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

Conspiracy theorist Gerard Rennick will be up against conspiracy theorist Malcolm Roberts for a Senate spot in 2025. Which man will come out on top?

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.

Rather than detailing which conspiracy theories Rennick believes in, it’s probably quicker to identify which ones he doesn’t. He’s a long-term conspiracy theorist on COVID vaccines and the origins of COVID, with the Health Department, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Therapeutic Goods Authority, the CIA, Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci and the Democratic Party all involved in the planning of the virus and cover-up of the lethality of vaccines. He believes the climate emergency is fake, created by the Bureau of Meteorology (helped by the CSIRO).

He thinks foreign bankers are running Australia (the polite form of the traditional “financial power” trope), he holds a complicated conspiracy theory about the Reserve Bank failing to hold our gold reserves onshore (what is it with conspiracy theorists and gold?); he worries about a cover-up of creeping ownership of land by “Aborigines” or “Aboriginals“; in line with the need for conspiracy theorists to always warn that the apocalypse is just around the corner, Rennick believes the West is “slipping into military style dictatorship” while Anthony Albanese is a “globalist puppet” of Gates (on the up side, Rennick worries Black Caviar was abused in retirement).

In short, Rennick is a standard-issue cooker who can’t stay away from conspiracy theories for more than a couple of tweets. The problem for Rennick is indeed Malcolm Roberts: Roberts, who is in the Senate courtesy of Pauline Hanson, shares many of the conspiracy theories of Rennick, and has been around longer, having entered the Senate in 2016 before being turfed out over his citizenship. As a result, Roberts has greater name recognition than Rennick, and of course the Hanson factor, and is up for reelection in 2025 as well.

The chances of there being two Senate spots for a cooker candidate are — even though it’s Queensland — probably slim. Erstwhile One Nation senator Fraser Anning failed to get back into the Senate in 2019 when he was up against Roberts for the far-right vote, after the latter had sorted out his citizenship.

Of course, something might happen to Roberts between now and the election. But until then its Rennick versus Roberts, two fairly interchangeable Queensland blokes going head to head for the conspiracy theory vote. How soon before one accuses the other of being part of a sinister globalist-Gates-CIA-RBA-BOM-ABS-“Aborigine” conspiracy to pull the wool over the eyes of the sheeple?

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

Labor can be confident of holding only five seats in the territory's 25-member Parliament. But what does the defeat mean for the party's prospects elsewhere?

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.

This comes just three months after the Northern Territory News reported Labor insiders as being “buoyed by the party’s improved fortunes” since Eva Lawler succeeded Natasha Fyles as chief minister in December.

That Lawler herself faced a serious challenge in her own seat was well understood, but she would surely have hoped for better than the 65-35 drubbing she copped in Drysdale in the face of a 21% two-party swing — especially in the context of the territory’s pocket-sized electorates, where local popularity stands incumbents in particularly good stead.

Lawler can at least take consolation in the fact that the swing was in line with the Darwin and Palmerston average, such that the parliamentary party now stands to be dominated by Indigenous members for Indigenous majority seats.

While the federal implications of state and territory election results are apt to be overestimated, the downside surprise will do nothing for the morale of an already jittery Labor partyroom in Canberra.

Such feelings will be exacerbated by the fact that the blow was concentrated in the most demographically representative areas of suburban Darwin.

Even the encouragement federal Labor might draw from its relatively strong performance in the bush, with its implications for the 1% margin it must defend in the corresponding federal seat of Lingiari, comes with a qualification attached.

Labor’s unexpectedly close shave in Lingiari in 2022 was driven by a decline in turnout in remote areas, with the remote mobile teams that service them accounting for only 11,527 votes compared with 17,217 in 2019.

Labor has pointed the finger at funding cuts by the previous government that included the axing of staff in the Australian Electoral Commission’s Northern Territory offices.

However, the data from Saturday suggests a deeper problem, with the number of votes received by mobile teams falling from 11,936 in 2020 to 10,900.

This was down still further on the 12,324 remote mobile team votes from the Indigenous Voice referendum last October, which was itself reflective of a low turnout that No campaigners seized upon to dispute that the 73% Yes vote amounted to a mandate among remote communities.

Federal Labor at least can take comfort in the now well-established pattern of voters turning against whichever party is in power federally at state and territory elections.

But for the next state Labor regime to face the polls — that of Steven Miles in Queensland — the portents appear unmistakable.

