Yes, division is Dutton’s business model. But so is damaging national security.

BERNARD KEANEPolitics Editor

Peter Dutton rarely uses the phrase social cohesion — because it's the last thing he wants. His political business model relies on division and poor national security.

Peter Dutton’s insistence that no Palestinian from Gaza be allowed to enter Australia on a humanitarian visa — or, presumably, for any other reason — because they are automatically a national security risk, won’t surprise too many people. It’s been clear for most of Dutton’s time as opposition leader that his primary business model, derived partly from Tony Abbott but mostly from Donald Trump, is to exacerbate division and demonise groups that are powerless enough to be othered without fear of backlash.

You’ll notice for example, that Dutton, once a vehement critic of China prone to attacking Labor MPs as “the Manchurian candidate”, has left most of the Coalition’s attacks on China to acolyte and home affairs shadow minister James Paterson (currently trapped in the Senate because winnable seats in Victoria are thin on the ground for the Liberals), recognising that Dutton’s and Scott Morrison’s hardline anti-Beijing rhetoric played a big role in losing seats with the substantial Chinese-Australia vote in 2022.

Muslim Australians, however, are fair game for Dutton, particularly if they dare to express any outrage at the atrocities being perpetrated by Israel against Palestinians. He’s already on record as saying a government supported by “Muslim candidates from Western Sydney … will be a disaster”.

Not that Dutton is materially far from Labor on these specific issues: He appears to have made a call by himself to lunge for a complete ban on Palestinians entering Australia because Labor was already knocking back over 70% of applications from Gazans. And it was Labor, not Dutton, that initiated the national flaying of the straw man of Muslim sectarianism as part of its efforts — gleefully reported by News Corp — to demonise Fatima Payman (or, the Islamic Pauline Hanson, if you believe Nine newspaper troll-in-chief Peter Hartcher).

Labor’s denunciations at the state and federal level of pro-Palestinian protests (and how’s that Islamophobia Envoy coming along, PM?), and Anthony Albanese’s accusations that the Greens are more or less inciting violence, don’t differ greatly from the Coalition’s hostility to critics of Israel’s mass murdering. Dutton has also had difficulty distinguishing the Coalition’s position on reducing immigration from the government’s, to the extent that he undercut his own shadow treasurer.

Even so, it’s clear that Labor tries to make a virtue of supporting “social cohesion”, even while demonising pro-Palestinian protesters, cutting immigration, refusing entry to Gazans, and denouncing political organisation by Muslim voters. Dutton, on the other hand, has a certain refreshing honesty — while Labor reflexively accuses him of division, he apparently couldn’t care less. While Labor ministers incessantly throw the phrase “social cohesion” around, the leader of the opposition has only used it three times since the Hamas atrocities that initiated the Gaza conflict last year (Paterson, however, uses it semi-regularly).

As the head of ASIO has recently warned, both politicians and the media have risked harming national security with their inflammatory words. Like his predecessors, Mike Burgess knows that the more politicians lift the temperature of debate and the more they demonise minority groups like Muslim Australians, the more alienated they will become and the more susceptible a small number will become to radicalisation and taking action outside Australian political norms, including violence.

As of now, Muslim Australians are told not to protest the Gazan atrocities because that’s inciting violence, told not to criticise Israel because that’s antisemitic, told not to organise politically and, if Dutton had his way, the already tight restrictions on who can flee Israel’s campaign of industrial murder in Gaza would turn into a total ban on people simply for who they are.

What’s crucial to remember is that this damage to national security, this increasing of the risk of political violence by delegitimising and demonising sections of the community, isn’t collateral damage in a right-wing politician’s campaign for power, but quite intentional. Politicians like Dutton, and like Abbott before him, and like many politicians of the last two decades of the failed War on Terror, understand perfectly well that many of the actions Western nations took only created more alienation, more anger and more terrorists — which in turn justified a continuation of the curbs on civil liberties and the lavish security expenditure that marked “counter-terrorism”.

For politicians like Dutton, whose primary selling point is his “strength” (in contrast to the “weak” Anthony Albanese), a calmer, less inflamed civic life is a disaster; peaceful resolutions of conflicts are a body blow. The political temperature must always be high, there must always be a crisis, one with the highest stakes possible, and we must always be threatened, preferably existentially so. They prosper in environments of hostility, anger and terror. They benefit from heightened risks to national security, and from terror attacks, because they believe such conditions suit their political business model — just as those conditions benefit the business models of media companies that make money from inciting grievance, fear and anger in their readerships, and, of course, benefit extremists and terror groups.

Just ask Benjamin Netanyahu — the Israeli prime minister helped fund and legitimise Hamas in order to prevent a peaceful resolution of the Palestinian conflict because his political business model relies on perpetual conflict to keep him in power and out of jail for corruption. Here, Dutton hopes for higher and higher levels of anger, conflict and alienation, and lower and lower levels of national security. At least there’s nothing hypocritical or dishonest about Dutton. There’s a very good reason why the phrase “social cohesion” barely ever passes his lips: it’s anathema to him.

What do you think of Peter Dutton’s proposed total ban on Gazan refugees? 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.

‘Absolute disaster’: Liberal Party blame game likely to result in heads rolling

ANTON NILSSONPolitics Reporter

The NSW Liberal Party stuffed up enormously yesterday, failing to nominate candidates for several councils. Who is to blame?

