’s defeat in the Northern Territory on Saturday came as a surprise — including, it seems, to the party itself, which did not engage in the expectations management customary for parties that can see the writing on the wall.

Labor can be confident of holding only five seats in the 25-member Parliament, with incoming Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro all but assured of leading a Country Liberal Party contingent of 16.

In a sign of the times for Labor, it had to reckon with the double whammy of a highly effective CLP campaign focused almost entirely on law and order, and a backlash over gas developments and local planning that could give the Greens their first-ever seat in the territory, with a further seat lost to a progressive independent.

Rennick paves the way for cooker and conspiracy theory face-off with One Nation

BERNARD KEANE

Gerard Rennick, the Queensland LNP anti-abortion and pro-Putin senator who was dumped from the party’s Senate ticket last year, has defected to the crossbench, with plans to launch his People First Party at the next election.

In contrast to the defection from Labor of WA Senator Fatima Payman, which saw extensive backgrounding of the media by the government and tens of thousands of words written demonising an invented threat of Muslim sectarianism, the defection of a middle-aged white guy from the LNP has caused barely a ripple of interest among political journalists. Not, of course, that there are any double standards in the treatment of Muslim women in politics.

Where Rennick has gone further than Payman is in committing to establish a new party, though mainly because he wants to be reelected — he wants “to get my name above the line on the Senate ticket”. In response to a query on Twitter, he appeared to be open to the idea of joining One Nation, though “Malcolm [Roberts] is already on their ticket“. He told Nine newspapers he wanted to focus on “bread and butter issues”, but an examination of Rennick’s tweets shows what he’s really interested in: conspiracy theories.

Kim Williams’ ABC is moving on from bland stability — and that’s a good thing

CHRISTOPHER WARREN

Under chair Kim Williams, the ABC looks to be charging back into the centre of news content creation — “content” being defined as a never-ending supply of articles and commentary about the ABC and its internal machinations.

And not before time. For all the self-interested chatter about gambling advertisements and oligarch-owned television, the rejuvenation of “our” ABC should be recognised as the big media policy challenge of the moment.

The broadcaster’s pivot to “stability” in 2019, with the appointment of ABC-lifer David Anderson as managing director and Scott Morrison’s captain’s pick of Ita Buttrose as board chair, has been a disaster: increasingly bland, uncontroversial, lightweight and in a permanent defensive crouch, with only the occasional flash of traditional brilliance to remind us of how important the organisation can be.

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Five key takeaways from Nasrallah’s speech after Hezbollah-Israel attacks (Al Jazeera)

Desperation and anger in Bangladesh city as residents blame powerful neighbour for flood disaster (CNN)

Is this thing on? Harris and Trump battle over hot mics at debate (Politico)

Matthew Perry’s death reveals Hollywood’s ketamine ‘Wild West’ (BBC)

Ghana presidential contenders promise to ease hardship as campaign ramps up (Reuters)

No evidence that Maduro won, a top Venezuelan election official says (The New York Times) ($)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Don’t believe Trump’s politicking about Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal — Daniel R. DePetris (Los Angeles Times): Three years ago, the US military was at Kabul’s international airport frantically organising evacuation flights out of Afghanistan as the Taliban returned to power in the capital city after a 20-year hiatus. The evacuation mission was rushed, with overwhelmed US forces working to get as many Afghans out of the country as possible.

The Biden administration received significant criticism both during and after the evacuation. Former national security advisor John Bolton said the Taliban would again provide a safe haven and support to Al-Qaeda as it planned attacks against the United States. Retired general David Petraeus, a one-time commander of US forces in Afghanistan, stated that the withdrawal damaged America’s credibility around the world.

In the three years since, none of these doomsday predictions have come to pass. Nonetheless, the weeks-long evacuation remains fodder for the campaign trail; former president Trump constantly reminds rallygoers of the “Afghanistan catastrophe,” hoping to use the chaotic withdrawal as a referendum on the Biden-Harris administration’s foreign policies.

We need to pay politicians a lot more if we want better behaviour — Peter Stahel (InDaily): Federal Parliament is currently discussing reforms to force politicians to behave better, including penalties like fines and suspension. While these reforms will be welcomed by the public — especially given most of us would be immediately fired for the kind of behaviour we see regularly in Parliament — they are little more than a fig leaf.

The root causes are structural, workforce development and governance issues. They can’t be fixed with a new HR handbook and a complaint process. So, while better rules and processes are a good idea, unfortunately, they won’t be enough. This is because — by and large — the quality of talent, intellect, and leadership in politics is so abysmally low.

Think back to the worst job you’ve ever had. Most of us have at least one horror story to tell, maybe involving a toxic boss, unclear responsibilities and accountability, unrealistic expectations or even just unbearable insecurity. Now, imagine a job that combines all of that. This is the life of an MP.

ALP’s Pyrrhic victory may yet lose it the war — Simon Benson (The Australian) ($): The political debate over inflation and who is now to blame is poised to explode on Wednesday when the monthly CPI data comes out. This will be a critical moment in the cost of living contest between the Albanese government and the Coalition. It will establish more acutely than ever the wildly different economic approaches on offer and who can command the narrative.

For the first time, the billions of dollars in energy rebates rolled out by the federal and at least two state governments will begin to flush through the system. As a result, economists are forecasting the headline inflation number to drop significantly for the first time in 2½ years.

If this happens, Jim Chalmers will have got his Christmas wish early. He will claim a considerable victory. Yet it will also expose Labor’s tactical approach to the problem. Anthony Albanese and the treasurer are trying to buy relief from inflation by indirectly funnelling money into people’s pockets.