Just like Eva Lawler, Miles will face the voters less than a year after assuming leadership of a party that has been dominant since the turn of the millennium, but now stands to carry the can for mounting public concern over crime.

Together with dire polling throughout this year, Saturday’s result reinforces perceptions that a heavy defeat for Queensland Labor on October 26 is all but inevitable — perhaps to the extent that Miles should not be taking for granted the 11.3% margin in his own seat in the northern Brisbane mortgage belt.

Anderson’s exit can be a reset at the ABC. It must start with Radio National

Radio National should be the centre of national culture, not drifting in the margins. Guy Rundle has some ideas on how to set things right at the station.

Your correspondent was at ABC Southbank in Melbourne the afternoon the board met there to edge out managing director Jonathan Shier. It was the early 2000s, and Shier, an Australian who’d been a jobbing UK TV exec, had been appointed by the board led by Donald McDonald, a friend of John Howard’s in the world of culture. 

Many alleged Shier was hired to de-leftify the ABC. Most observers understood that to be his role, except perhaps Shier, who took on a grand reorganisation of program-making and commissioning, whose signal achievement was that both of those activities ceased almost immediately and the ABC ended up playing Fawlty Towers reruns on Friday night.

As this wound on, it became clear many believed Shier could not administer an organisation of the ABC’s size. Stalwarts in the Howard government insisted, Shanghai ’67 style, that he should be supported. As chaos multiplied, McDonald eventually decided this could not continue and convened the board. That afternoon, half of ABC News Melbourne was outside Southbank filming their colleagues coming in and out. 

It was a great afternoon. At the time, I was there making a low-budget game show called Is It A Spatula? I walked through the building’s Logan’s Run-style open corridors that hung off the atrium, and McDonald came out of the meeting and walked past. I have never seen anyone outside of a just-occurred car crash look more like they were staggering out of a just-occurred car crash. I think his grey, haunted face had less to do with Shier’s sacking, a bit of global TV dandruff, than the horror at what he had got the ABC into by agreeing to Shier’s hiring in the first place. 

No-one is suggesting outgoing managing director David Anderson was anything like Shier as a supremo. I just wanted to tell that anecdote. But Anderson’s departure does offer an opportunity to reorder priorities. Might get better. Might get worse. My particular attention is to whether Radio National, a sinking vessel that should be a flagship, will get new life. Chairman Kim Williams has affirmed his belief in RN, which is a relief, because previous administrations have wanted it to drink bleach and die. 

The strong belief within radio was that the ABC was preparing to take RN online — and given its low numbers, you would have to mount a strong defence to avoid this. Quite unlike BBC Radio 4, which Williams namechecked, RN simply does not have a place at the centre of the national culture. 

There are reasonable excuses for that. The BBC has the license fee, a massive budget revenue item, which allows it to do stuff the ABC couldn’t contemplate. Decades ago, it split “The Third Program” (i.e. station) into BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4, the former playing a lot of classical and art music and very intellectual discussion programs. 

No-one expects Radio 3 to rate well. Radio 4 was thus free to have comedy, drama serials and plenty of light entertainment, as well as news and commentary. The flagship is the three-hour Today show, a massive beast that both sets the agenda and grills politicians and leaders in a way that RN Breakfast simply does not. 

With Today setting the pace, Radio Four then rolls out an early morning ideas program — “This is Melvyn Bragg with In Our Time. This week, we’re discussing the janissaries of the Seleucid Empire, the last ancients or first moderns? Next week: stuff. Why is there so much of it? Where can we put it?” — the Woman’s Hour (reinvented about eight times over seven decades), mid-day commentary, a radio play either gripping or ghastly, specific topic programs on economics, nature, books, etc, the PM program (rather more focussed than ours, spending 15 of its 55 minutes on a lead topic), the news and a satirical or panel comedy show.

Then there’s The Archers — a 75-year-old, 15-minute rural soap that you can drop listening to for two years and effortlessly pick up the plot on your return — as well as “Oh farmer Jim sold the spatula” arts, comedy, a global news show called The World Tonight, and, best of all, The Shipping Forecast, a detailed weather report for marine areas around the UK that doubles as a sort of randomiser/life advice program (“Cromerty, clear later, North Uitserre, an early storm losing its identity in the afternoon.” As do we all…).

The point is that this is “whole of station” programming. It is designed so you can just listen to the station burble on, shifting its approach as things get too shameish, taking you places. The second is that such programming has many entry points. People coming for the comedy will stay for the news; those tuning in to Today will carry on through; those who tune in to the plays will get the treatment they require. 