The Liberal Party blame game is in full swing after the “absolute disaster” on Wednesday when the party’s NSW division failed to hand in the nomination paperwork by deadline for several council election contests.

State director Richard Shields is being blamed for the stuff-up and it doesn’t look like he will be long in the job, with NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman declaring on Thursday morning he told Peter Dutton and other senior party members the state director has to go. 

Crikey understands some within the party are questioning whether it’s fair Shields should get all the blame; he had apparently delegated responsibility for the council nominations while he focused on byelections for state parliament and preparations for the coming federal election. Others would like to shift responsibility to the state executive members for delaying the process by playing “factional games” and creating a situation no administrator could have helped. 

Two sources with insight into the NSW division claimed people in Dutton’s federal team had suggested Nigel Blunden — a longtime Liberal strategist who worked for the Howard government ministers Brendan Nelson and Joe Hockey before becoming ex-NSW premier Mike Baird’s strategy director — could be brought in to replace Shields and fix the mess. Several other sources poured cold water on that claim. Blunden declined to comment. 

“Peter Dutton can’t take any chances on the next federal election, as far as NSW goes. If there’s a new state director, it needs to be someone handpicked by Peter Dutton to give NSW the best chance of winning,” one of the NSW sources said. 

The other alternative would be for the federal arm of the Liberal Party to intervene and take complete control of the NSW state executive. NSW Liberal sources believed the blunder on Wednesday certainly would justify such an action — but the last time Canberra tried, the matter dragged on for months and ended up in the High Court.

Liberal sources outside the state executive said many in the party were fed up with the “games” being played there. 

“Just look at the postmortems from the 2022 [federal] and 2023 [NSW] elections,” one person told Crikey.

Both reviews, created by the Liberal Party after its losses at the ballot box, contained criticism of “the behaviour of some state executives in being unable to make timely and necessary decisions to put the party in a winning position in key electorates”.

“The fault is not with the people administering the process, it’s with the people throwing stuff into the process,” the person said. “The people on state executive are elected by the party members, and they get the numbers there because they’re in factions. So they’re going to play factional games. It’s built into the system.” 

It’s understood some of the people on the state executive would rather blame the administrators, however. 

“This is an absolute disaster, and state executive gets blamed for everything, but we’ve been begging for stuff to happen,” one person said. “In the end, in an organisation, isn’t the chief executive and chairman responsible?” 

Crikey has been told there was a motion moved last September to have all the local government preselections wrapped up by March. It was voted down by factional players who would rather see the state executive itself have more power in the process, one source said. 

“The conservatives constantly bring this up,” the person said. “It was voted down because it’s inconsistent with whatever plans the other factions had. If there is no time or framework for a formal preselection process, then it’s left to the state executive to decide the candidates that get selected — and it’s much easier to influence the outcome in a group of a handful of people than a large preselection panel with 300 people.”

Crikey has seen an internal Liberal Party document created last week where the state executive was warned: “We’re now at a stage where all remaining nominations for unwinnable positions are extremely urgent.”

The group was advised to use urgency provisions in the party constitution to directly endorse candidates for unwinnable positions rather than going through the normal and lengthy process. 

It’s understood some ballots were being decided on as late as Wednesday morning. The deadline was midday.

Against the odds: Chaney believes the government could still change its mind on gambling

RACHEL WITHERSContributor

How does the member for Curtin maintain her optimism when the government won’t even pass gambling reforms backed by a Labor-chaired committee?

The Albanese government’s decision not to proceed with a total ban on gambling advertising, as unanimously recommended by a committee chaired by the late Peta Murphy, is enough to test anyone’s faith in the system. Anti-gambling advocates, crossbenchers, journalists, and former PMs are among those frustrated that a popular, common sense move has been derailed by vested interests, with not even Murphy’s passing enough to compel Labor to grow a spine.

Curtin MP Kate Chaney has been closer to this process than most, as the sole independent on the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs. But despite the committee having been “very positive and very constructive”, Chaney, who won her Perth seat off the Liberals in 2022’s teal wave, wasn’t surprised when reports emerged that the government was leaning towards a partial ban — something the committee heard would not work.

“Disappointed but not surprised,” she tells me, adding that she could see from information obtained via freedom of information requests that the communications minister had been meeting with groups “financially invested in gambling harm”. The committee has had little interaction with the minister; few other members have spoken up for the recommendation they endorsed just over a year ago.

“Watching the 14 months since then, it has been a good reminder to me about the real problems with the two-party system,” says Chaney, pointing to the influence of gambling companies, broadcasters and sports codes. “Major parties have a different set of decision factors rather than what’s best for the community … There’s an important role for the crossbench in holding parties to account.”

It’s a depressing turn of events. But Chaney remains optimistic, suggesting Labor may still respond to the community backlash (reports today suggest the government is delaying the announcement yet again). “Hopefully we get some improvement,” she says, adding that it is worth celebrating whatever “wins” they can get.

Some might suggest that the title of Murphy’s report — “You win some, you lose more” — neatly sums up the past two years for the teal MPs, who have put forward countless amendments and private member’s bills with little to no chance of passing. And yet Chaney hasn’t been swayed from her belief that independents can make change, with or without a balance of power (though with would obviously be preferable).

