Riding in cars with Bob

One car ride, one question: what drives Bob Katter?

Bob Katter is at the Kingo ordering a bag of chips to eat with his oysters. It’s the first sitting week after the parliamentary winter break and I’m in Canberra interviewing crossbenchers. When I go up to request an interview for the following day, Katter says he’s having dinner with “Monique and Allegra” in the other room, and invites me to join. So begins my evening with the Father of the House.

As it turns out, Allegra Spender is not there. He’s mixed her up with Kate Chaney, who is dining nearby. But Monique Ryan is there with her team, being regaled by Australian politics’ most colourful storyteller.

Between tales of Joh Bjelke-Petersen and egging The Beatles, Katter repeatedly asks Ryan why she and her fellow teals left high-paying jobs for politics. It doesn’t seem to occur to him that they might have done so on principle. But it speaks to a question I have for the 79-year-old, who will soon be honoured with a portrait marking 50 years in politics: Why is he still there?

When Ryan’s team leave the pub, I again try again to secure Katter’s number for an interview but he’s pounced upon by other pub-goers who want a photo, understandably. He sits down with them and starts ragging on Gough Whitlam. Eventually I stand to go, reiterating that I’d love 15 minutes of his time the following morning. He says now works and asks if I have transportation, which is how I end up with a lift home in a Comcar with Bob Katter.

He’s had a good run. First elected in 1974 to Queensland Parliament as a member of the National Party, Katter went federal in 1993, winning his father’s old seat of Kennedy. In 2001 he quit the Nats, in opposition to the Coalition’s neoliberal policies. He now runs under Katter’s Australian Party, which advocates agrarian socialism and social conservatism, and has three members in Queensland state Parliament, including his son Robbie.

Katter is most often written up these days for his unique anecdotes and bizarre digressions. But his split from the Nats remains a canary in the coalmine for our two-party system. There is no natural home in the majors for someone like Bob, a union man from a rural electorate with deeply conservative social views. He’s in a world of his own, as analysis of voting records show. And the people of “Katter Country” seem to like it.

I get in the back of Katter’s Comcar and give my address to the driver. Katter, who is sitting in the front, asks for my name three times, and I start to wonder if I have made a terrible mistake. 

“I’m gonna write it on my hand,” he decides, pulling out a black pen and adding it to various scribbles on his hand. “If you write it down you remember it.”

The next half hour feels like being inside an extended Betoota Advocate headline. There are wild stories about his time in Queensland politics, to which his mind repeatedly returns. There is an anecdote about Anthony Albanese calling him to deliver “a string of obscenities” over a dispute involving the seamen’s union, on which he and Albanese disagreed. There are repeated claims that he is just an “ordinary Australian”, downplaying the significance of his upcoming portrait — an honour recently commissioned by Parliament’s little-known Historic Memorials Committee

There is vitriol for those who led the Nationals in the ’90s: “Anderson and that skinny, backstabbing, low-life, lying piece of bloody dog’s dropping, what was his name? Tim Fischer… What a bloody dog.” There’s also vitriol for former crossbenchers Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, who Katter blames for derailing the independents movement by supporting the Gillard minority government in 2010.

“I’ve never in my entire life, 79 years on the planet, ever seen anyone change as much as Tony Windsor,” he says, alleging Windsor became a de facto member of the ALP. “And he took all the rest of us down with him.”

“We’re sort of on our way back now,” he adds. “There’s 17 people on the crossbench. I think that’ll grow with each election.”

With four Greens and seven teals, the 18-member house crossbench is very different to the one Katter joined in 2001, then occupied by one rural independent (Calere has form). He says he is closest with Andrew Wilkie, his pig stunt buddy, despite the fact they “disagree on everything politically”. Although he has little in common with the teals, he claims to get on well with them and thinks they send a message to the majors. “I’m not so sure that Peter Dutton’s got the message,” he says.

Katter rejects the idea of “left and right”. It fails to capture him as a socially conservative union man. The same could be said for the teals, who are generally assumed to be socially progressive and economically conservative.

“Monique and all those people … they’ll vote with the Liberals on industrial issues,” Katter says. (The Victorian teals usually vote with Labor on industrial relations, but he’s correct about the NSW teals.) “That’s where left and right just doesn’t work anymore. What am I, you know? I’m a bloody flag-waving bloody CFMEU member!”

I repeatedly try to steer Katter back to the question of why he’s still in Canberra, a place he professes to be “stuck” and only came to because his state allies needed someone federal.

He uses the word “fight” 13 times over the course of the trip: fighting for Blackfellas, fighting for those “at the rough end of the pineapple”, fighting the “wokies” who took over the Nats, and fighting those who tried to put Bjelke-Petersen in jail for perjury over his evidence to the Fitzgerald inquiry into police corruption It most often seems to be about combating the “slimy, self-opinionated, arrogant people” who “stabbed Joh in the back”.

“I sort of got trapped in there, you know, because I couldn’t just walk out on Bjelke-Petersen with the government going down,” he says. “I’m not a bloody runaway when they fire the first shots. You know, there’s a battle going on and I had shouldered my rifle. And I’m not just gonna abandon my mates and walk away from the fight.”

I point out that many of the people he’s referring to are long gone from politics — some from this world.

“That is a very good call, Rachel, actually,” he says pensively. “A very, very good call.”

“So what keeps you in?” 