RN could do some basic things to apply this dual model, even if it doesn’s have anything like the Beeb’s cash. The first would be to put a goddamn clickable schedule right at the top of the website so one can directly click through to The Philosopher’s Zone: What Is A Spatula? or whatever. 

The second is to then commission the different types of topic-based shows that crowd the schedule. Radio 4 has a show called The Reunion, which is a bit like ABC TV’s I Was Actually There, but whose mix of topics is much broader and inadvertently hilarious in the listing (“The 1989 FA championship/The 1986 IRA Brighton bombing/A Flock of Seagulls…”, etc). Once again, entry points. Not always serious or portentous. 

The third thing is to mix them with more comedy, drama and entertainment. RN, at the moment, is through the day, simply one long series of these topic-based discussion programs, of little interest to those who don’t want to think about religion, politics, society, etc. The tone is too much the same, implicitly sociological, a progressive class observation of life as it occurs. There are exceptions, and it’s notable these are headed by people with experience in multiple types and “brow” levels of media. 

The relative absence of comedy and entertainment is often based on the excuse that it’s too expensive. That is nonsense, especially for radio. The thing to do is to hire performer-writers. Both the MEAA and Writer’s Guild agreements have provisions for an all-in buy of such talent; you don’t have to pay people twice. A six-part, 15-minute episode comedy series about two people trapped in a lift would involve two comedians who can improvise and write, a producer and a sound effects tape. You can record the whole thing in two days of studio time. My guess is many A-list comedians would work for scale (i.e. the basic rate) just to have a chance to do something like that — something with a bit of shelf life. 

Panel shows? Slim ’em down from the BBC model of a chair and four panellists to three participants, make them 20 minutes, get a studio audience in and record four in a day. These could all be branded and budded off as podcasts, but the point is to try and get back the sense of radio flow, that the station is showing you, as the gun comedy writer Rob Caldwell once put it, “stuff you will like but didn’t necessarily know you wanted”. That’s the essence of broadcasting. 

But above all, in doing these and other things, RN and the ABC have got to lose the attitude: this pervasive sense that floats through the whole organisation like gas, that you have to improve people — or, conversely, that when you’re not doing that, you’re doing absolutely low-rent deliberately trashy formless chaos. 

Let’s leave aside examples of the latter and take the former, notably the case of I Was Actually There (a strange, redundant title, like “I really love you”; we all know what that means). The show has some constraints, in terms of footage it can access and afford, but the selection of the material combined ra-ra progressive events such as the Woomera break-out and Nicky Winmar’s stand against racism, plus disasters. These are presented from the progressive point of view, which simply “others” those constructed by it. 

Could we not have had, as well, a momentous AFL Grand Final — the players, the coaches, the spectators — simply there because it was an exceptional and staggering afternoon of football, and the preparations leading up to it? Or the creation of the Melbourne Comedy Festival, which would allow for jokes, anecdotes, etc. Something about events that were significant to a mass of people simply as part of the texture of life, without an issue attached?

The very centre of this attitude problem is RN Breakfast, which appears to have shed more than half of its listeners since the departure of Fran Kelly. As a listener/switcher-offer, I can say why: under whoever was responsible for the composition of the show under Kelly, and now under Patricia Karvelas, it has gone from what feels like a well-rounded show, in its textures and interests, to a scratchy insistent version of student radio 1979 (the vocal stylings of Warwick Hadfield aside, always). 

AM is the same. Both show a lack of interest in standard and mainstream social and political issues, in favour of a relentless advancement of the politics of minority and marginal interests and groups. Such groups do deserve time and attention beyond their number. But in these and other shows, there’s a crowding out of mainstream coverage. To complicate matters, there are also a couple of right-wing news cells who do packages for AM that are just IPA talking points. 

With work, and not much more money, Radio National could have vastly more reach and a sense of public connection and ownership. Its recession to asterisk status is entirely perverse. A pre-existing radio station should be a seedbed for podcasts as ancillary products, for low-cost conceptual piloting of potential TV and much more. What Is a Spatula? wouldn’t work, but a new concept game show, It Sounds Like a Kettle Being Hit With a Knife. Is It, In Fact, a Kettle Being Hit With a Knife?, might have a run.

Without change, Radio National will drift the corridors, ghostly and haunting, before being exorcised altogether.

Do you still listen to Radio National? Why, or why not? 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.