“Democracy is slow and messy,” she says when I question how few wins they have had. “I think nudging, finding the points that matter and nudging them, does have an impact, even if it’s not immediate.” She takes heart from Indi MP Helen Haines’ push for a federal anti-corruption commission. It took years before it became an election issue, but in the end we got one — albeit not as powerful as many would’ve liked.

“People don’t seem to understand — I didn’t before I was in the job — that if you introduce a private members bill, it doesn’t get debated, it doesn’t become law. What’s the actual point of it? It changes the conversation. That’s the point of it.”

It’s little wonder Chaney’s team tease her for being a “democracy nerd.” Between this and her focus on electoral reform (Chaney also sits on the Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, and has put forward two private member’s bills, the most recent being her Fair and Transparent Elections Bill), the former Anglicare WA strategy director likes thinking “at a systems level” — something she attributes to her 10 years on the board of non-profit Next25.

“We’ve built these two machines that are focused on winning elections,” she says. “Where’s the machine that focuses on the future of the country? I still think that the Parliament can play that role if it can continue to evolve, rather than the Parliament being a waiting room for the executive where you sit around and wait til it’s your turn, and chuck some rocks in the meantime.”

Chaney will be running again at the next election and insists she isn’t focusing her decisions on winning votes. Some may dispute that. Chaney recently changed her mind to oppose Labor’s live sheep export ban, a hot-button issue in WA, for which the Kerry Stokes-owned West Australian labelled her a “DAG” (Chaney took it in good spirits).

Chaney put out a video explaining that she’d switched sides based on feedback from the electorate. “It’s hard to change your mind, but as a community independent, I committed to listening to my community, and that’s what I’ve done,” she told viewers, adding that such a thing isn’t possible for major party MPs.

I put it to Chaney that there is a strong parallel between listening to your electorate and winning votes. She agrees, with the caveat that she has to do more than just take a poll and vote accordingly.

“I’ve also been elected to use my judgment and to look into the issues,” says Chaney, adding that she weighs up a range of community opinions, as well as listening to arguments from experts. “There’s no formula as to how you weigh up those different things, but it is a very explicit process that we go through.”

Chaney is still hopeful that the Labor leadership could listen to the feedback and evidence, and change their mind on the gambling ad ban.

“The government could really do with a win at the moment, and a show of strength, and this could be a legacy,” she says. “We could look back and say ‘remember when the Albanese government made gambling ads history like we did with tobacco?’ I hope that the government finds some strength and actually gets on with it.”

Could Labor still surprise with a total gambling ad ban? 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.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra joins the list of arts organisations erasing Palestine

MAX KAISERContributor

By attempting to avoid controversy, the MSO has instead made a profound political statement.

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s recent cancellation of pianist Jayson Gillham’s performance for dedicating a piece on Sunday to journalists killed in Gaza is not merely a misstep in artistic freedom, it is a glaring example of the systemic erasure of Palestinian humanity that has become deeply entrenched in our society.

For many Jews like me, our Jewish heritage teaches us the importance of “Tikkun Olam” — repairing the world. Today, that repair means confronting a truth that might make some people uncomfortable: the state of Israel is purposely destroying hundreds of thousands of Palestinian lives and attempting to erase Palestinian culture and memory.

It’s worth repeating Gillham’s dedication in full. His management told the ABC that he introduced a piece of music — the world premiere of a 2024 piece by Australian composer Connor D’Netto called “Witness” that is dedicated to the journalists of Gaza — with these words:

Over the last 10 months, Israel has killed more than one hundred Palestinian journalists. A number of these have been targeted assassinations of prominent journalists as they were travelling in marked press vehicles or wearing their press jackets. The killing of journalists is a war crime in international law, and it is done in an effort to prevent the documentation and broadcasting of war crimes to the world.

In addition to the role of journalists who bear witness, the word Witness in Arabic is Shaheed, which also means Martyr.

The MSO responded by sending an email to ticket holders explaining the D’Netto piece was “a late addition to the advertised program” (one the MSO had approved at Gillham’s request) and flagging that it would be cancelling the pianist’s upcoming performances. The MSO apologised for the remarks: 

They were an intrusion of personal political views on what should have been a morning focused on a program of works for solo piano … The MSO does not condone the use of our stage as a platform for expressing personal views.

The MSO understands that his remarks have caused offence and distress and offers a sincere apology.

That such a basic expression of mourning and memorialisation is deemed too controversial reveals the extent to which the Israel lobby has succeeded in rendering Palestinian suffering invisible and Palestinian lives disposable. This incident is not isolated but part of a broader trend: the attempted erasure of Palestinian existence and all that sustains Palestinian life.

On August 10, the day prior to the dedication, the Israeli army bombed a prayer hall at the al-Tabin school during morning prayers, resulting in more than 100 deaths. The intensity of the bombing was such that many victims were dismembered beyond recognition. Doctors resorted to collecting body parts in plastic bags, giving families 70 kilos of remains when their loved ones couldn’t be individually identified. This horrific reality is not an aberration; it is the logical conclusion of an ideology that views Palestinian lives as expendable.

As Jews, we carry the weight of a history of erasure and genocide. The MSO recognises this and has an event scheduled in October called “Kaddish: A Holocaust Memorial Concert”, described as promoting “healing and deeper understanding of historical trauma resulting from the Holocaust”. One might ask those running the orchestra if it only cares about genocide victims if the genocide was many decades ago? Or is it simply that the MSO thinks that Jewish lives are grievable while Palestinian lives are not?

Some might argue that the MSO’s decision was made to maintain neutrality. But there is nothing neutral about silencing compassion. There is nothing apolitical about erasing Palestinian humanity. By attempting to avoid controversy, the MSO has instead made a profound political statement — one that aligns with Israel’s agenda of making Palestinians invisible, ungrievable.

Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin once wrote, “Not even the dead will be safe from the enemy, if he is victorious. And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious.” Make no mistake: Zionism in its current form is the kind of enemy Benjamin speaks of — an enemy that aims at the relentless erasure of Palestinian life, history, and memory.

The Israeli state is aiming to systematically obliterate Palestinian existence. It’s not just about occupying land or displacing people; it’s about erasing an entire culture, rewriting history, and silencing voices. In the destruction of Palestinian cities, universities, hospitals, schools, and libraries, Israel seeks to create a world where Palestinians simply do not exist.

The acclaimed Yiddish poet Pinchas Goldhar wrote in a Melbourne Yiddish journal in the mid-1940s how the ideology of Nazi genocide expanded throughout the world: “[t]he Nazis not only enslaved and slaughtered us, but also stigmatised us in such a way, and so discriminated between us and all other peoples and races, that our human values have decreased in the eyes of the world”. We can see the same process playing out today. 

Erasure goes beyond the physical. It seeps into global consciousness, shaping narratives where Palestinian deaths are mere statistics, where their cultural contributions are co-opted or dismissed, where their very right to mourn is censored. Where it’s acceptable to say all Palestinian refugees from Gaza should be banned. The cancellation of a pianist’s performance for daring to acknowledge killed journalists in Gaza is just one small example of this process.

Supporting this form of Zionism makes us complicit in a project of dehumanisation that goes against every ethical principle we claim to hold dear. We cannot stay silent as Palestinian existence is erased in the name of Jewish self-determination. Our safety and flourishing cannot come at the expense of another people’s annihilation.

Palestinians will never stop resisting their erasure. Artists and people of conscience the world over such as Jayson Gillham will do what we can to act in solidarity. When Palestinians win their freedom we will be one step closer to a repaired world.

To those who would silence even the most basic expressions of humanity: Your actions are not just misguided; they are complicit in genocide.

What do you make of the MSO’s decision? 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.

A(nother) gong for a fossil fuel CEO, the inevitable Raygun conspiracy and a huge Liberal screwup

Meg O'Neill must be delighted to be 'energy person of the year', and the media has a short memory on ambassador parties.

Libs’ big blunder

Things are not going great for the NSW Liberals, but at least they’re keeping us busy here at Tips and Murmurs. Among the latest tips we’ve received is an interesting internal memo and some details on the party’s embarrassing failure to nominate candidates for local council elections.

Before we get to the memo, some background: until last year, businesses had twice the voting power of residents in the City of Sydney. In October, the NSW Labor government changed a law that until then gave eligible businesses in the area two votes in council elections, compared with one each for residents. 

In the words of NSW Local Government Minister Ron Hoenig: “The amendments were made by the Liberals [in 2014] in a brazen attempt to oust Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore from office and give the party an electoral advantage in controlling the Sydney Town Hall.”

It turns out the law had indeed given the party an electoral advantage. An internal Liberal Party document leaked to Crikey makes clear Labor’s change has hurt the Lib’s chances at the next election, which will happen on September 14. 

“While the division secured two positions at the 2021 local government election for Sydney, since that election, changes to the City of Sydney Act 1988, reducing the business vote, have significantly reduced the division’s chance of securing the second position,” the document reads. 

The lord mayoralty of Sydney is a prestigious position that comes with a lot of power, staff and money. As The Daily Telegraph reported last year, “the lord mayor will be allocated $47 million in ratepayer funds over the next ten years”, and the current mayor has 22 full-time staffers with an average salary of $179,000 per year. 

You know what else will hurt the Liberal’s chances at the council elections? Failing to nominate.

The party messed up spectacularly yesterday and missed the deadline to hand in paperwork for nominations for several local government areas. The deadline was at midday and was a hard one, the NSW Electoral Commission told us. 

Several Liberals we spoke to were dumbfounded by what had happened, with one noting: “There were multiple councils done minutes before the deadline … this is total incompetence”.

According to our sources, Liberals won’t be able to contest important councils like the Northern Beaches, Lane Cove, Wollongong, Campbelltown, Camden, and the Blue Mountains. In Georges River, North Sydney, Penrith, Canterbury Bankstown, and Maitland, the party hopes that at least some of the candidates were nominated properly. 

In a statement on Wednesday afternoon, the party HQ issued an apology to “endorsed councillors that were not nominated and to the party membership more broadly”, blaming a lack of “secretariat resources” for the error.

At least the Sutherland Shire nominations appear to have come through just fine — loyal readers of this column know how hard the Liberals worked to get their ticket in order for that one.

And that number two spot on the City of Sydney ticket? It seems that nomination might have been handed in too late as well. As of Thursday morning, the Electoral Commission’s website shows only one Liberal candidate, the sitting councillor and number one on the ticket, Lyndon Gannon. Oh well, it was unwinnable anyway.