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

The past few years at the ABC have been a disaster: bland, uncontroversial, lightweight and in a permanent defensive crouch. Can the national broadcaster turn things around.

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.

The core asset of the ABC is “trust”, yet that’s precisely where it’s been sliding. The 2024 Reuters Digital News Report shows a 10 percentage point slide under the Anderson-Buttrose team, from 74% to 64% in just five years.

The result is a depleted, diminished and inward-looking broadcaster — even according to Kim Williams himself, with the chair speaking in a Q&A this month with Kerrie O’Brien at the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival.

The loss of trust is partly the result of the relentless attacks from News Corp and its political allies (and the failure of the stability pact to resist it), but also reflects the slide in public trust in all media, as well as the unhappiness among usual ABC supporters at losing what they value most in the broadcaster.

Now, what a banger of a yarn we’ve got in the first big story of the Williams era: the shock-not-shock departure of Anderson as managing director — the first ABC insider in half a century to get the gig, gone just a year since he was confidentially and controversially reappointed to a second five-year contract at the end of the Buttrose term.

The ABC’s enduring critic, The Australian, captured the moment: “With ABC managing director David Anderson gone, new chairman Kim Williams is now free to call the shots”.

Anderson’s departure should have been no surprise for long-term ABC watchers. Since the Hawke government’s administrative restructuring changed the “C” in the broadcaster’s acronym from “commission” to “corporation”, only one out of eight managing directors have survived two full terms.

Only two of the rest even made it as far as their second term, and depending on the weight you give to internal gossip, at least three (and maybe as many as six) were encouraged out the door early by the board and its chair.

Why so unstable? It’s the incentive structure: the MD appointment is the one significant opportunity the ABC’s board gets to nudge the notoriously change-resistant ABC into a different direction — or to even encourage it in its current direction a little quicker. And board appointments are, in turn, the one way governments can attempt to shape the ABC.

That’s why both go looking for “change agents” from outside the organisation (and why newly appointed chairs are so often eager to move on the MD they inherit). Expect the new MD to be a change agent with what management-speak would call  “strategic alignment” with the chair.

A change is gonna come. But just what change should we expect?

There’s one tip in past performance: expect content to be prioritised over the traditional distribution platforms (aka “radio” and “television”). That was Williams’ instinct when briefly in charge of the Murdoch family’s Australian interests a bit over a decade ago. Then his proposed content verticals (like sport or food) were found too challenging for the powerful masthead bosses.

There are a few clues, too, in what Williams has been saying while out and about talking with journalists (like the SMH/Age on the weekend or the AFR last week) and, bravely for an ABC representative, at this month’s writers’ festival at Byron Bay.

According to the Williams reset, radio — or “audio”, as we apparently should now think of it — needs to be distinctly different to what else is on offer. Local radio? It’s in “a rebuild stage” after a decade of neglect, Wlliams says.

Radio National is in decline with about 1.5% of the national audience. Rather, Williams says, it should “be at the beating heart of what the ABC does”, like the intellectually dominant Radio Four is for the BBC, with one in six of the British audience listening in.

On news and current affairs, he’s given the obligatory nod to impartiality. He notes that too much of current affairs and news brings a bland “tabloid sensibility”. Hopefully, that means fewer car crashes clogging up the 7pm news.

Even in its weakened state, the ABC has been shaping culture and breaking news. Time to stop hiding the work it does behind the safe veneer of stability.

What do you want from the ABC? What parts of its output do you value, and what parts should be given the flick? 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.

Introducing our readers’ editor, your new pen pal at Crikey

In a tough time for Australian news publishers, we're doubling down on what makes Crikey special: our community of readers.

You might have noticed Crikey advertising a new role a couple of months ago. After a few weeks getting settled in with the team, it’s finally time to introduce myself: Hi, I’m Crystal, your new readers’ editor. Here’s what you can expect from me. 

The readers’ editor is a unique role and, transparently, an experimental one. It’s no secret the news industry is facing challenges on all fronts: battles against AI, the tug-of-war between tech giants and the government, declining public trust. At a time when many media companies are contracting, Crikey is doubling down on investment in what has been our point-of-difference from day one: our readers.

So this gig has two goals: make Crikey the most exciting news community to be a part of, and make it bigger. 