AEC for CEO

It is not enough, apparently, that fossil fuel industry figures command millions or even billions of dollars a year, or that they can count on successive governments of all stripes and levels, the police, and large swathes of the media to do their bidding. They also need and deserve lots of prizes and awards. And so Woodside Energy CEO Meg O’Neill has been awarded “Energy Person of the Year” by the African Energy Chamber (AEC) for her “unwavering commitment to harnessing Africa’s oil and gas resources for inclusive growth”.

AEC is a Johannesburg-based oil and gas lobby group that is currently preparing class action lawsuits against financial institutions that refuse to invest in African fossil fuel projects on environmental, social and governance (ESG) grounds and has described environmentalist group “Friends of the Earth” as “no friends of Africa”, which should give you a sense of what it’s about. It must be wonderful for O’Neill to finally get some recognition after she was pipped at the post for 2023 WA person of the year by Gina Rinehart.

This is it, people, the smoking Raygun

As we noted earlier this week, Olympic breaker and academic Rachael Gunn (or Raygun) is like some sort of top rocking polymorph, twisting and coiling into whatever shape the viewer imposed on her. So it was probably inevitable, after being the personification of courage and cringe, coloniser and beneficiary of the woke mind disease, that she would end up where every overexposed figure does — the subject of a conspiracy theory.

A tweet argues that the Australian Breaking Association was “FOUNDED by Raygun and her husband. Who advised [WorldDance Sport Federation] to partner with this org? Rachael Gunn. Starting to see it? The Australian Breaking Association (AusBreak) runs a competition every year that only has 10-15 women show up, and obviously Rachael ‘wins’ this and her husband becomes the team coach”. Notes swiftly attached pointed out that none of this is true: Neither Gunn nor her husband are founders of the Australian Breaking Association and are not involved in its leadership, something a Google search could quickly reveal.

But that didn’t stop the tweet from getting three million views (we’re amazed Elon Musk didn’t say the news was “very concerning if true”, or something) and forming the basis for a change.org campaign asking Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to “Hold Raygun Rachel Gunn & Anna Mears Accountable for Unethical Conduct Olympic Selection”. At the time of writing, it has nearly 40,000 of the 50,000 signatures it is seeking.

Such a drag

US Ambassador and former PM Kevin Rudd is spending $20,000 in taxpayers’ dollars to turn his Washington residence into some kind of “bizarre drag queen nightclub”, Sky News Australia host Danica De Giorgio reported incredulously last week.

“Well, you won’t believe what Kevin Rudd is up to now, he has blown the taxpayer dime on gay pride parties, yes you heard that correct,” De Giorgio said.

Sky, along with 2GB’s Ben Fordham, picked up on the item in the Nine paper’s CBD column reporting on a document, obtained under freedom of information, revealing the costs of a pride party held by Rudd in June last year which, among other things, spent nearly three grand on a DJ set by drag queen Kitty Glitter.

And obviously the use of taxpayers money is always worth looking into. It’s just that we don’t recall either Sky nor Fordham being unduly disturbed when it was revealed Rudd’s predecessor Joe Hockey (now a regular Sky contributor) spent more than $45,000 on a “garden party” — including $7,690 for “entertainment” — for various US dignitaries (though the exact invite list was something successive governments fought to keep secret for years). What makes one event a scarcely believable use of taxpayer money and the other a perfectly reasonable use of twice as much we couldn’t begin to guess at.

We asked Rudd if he felt it was a proportionate response from the media but he didn’t get back to us before deadline.

CommBank flips on fossil fuels as other banks fund Australia’s worst climate culprit

BERNARD KEANEPolitics Editor

The Commonwealth Bank has set the standard for banking in a climate crisis: it will no longer offer services to companies without a serious transition plan to net zero.

Three of the big four banks — ANZ, NAB and Westpac — are playing a key role in the finances of one of Australia’s worst climate culprits, Santos, while the Commonwealth Bank has flipped its previous support for fossil fuel projects.

According to environmental watchdog Market Forces, ANZ, NAB and Westpac are arranging a US$500 million (A$757 million) loan for Coalition-linked fossil fuel giant Santos, a major tax dodger that has paid zero tax on billions in offshore gas revenue and which is currently opening the Barossa gas field, described by mining billionaire Andrew Forrest as “one of the most polluting projects in the world”.

In contrast, the Commonwealth Bank (CBA) has revealed that it has reversed its once-steadfast support for fossil fuels. Its direct lending to fossil fuel projects has substantially fallen since the Paris Agreement, and its assessment of climate risks in its latest results published this week shows it now has just $2.7 billion in exposure to either oil and gas or thermal coal, down from $3.3 billion last year.

CBA now expects clients that derive 15% or more of their revenue from the sale of oil, gas or metallurgical coal, or power generation clients that generate 25% or more of their electricity from coal, to have a need to have a transition plan by 2025. It has also engaged an independent assessor to examine clients’ transition plans against its core criteria, which include net zero by 2050, medium-term targets “that are aligned to a well below 2°C sectoral pathway” and strategies to deliver those targets, including on the quality and quantity of offsets clients it intends to employ.

In some other cases, the CBA has walked away from further business with some firms, although remaining contracts will stay on its books. CBA says it also walks away from clients whose transition plans do not meet its criteria:

For clients with transition plans assessed as ‘does not meet’ our core criteria, or who had not yet provided a transition plan, we engaged with them further. In some instances, we determined that a client would not have, or would be unlikely to have, a transition plan meeting our core criteria by 31 December, 2024. Once such a determination was made, we did not provide new corporate or trade finance, or bond facilitation with a maturity beyond 31 December, 2024, except for uncommitted exposures that could be cancelled by 31 December, 2024. We took the same approach for refinancing. Otherwise, existing exposures for these clients remain on our balance sheet beyond 31 December, 2024 until their maturity.