Crikey readers are perhaps the most passionate and deeply engaged news audience in the country. So as readers’ editor I’ll be finding ways to bring the unique perspectives and lively debates of our audience into the pages of Crikey. Our comment sections and letters inbox are filled with gems that make the team laugh out loud or think a little harder, but we shouldn’t be the only ones who get to see them — they deserve to be showcased for others to enjoy too.

I’ll also be working to help introduce Crikey’s journalism to new audiences. As has been shared in previous “Crikey Insider” instalments, running a predominantly reader-funded publication keeps our hands clean of the influence of big business, and means our growth relies on finding more people who believe in the work that we do — enough to contribute to it financially.

All of this means I’m fortunate enough to have one of the few roles in digital news where we get to experiment. There are so many avenues to expand the reach, impact and engagement with Crikey’s journalism. How does the brand show up on TikTok? What would a Crikey podcast sound like? Where can reporters share the tidbits that didn’t make it into a story, but are interesting nonetheless?

Those aren’t promises — maybe we’ll do some of it, maybe none at all — but the kinds of questions I’ll be trying to answer in this new job. So if you see us trying new things on digital platforms, changes to the website, or a new email in your inbox, that’s why!

Of course, feedback is essential to the success of the readers’ editor position. This role will represent the voice of the reader in our internal meetings to make sure your wants and needs are heard. If you send an email to letters@crikey.com.au, know that it’s me reading your thoughts on the other side.

As a rule, Crikey subscribers are a plugged-in and knowledgeable cohort that always have something to say. This year we’ve published reader submissions from a migration agent, a playwright and a regional supermarket owner, just to name a few.

I want to hear from all kinds of readers in the Crikey audience, but I do have one special request: If you’re a subscriber who has never written in before, I want to hear from you. If you’re reading this but have never left a comment on the site, send me an email. Tell me what you love about our work, what bugs you, why you subscribe or something new you’d like to see us try.

That’s all for now. But you’ll be hearing from me again (and I hope to be hearing from you) very soon.

China’s economy is no longer booming. How will that impact Australia?

The falling price of new homes in many Chinese cities is worth watching.

Australia gets moved this way and that by the currents of the global economy like a little cork in a big ocean. When it comes to those tides, nothing has a bigger influence than the economy of China, where recent news is concerned. With each new revelation, I move closer to the edge of my seat.

Iron ore

You probably noticed iron ore prices dropped so much this week that the treasurer had to come out and confess prices were going to blow a hole in the federal budget. But the iron ore price has actually been falling for a while now. As the next chart shows, it’s at a level well below where it was at the time of the last budget.

China needs a lot less iron ore now because it is building far fewer homes. The great skyscraper boom is coming to an end. The cranes are standing still and growing moss.

The Chinese housing market began its crash in 2021 when the company Evergrande began to collapse. The crash has been a curious affair. We are used to these things happening in the West, where market forces tend to have their way with house prices and developers. Then banks wobble and at that point market forces reach their limit and governments step in. China’s decline has been a more carefully managed affair with less visible contagion. 

Steel

China is so oversupplied with steel that it is exporting huge volumes. No longer are its smelters feeding its railways and car factories and skylines — instead, they’re creating gluts in global markets.

The price of spot steel has fallen to its lowest in about seven years. It is a great time to be making things out of steel, like cars, but a terrible time to be making the product itself.

House prices

The newest development on this list is that China has decided to deflate the price of new homes. New homes were price-controlled in most Chinese cities, but those controls are being relaxed in many places. This helps reverse a strange and crazy situation where second-hand homes were trading at a market price while new homes were not, creating a massive price gap.

Why now? China is opaque and hard to interpret. There are two possibilities: one, the government thinks things are sufficiently under control to make dropping house prices safe now, or two, things are reaching breaking point behind the scenes and the only way to solve them is to finally move a bit of housing stock, even if that causes problems.

Either way, the falling price of new homes in a range of Chinese cities is worth watching.

Rotten tails

Australia is not only at the mercy of China’s economic currents but also its geopolitical tides. China’s domestic situation is usually extremely solid, pinned together by a relentless surveillance state. But that has held things together while the economy was soaring. The current situation is a bit less impressive.

Indeed the big demographic phenomenon in China is the “rotten tails generation”; a cohort who have graduated into the least optimistic Chinese economic conditions in a long time. 

“The jobless rate for the roughly 100 million Chinese youth aged 16-24 crept above 20% for the first time in April last year. When it hit an all-time high of 21.3% in June 2023, officials abruptly suspended the data series to reassess how numbers were compiled,” says Reuters in a new report on China’s generational economic divide. 

In China, the big geopolitical question is if and when it might go after Taiwan. With the elevation of President Xi to president for life, some of the usual checks on ambitious political manoeuvres have been reduced. The 71-year-old Xi may aspire to reunite China and Taiwan before he gets too old. 

Exactly if and when he takes action is the big question mark. But were domestic instability to arise in the next couple of years, well, he wouldn’t be the first major leader to use a big “national security” push to distract attention and unite the country. And if that happens, our economic worries will suddenly become background concerns. 

40°C in August? Why is Australia so ridiculously hot right now?

This year Australia is facing exceptional winter warmth. The culprit is our persistent inaction on climate change.

It’s winter in Australia, but as you’ve probably noticed, the weather is unusually warm. The top temperatures over large parts of the country this weekend were well above average for this time of year.

The outback town of Oodnadatta in South Australia recorded 38.5°C on Friday and 39.4°C on Saturday — about 16°C above average. Both days were well above the state’s previous winter temperature record. In large parts of Australia, the heat is expected to persist into the coming week.

Another hot day through central parts of Australia saw more winter temp records broken on Saturday. A warm Sat night also led to some overnight minimum temps breaking August records. Temps will remain above average across much of Aus next week.
Latest: https://t.co/4W35o8iFmh pic.twitter.com/9Luh3CCfwq

— Bureau of Meteorology, Australia (@BOM_au) August 25, 2024

A high-pressure system is bringing this unusual heat — and it’s hanging around. So temperature records have already fallen and may continue to be broken for some towns in the next few days.

It’s no secret the world is warming. In fact 2024 is shaping up to be the hottest year on record. Climate change is upon us. Historical averages are becoming just that: a thing of the past.

That’s why this winter heat is concerning. The warming trend will continue for at least as long as we keep burning fossil fuels and polluting the atmosphere. Remember, this is only August. The heatwaves of spring and summer are only going to be hotter.

Records broken across Australia

The Bureau of Meteorology was expecting many records to be broken over the weekend across several states. On Thursday, bureau meteorologist Angus Hines described:

A scorching end to winter, with widespread heat around the country in coming days, including the chance of winter records across multiple states for maximum temperature.

The amount of heat plunging into central Australia was particularly unusual, Hines said.

On Friday, temperatures across northern South Australia and southern parts of the Northern Territory were as much as 15°C above average.

Temperatures continued to soar across northern parts of Western Australia over the weekend, with over 40°C recorded at Fitzroy Crossing on Sunday. It has been 2–12°C above average from Townsville all the way down to Melbourne for several days in a row.

Bear in mind, it’s only August. As Hines said, the fire weather season hasn’t yet hit most of Australia, but the current conditions — hot, dry and sometimes windy — are bringing moderate to high fire danger across Australia. It may also bring dusty conditions to central Australia.

And for latitudes north of Sydney and Perth, most of the coming week will be warm.

What’s causing the winter warmth?

In recent days a stubborn high pressure system has sat over eastern Australia and the Tasman Sea. It has kept skies clear over much of the continent and brought northerly winds over many areas, transporting warm air to the south.

High pressure promotes warm weather — both through clearer skies that bring more sunshine and by promoting the descent of air that causes heating.

By late August, both the intensity of the sun and the length of the day have increased. So the centre of Australia can really warm up when under the right conditions.

High pressure in June can be associated with cooler conditions, because more heat is lost from the surface during those long winter nights. But that’s already less of an issue by late August.

This kind of weather setup has occurred in the past. Late-winter or early-spring heat does sometimes occur in Australia. However, this warm spell is exceptional, as highlighted by the broken temperature records across the country.

Feeling the heat

The consequences of humanity’s continued greenhouse gas emissions are clear. Australia’s winters are getting warmer overall. And winter “heatwaves” are becoming warmer.

Australia’s three warmest Augusts on record have all occurred since 2000 — and last August was the second-warmest since 1910. When the right weather conditions occur for winter warmth across Australia, the temperatures are higher than a century ago.

The warmth we are experiencing now comes off the back of a recent run of global temperature records and extreme heat events across the Northern Hemisphere.

This warm spell is set to continue, with temperatures above 30°C forecast from Wednesday through to Sunday in Brisbane. The outlook for spring points to continued above-normal temperatures across the continent, but as always we will likely see both warm and cold spells at times.

Such winter warmth is exceptional and already breaking records. Climate change is already increasing the frequency and intensity of this kind of winter heat — and future warm spells will be hotter still, if humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions continue.