Kyle Robertson of Market Forces offered praise for CBA — a marked turnaround from the criticism the organisation once levelled at the bank for its commitment to fossil fuel funding: “It’s staggering that as Australia’s largest bank cuts ties with polluting oil and gas companies, ANZ, NAB and Westpac are arranging a new A$750 million loan for Santos, enabling massive and dangerous expansion plans. CommBank has shown what’s possible. Australia’s largest bank has nearly halved its upstream oil and gas lending in the last two years due to its sensible approach to only fund companies aligned with the climate goals of the Paris Agreement.”

That leaves ANZ, NAB and Westpac with the task of matching the CBA’s standards on funding fossil fuels — and investors with the task of demanding they do so.

Would you bank with Commonwealth now they’re moving away from fossil fuels? 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.

Labor’s tilt away from a gambling ban makes sense — TV lobbyists get what they want

ANTON NILSSONPolitics Reporter

Have some sympathy for Labor. What government wants to make enemies of commercial broadcasters right before an election?

On Tuesday, Government Services Minister Bill Shorten all but confirmed the government is leaning against a full ban on gambling advertisements. 

“I’m not convinced that complete prohibition works,” he told the ABC’s Q+A, before hinting at which interest group might have been influencing the government’s thinking. 

Shorten said free-to-air broadcasters were under “massive attack” by the likes of Facebook and needed gambling advertising revenue to survive: “Some of you might say, ‘Well, bugger them, just don’t worry, we don’t need free-to-air media’ … but free-to-air media is in diabolical trouble.”

Shorten said a tightening of the rules would be the right thing to do, even if it would satisfy neither the “complete abolitionists” nor the “don’t do too much” camp.

The thing is, free-to-air broadcasters are in neither camp: they want no changes to the rules at all.

Just ask the lobby group Free TV Australia, which represents the nation’s commercial television broadcasters, including Nine, Seven and Ten. 

“The current comprehensive framework for gambling advertising on television is appropriate and proportionate. No further restrictions should be placed on commercial broadcasters,” the group wrote in a submission to the 2022 inquiry into online gambling and its impacts, headed by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy.

“Any further restrictions would have significant revenue implications for Australian TV networks and their ability to invest in sports; news and current affairs; and Australian content.” 

History shows the commercial TV lobby usually gets what it wants. In the middle of the past decade, for example, Free TV ran a campaign aimed at Canberra politicians to slash or scrap the nine-figure annual licence fees paid by the free-to-air broadcasters.

“We are at a critical time for broadcasters,” then chair of Free TV Harold Mitchell told the Australian Financial Review in 2015, warning that 15,000 jobs and a $1.5 billion annual investment in Australian content would be at risk if global competitors such as Netflix, Google and Apple got the upper hand. 

By then, the fees had already been slashed several times, most recently in 2013 when they were halved. In the 2016-17 federal budget, fees were reduced again, by about 25% from the previous financial year, costing the government $163.6 million over the forward estimates. 

Mitchell said the reduction was “disappointing”. In the following budget, the fees were scrapped.

Monash University head of journalism Johan Lidberg said Free TV was still a “powerful lobby group” that is “well connected and can sway and impact government policy”, despite losing some steam since the age of online streaming began. 

“Shorten is right that the free-to-air networks are in dire straits,” he told Crikey. “But in my view, it’s unethical that part of getting the networks out of trouble is built on the misery that is caused by gambling ads. These ads, at times, trigger people who are gambling dependent to spend money they can’t afford to spend, especially in a cost of living crisis.”

When developing a policy that will impact the bottom lines of commercial TV channels, it makes sense for the Labor government to take heed of what those channels want. After all, what government would like to make enemies of a sector that reaches 6.5 million news viewers every day, especially right before a federal election? 

Free TV is manifestly aware of the government’s codependency when it comes to its members’ services. As the lobby group wrote in its 2022 election manifesto: “Prominence and accessibility of Free TV services are … essential to ensuring the government’s policy goals are achieved, including those relating to accurate, impartial, and trustworthy news; iconic sporting events; and provision of emergency information.”

Free TV did not respond to a request for comment.

Is Australia ‘giving away’ its natural resources?

DIANE KRAALContributor

Australia now consistently ranks among the top liquefied natural gas exporters in the world. But our tax take from the industry has long been too low.

Speaking on ABC’s Q&A on Monday night, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz claimed Australia was “giving away its natural resources”, something he found “mind-boggling”.

He said that if Australia made the fossil fuel industry pay for the value of the resources it extracts and its fair share of taxes, “you wouldn’t have the problems that you have today”.

Stiglitz appeared to be referring to our profits-based petroleum resource rent tax, also known as the “gas tax”.

Having formally researched and advised specialist forums on this issue for many years, I agree with him that yes — we are giving away our wealth, both to foreign countries and companies owned overseas.

It’s great to see an international heavyweight like Stiglitz pointing out some of the glaring issues with our system. To fix it, the federal government needs to get rid of its profit-based offshore gas tax altogether and revert to the royalties-based system we used to have.

How do we tax gas?

Australia’s petroleum resource rent tax, or gas tax, is a secondary taxation on offshore gas resources. It’s a tax on profits — that is to say, it’s only collected when gas companies’ incomes exceed their expenditures.

Australia now consistently ranks among the top liquefied natural gas exporters in the world. But our tax take from the industry has long been too low.

So low, in fact, it triggered a federal government review in 2017. Former treasury official Michael Callaghan headed up the review as an independent expert.

I recall being quizzed by Callaghan in early 2017 at my Monash office in Melbourne over my submission to the review, which advocated for major reform of existing gas tax concessions.

But at the same time in Canberra, gas industry executives were lobbying hard, insisting there be no change to gas taxing due to “sovereign risk”.

Callaghan ultimately tendered a report recommending tax design reforms. But the changes later implemented by the government were little more than window-dressing, for as the revenue table below shows, gas tax revenues are still too low.

Figures from 2018 show a sizeable gap between Australia’s gas tax revenue of about A$1.1 billion, and that of our nearest competitors. Qatar collected gas royalties that same year of more than $50 billion, and Norway’s special gas tax netted the country $19.5 billion.

It is obvious, even to dispassionate observers like Stiglitz, that Australia’s lacklustre gas tax legislation results in a gas industry that doesn’t pay its fair share for community-owned natural resources.

Why did we move away from royalties?

We used to tax the offshore gas industry under a system of federal royalties that were based on the market value of petroleum production.

The profits-based tax concept was developed by economists Ross Garnaut and Anthony Clunies-Ross in the 1970s, for the oil industry in the newly independent Papua New Guinea.

Garnaut was an economic advisor to the Hawke-Keating Government, and in 1983 advocated the repeal of federal royalties. The profits-based tax that replaced it was first applied to profits on Australian oil production in 1987, where it raised reasonable revenue.

But it was later applied to offshore gas production, which is less profitable than oil due to costly liquefaction, storage infrastructure, and specialised high-pressure gas transport requirements.

This characteristic low profitability of the gas industry delays the triggering of the gas tax. Companies can operate for years without paying it. In other words, Australia is not being paid for much of its “stock” of gas that is mainly sold for export.

A fair share of taxes

A return to federal royalties on offshore gas production would increase government revenues and provide a fairer outcome for the community.

Some of us may recall the 2014 repeal of mining’s profits-based Minerals Resource Rent Tax, due to its low revenues. The government repealed the profits-based tax in 2019 for onshore gas, and could easily do the same for offshore gas.

Joseph Stiglitz’s observations on the way we tax our natural resources offer another opportunity for us to reflect. We are missing the opportunity to fairly tax things we can only extract once, to the detriment of our community.

This piece first appeared in The Conversation.

London stabbing victim an 11-year-old Australian

RICH JAMESWorm Editor

The victim of a random attack in London this week was revealed to be a young Australian girl, and mortgage holders are spending record amounts of their income on their loans.

LONDON STABBING

An 11-year-old girl who was stabbed in London’s Leicester Square this week is Australian, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has confirmed. The Guardian says the girl was visiting the English capital with her mother at the time of the attack. A court was told she required plastic surgery for wounds to her face, shoulder, wrist and neck.

The BBC reports she has since been discharged from hospital and police have charged 32-year-old Ioan Pintaru, who authorities say is a Romanian national with no fixed address, with attempted murder. The ABC writes prosecutor David Burns told the court the incident was a “random attack on a child”, saying: “The defendant has approached the 11-year-old girl, placed her into a headlock and he has then stabbed her eight times to the body.” Pintaru has been remanded in custody until the next court hearing in September.

The ABC says it understands the family is from New South Wales. A DFAT spokesperson had said assistance is being provided to two Australians, while AAP adds it was initially believed the girl’s mother was also hurt, but blood from her daughter’s injuries had been mistaken for injuries of her own.

The national newswire this morning is highlighting the visit of New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Luxon to Australia. Luxon is set to meet with NSW Premier Chris Minns on Thursday for “an infrastructure-focused day” in Sydney. He will also deliver a foreign policy address at the Lowy Institute ahead of the annual Australia-New Zealand Leaders Meeting in Canberra on Friday.

The issue of Australia deporting Kiwi criminals who have grown up in Australia is set to be brought up in the talks. The AAP says more than 3,000 criminals have been sent to New Zealand using powers under section 501 of the Migration Act over the past decade. The New Zealand Herald highlights Luxon said ahead of his trip that he would be raising the issue of 501 deportees “pretty directly” with his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese.

The AAP also carries the latest from Reuters, which reports the World Health Organization has declared mpox a global public health emergency after an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo spread to neighbouring countries.

Meanwhile, The Guardian reports a record 15 national heat records have already been broken since January this year.

ECONOMIC GLOOM

In economic news, well where to start? There’s a lot.

The AFR suggests the ASX is set to rise this morning following the news annual inflation in the United States fell below 3% in July for the first time since 2021, leading to expectations the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in September.

Guardian Australia highlights data from Commonwealth Bank showing mortgage holders are spending significantly more than 20% of their pre-tax income on their loans, representing one of the highest levels on record. The data follows the news yesterday that the Coalition has set up a new Senate inquiry into housing and will use it to create a policy on lowering the barriers for would-be home buyers to get a loan, the ABC reports. The Sydney Morning Herald says the policy could involve HECS debts being deferred and lending rules being loosened.