This was originally published in The Conversation.

Fears of new Middle East war

Neither Hezbollah nor Israel seem willing to back down after a new escalation in fighting, and the federal government is cracking down on airlines.

WILL ISRAEL-HEZBOLLAH FIGHTING CONTINUE?

Tensions are high on the Israel-Lebanon border after Israel and the militant group Hezbollah traded rocket fire on Sunday, raining missiles on military targets on both sides and renewing fears of a wider Middle East war.

Israel said it used about 100 warplanes to strike rocket launchers across southern Lebanon to thwart an imminent Hezbollah attack, while Lebanese militants said they aimed hundreds of rockets and drones at military bases in northern Israel and the Golan Heights.

“Sunday’s exchange of fire did not set off a long-feared war, and the heavy firepower and lack of civilian casualties might allow both sides to claim a sort of victory and step back,” the Associated Press reports.

“Israel has vowed to bring quiet to the border to allow its citizens to return to their homes. It says it prefers to resolve the issue diplomatically through [the] US and other mediators but will use force if necessary. Hezbollah officials have said the group does not seek a wider war but is prepared for one.”

Early this morning Australian time, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech his militants could carry out further strikes against Israel. Hezbollah has said its attack was in retaliation for Israel’s assassination of the group’s most senior military official, Fuad Shukr, in late July.

Nasrallah said Israel began striking Hezbollah targets about half an hour before the militants were set to begin their operation.

“What happened was aggression, not preemptive action,” Nasrallah said of the Israeli strikes, according to CNN.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also indicated overnight the fighting may continue: “This is not the end of the matter,” he said.

Hezbollah — which is a key backer of the Gaza-based militant group Hamas — last fought a monthlong war with Israel in 2006, and the conflict ongoing since October last year is seen as the largest escalation since then.

AIRLINES ON NOTICE

Airlines and airports would have to pay back customers for unreasonable delays and cancellations, and a standalone ombudsman would be created for the sector, under reforms proposed in a federal government aviation white paper to be released today.

“Customers deserve to get their money back if they are owed it. Full stop. It is time to take strong action to protect consumer rights with an aviation industry ombuds scheme and charter of customer rights,” Transport Minister Catherine King said, according to The Australian.

The new ombudsman would replace the current Airline Customer Advocate — funded by airlines — which had a 100% increase in complaints in 2022 and only managed to solve less than half, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

“Under the government’s plan, airlines will have to detail reasons for delays and cancellations as part of their regulator reporting. The ombudsman will be able to request additional information about specific flights and will have the power to refer for legal action in instances of misconduct under competition law,” the Herald’s story says.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE…

If you want to know the secret to a long life, hundred-year-olds are the wrong people to ask. That’s according to Richard Faragher, a professor of biogerontology — the study of aging — at the University of Brighton. He argues the lifestyles of individual people who grew to be among the world’s oldest matter less than we tend to think — and “survivorship bias” could obscure the fact that most centenarians are either “lucky” or genetically “well endowed”.

“Merely because you have survived smoking 60 a day doesn’t mean that smoking 60 a day is good for you,” Faragher told The Guardian. 

His comments came after the death of the world’s oldest person, Spain’s Maria Branyas Morera, 117, who attributed her longevity to “order, tranquillity, good connection with family and friends, contact with nature, emotional stability, no worries, no regrets, lots of positivity and staying away from toxic people”.

Say What?

A lot of glazed here. Sprinkle stuff. A lot of cinnamon rolls. Just whatever makes sense.

JD Vance

Donald Trump’s running mate has been, shall we say, roundly mocked this weekend after an attempt at retail politics turned unbearably awkward. Vance visited a doughnut shop in Georgia, trailed by cameras and minders, and attempted to strike up a conversation with a woman behind the counter. As the viral video clip shows, Vance is no better at making small talk than he is at ordering doughnuts.

CRIKEY RECAP

Dictators, a ‘love child’ and succession battle: The legal brawls of Australia’s billionaire siblings

CHARLIE LEWIS

If the golden era of TV really is drawing to a close, it may well be replaced by the golden era of messy courtroom dramas featuring the children of Australian billionaires (not quite as catchy an era designation, I grant you).

Please enjoy our round-up of the various legal catastrophes currently befalling the catastrophically wealthy.

Box billionaire Anthony Pratt has already given us so much. Who could forget his fun (and then discretely culled) following list on Instagram? His relentless and presumably very pricey cardboard-themed karaoke, in which he treats some of the great songs of the 20th century with the same level of care as Oliver Reed showed his liver?

Yes — taxpayers should bail out journalism. It’s the least bad option we’ve got left

TIM BURROWES

Paying less tax allows businesses to offer cheaper advertising rates than their rivals. As a result, brands chasing the best return on their advertising investments end up choosing the platforms. Which makes it even harder for news companies to compete.

That’s where a digital levy, not on profits, but on advertising spend by local advertisers, comes in. You can’t easily hide that or redirect it offshore. A double benefit will flow the other way instead. A levy will bring in more local tax and level out the playing field. To maintain their profits after paying the levy, the platforms would need to put up the price of their advertising, which would make it more viable for their local rivals to compete on price.

More taxpayer money for companies linked to Israel’s war in Gaza

BERNARD KEANE

Australian taxpayers will once again be funding companies with ties to the Israel Defense Forces, with the government’s announcement that Norwegian arms manufacturer Kongsberg will receive $850 million to build missiles at a manufacturing facility near Newcastle. Kongsberg, which has maritime, defence, aerospace and digital arms, is majority-owned by the Norwegian government.

Norway bans arms exports to countries in states of war, including Israel, and in February, Norway’s foreign minister Espen Barth Eide said: “states exporting weapons to Israel should reassess whether they are effective partners in the genocide in Gaza Strip or not.”

However, Norway does not prevent Norwegian arms firms from manufacturing weapons for export via other countries.

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Crash and suspected stabbings injure six, including police officer, at Engadine in Sydney’s south (ABC News)

Harris campaign says it’s raised $540m and saw a surge of donations during the convention (Associated Press)

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov arrested at French airport (BBC)

Israeli attacks kill 28 across Gaza Strip, victims still under rubble (Al Jazeera)

Despite Ukraine’s Kursk invasion gamble, Russia is closing in on a big victory (The Times) ($)

Why mpox vaccines are only just arriving in Africa after two years (Reuters)

US and 10 Latin American states reject Nicolás Maduro’s vote certification (The Guardian)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Don’t mistake MAGA loyalists for ‘turning’ on Trump — they’re just hedging their bets — Emma Shortis (SMH): The American far right has the jitters. Almost overnight, the fortunes of its favoured candidate appear to have gone into hard reverse.

Against incumbent President Joe Biden, and in the immediate aftermath of an assassination attempt, Donald Trump’s election triumph seemed all but confirmed.

But the embarrassing flailing in response to Kamala Harris’ ascendancy has seen a manic scrambling as the campaign tries to recalibrate. And with victory no longer assured, Trump’s once-loyal high-profile supporters are beginning to voice their concerns.

Much has been made of far-right influencers such as Candace Owens, Laura Loomer and Nick Fuentes — some of Trump’s best-known and most high-profile supporters — criticising the trajectory of Trump’s campaign over the past week. But their discontent has been brewing for months.

The NT election result has shattered Territory Labor and left the CLP with a monumental task ahead — Thomas Morgan (ABC): After a campaign dominated entirely by law and order, voters in the Northern Territory made their verdict clear: Labor had to go.

Eight years ago, the Country Liberal Party was reduced to just two seats in the NT Parliament.

The party will now form majority government, led by Lia Finocchiaro, one of the youngest chief ministers in the NT’s history and the first female CLP chief minister.

Labor’s Eva Lawler came into the chief minister position eight months ago, after Natasha Fyles’ resignation over undisclosed shares.

Pacific nations aren’t asking for favours. They just want Australia to meet the moment on climate justice — Tim Flannery (Guardian Australia): My first visit to the Pacific Islands was in 1981 and, for two decades, I spent several months each year carrying out biodiversity surveys and conservation work there. Even in the 1980s, Pacific communities were acutely aware of climate change, experiencing it first-hand through rising seas and intensifying storms. Over time, their understanding of the role that climate pollution plays in worsening these impacts has deepened, leading to a highly organised movement to limit pollution from big coal and gas exporters such as Australia.

As the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) approaches, Australia must urgently align with the position of its Pacific neighbours and take decisive action to reduce climate pollution further and faster.

The PIF has 18 members, including Australia and New Zealand, and is a critical space where leaders can meet as equals to tackle pressing issues, with climate change always at the forefront. Through this, Pacific nations have asserted their sovereignty and worked to drive stronger global action on climate change.