The AAP says the Australian Bureau of Statistics jobs numbers due out this morning are expected to show “the jobless rate ticked higher in July, as employment growth moderated”.

The AFR is also reporting the negotiations between Education Minister Jason Clare and his state counterparts over $16 billion of extra schools funding are “close to breaking down” as both sides blame each other for yesterday’s NAPLAN results (see Wednesday’s Worm). The paper reports the states want to double the $16 billion figure, linked to a series of education reforms, but Clare declared “there are no blank cheques” and threatened to walk away from the negotiations. So far only Western Australia and Northern Territory have signed up. The offer expires at the end of next month.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE…

What happens when a movie director says a movie star isn’t a real movie star? Well, it turns out said movie star takes it rather personally.

In a recent joint interview with Brad Pitt for GQ, George Clooney was asked if he wanted to work with the directors Pitt had worked with (and vice versa). One name put forward was Quentin Tarantino, who has directed Pitt twice. Clooney was quick to remind the interviewer that he had in fact worked with the filmmaker (as actors) in From Dusk Till Dawn, before taking the time to get something off his chest:

“Quentin said some shit about me recently, so I’m a little irritated by him. He did some interview where he was naming movie stars, and he was talking about you [Pitt], and somebody else, and then this guy goes, ‘Well, what about George?’ He goes, he’s not a movie star. And then he literally said something like, ‘Name me a movie since the millennium.’ And I was like, ‘Since the millennium? That’s kind of my whole fucking career’,” Clooney said, adding: “So now I’m like, all right, dude, fuck off. I don’t mind giving him shit. He gave me shit.”

Ouch. A Clooney-Tarantino reunion might not be on the cards anytime soon it seems…

Say What?

That’s not funny.

Liz Truss

The former British prime minister was a tad unimpressed when the campaign group Led By Donkeys unfurled a banner declaring “I crashed the economy” below a picture of a lettuce while she was sat on stage promoting her new book, The Guardian reports. Truss, who spent just 45 days as PM, was praising Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump when the banner started to unfurl from the ceiling. Upon seeing it she expressed her displeasure, removed her microphone, and walked off the stage. The lettuce on the banner was a nod to when the tabloid newspaper Daily Star set up a livestream to see if Truss would last longer in No. 10 Downing Street than the lettuce. The lettuce won.

CRIKEY RECAP

Dear Scott Morrison, you are NOT the victim in the ordeal of Brittany Higgins

BERNARD KEANE

Scott Morrison’s evidence to the defamation action brought by Liberal Senator Linda Reynolds against rape victim Brittany Higgins stands as one of the more offensive moments in a career that, while he was in politics, was marked by mendacity and deception. It represents nothing less than an attempt to rewrite the history of his government’s utterly inept and malignant response to Higgins’ revelation that she was sexually assaulted by fellow Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann.

According to Morrison’s testimony, he and Reynolds were the victims of “the weaponising of this issue for political purposes to discredit both Senator Reynolds … and the government, and by extension myself”; the idea that there was a cover-up of the issue “was completely and utterly false, without any foundation” and Reynolds and her office “had done everything they possibly could within the processes they had to support Ms Higgins”.

This is a man who was prime minister, the most powerful man in the country at the time, portraying himself as the victim of a woman who was sexually assaulted inside his own ministerial wing, and of the media scrutiny of the standards of conduct within his government.

READ ALL ABOUT IT

‘How did I get here? I came from a good home.’ The violent patterns that haunt Indigenous women (Guardian Australia)

Disney World says man can’t sue over wife’s death at theme park as he signed up for Disney+ (The Telegraph) ($)

Father says baby twins killed by Israeli strike in Gaza as he registered births (BBC)

J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk named in cyberbullying lawsuit filed by Algerian boxer Imane Khelif after Olympic win (Variety)

New Zealand charity accidentally gives out ‘sweets’ filled with lethal dose of methamphetamine (Sky News)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Victoria’s about-face on raising the age is its surrender to a fear campaign — Daniel James (Guardian Australia): The decision will calm the nightly news cycle, the government can now point to what it is doing to tackle youth crime, but it has forever damaged the relationship with Victoria’s First Nations communities.

In its contorting, the government has tried to appease Indigenous and human rights advocates by establishing a new council code-named Cobra (eye roll), comprising justice experts, police, schools and youth justice representatives to monitor offenders and address the root causes of their behaviour. One would have thought that this type of work should already have been happening — if it hasn’t, is it any wonder we have a youth crime problem?

In a broader sense, the about-face from the Allan government is another blow to the First Nations community of Victoria, and it comes at a critical time. For in the coming days and weeks Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people residing in Victoria, including traditional owner groups, are expected to enter into Treaty negotiations with the state of Victoria. The decision not to raise the age of criminal responsibility, despite a myriad of statements to the opposite, further erodes any good faith that still exists.

Dutton’s heartless call has a human cost — and a political price — David Crowe (The Sydney Morning Herald): Peter Dutton is certain to gain support in parts of the Australian community for his strident call to ban all refugees from Gaza because of the war between Israel and Palestine.

But that does not make him right. The opposition leader has made a heartless call that deepens the division in the Australian community and is at odds with previous decisions to help civilians who seek safety from war.