“Um, um, well, you know, um, we, um, I had to start a political party because the independents’ movement had failed Australia, thanks to Oakeshott and Windsor,” he begins, before performing one of his characteristic one-eighties. “But, no, I can see… remember, I’m a published historian, I lived out bush with the last of the Kalkadoons. [Katter occasionally identifies as Aboriginal himself, though he opposed the Voice to Parliament.] Les’ mother was one of the few ‘piccaninny’ survivors from the big battle of Battle Range. You know, I’m steeped in Australian history…”

It becomes increasingly apparent that I’m not going to get my answer. Perhaps Katter himself doesn’t know what he’s still doing in Canberra, other than “fighting”.

“It’s my job to stand up,” he adds at one point. “I had to fight the school bully at every school I was in.”

Who is the bully he’s fighting at this point?

“I think that the woke agenda is what I’m fighting now,” he says, arguing the “wokies” don’t actually want to help the Blackfellas, because “they want to cry and howl about the poor downtrodden”.

At this point, the Comcar has been idling in front of my accommodation for at least 15 minutes. It is time to go, if only for the driver’s sake. I ask Katter if he has any final points to make.

It appears he does — a three-minute point about tall poppy syndrome that traverses his school days, rugby league in inland North Queensland, someone named Charlsey, and a dispute over who was captain of the Cloncurry Tigers.

“It’s sort of funny saying that I’m just, you know, an ordinary Australian, but I lived in a world where, you know, nine out of the 10 in my class, except for me, everyone in my class at school, their fathers worked in the railway.  And I suppose the story that epitomises this best is I’d formed all the rugby leagues in inland North Queensland, and I’d…”

The point runs to over 600 words. You can read the whole thing here.

Has Bob Katter been a force for good in Australian politics? 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.

Katter, unfiltered: Four outtakes from our Bob Katter interview we couldn’t help but share

'We were violently opposed, me and Albo, on a number of things. He rang me up, he used the F-word 15 times out of 18 words! 15 of them, calling me an F-er.'

In the latest instalment of our Forget the Frontbench series, columnist Rachel Withers lands an impromptu interview with Bob Katter. It begins with being invited to pull up a chair at Katter’s pub dinner with Monique Ryan, and ends with a lift home in his Comcar. Throughout, Withers searches for the answer to one question: after almost 50 years in politics, what keeps Katter in it?

Withers’ profile — which you should read here, if you haven’t already — is a wildly entertaining insight into how Katter views Australian politics, and his role in it. And as you’d expect from one of the most idiosyncratic political figures of our time, the interview was full of gems that couldn’t be left on the cutting room floor. If we get the pleasure of reading them, you should too!

Without further ado: here’s Katter, unfiltered.

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Katter on Rachel Withers

Bob Katter: Now, what’s your name? 
Rachel Withers: Rachel. Rachel Withers. 

BK: And who are you with, Rachel? 
RW: Crikey. So I have a column these days that runs on Thursdays that’s only focused on independents and crossbenchers. And each week we look at a different person.

BK: I’m not an independent, I’m… 
RW: Well, you’re a crossbencher. 

BK: Yeah… What’s your first name again? 
RW: Rachel. That’s all right, Bob. 

BK: I didn’t pay!
RW: Oh, you didn’t pay? Oh, no, you pay on the app when you order, don’t you? How did you order?

BK: Monique ordered on the app.
RW: Oh, you’ll have to get Monique back, won’t you? So Bob, if I can just fire some questions at you. 

BK: Just… this is really embarrassing. What is your first name again?
RW: Rachel.

BK: And what is your second name, Rachel? 
RW: Withers. 

BK: Wither?
RW: Withers. Yeah, like the singer Bill Withers.

BK: Rachel? 
RW: Yep

BK: I’m gonna write it on my hand, right? If you write it down, you remember it… [writes my name on his hand] Jeez, Rachel, I go round a bar and meet 23 people and when I walk out I know every single one… That said Rachel, what do you wanna ask me?

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Katter on culture

BK: A very close mate of mine, a bloke called Neil Turner, a big, boof-headed bloke, [indecipherable] same as myself. And Turner came back into the state house, very good intellect, Neil, very good set of values, too — his values were the same as mine, of course [laughs]. “You are not seriously going to spend $45 million on a modern arts centre when I’ve got railway fellas who are carting water from the local hotel to have a bath. I mean, premier, you can’t agree to this!! You can’t agree to this!!” 

Anyway, one of the Liberals kept yelling out that the bloody National Party wouldn’t know what culture means. “You wouldn’t know what culture means, Katter! You wouldn’t know what culture means! None of you National Party know what culture means!” And then Turner grabbed him by the shirt, pulled him out of the seat and said, “We do so know what it means. It means agriculture.”

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Katter on Anthony Albanese

RW: How do you feel about having a huge bench with Monique and Kate and Allegra? Do you think it’s good having them in there to break up the major parties?
BK: I think that the message that’s gone through to the majors, and I’m not so sure that Peter Dutton’s got the message. I don’t know Peter very well. I know Albo really well. You know, we went in together and I’ve always got on well with Albo. He was a very strong supporter of Kevin Rudd’s and so was I. Sort of brought us together a bit. But also my union connections didn’t make me friendly with Albo. We were violently opposed, me and Albo, on a number of things. He rang me up, he used the F-word 15 times out of 18 words! 15 of them, calling me an F-er. 

RW: Over what?
BK: Because the seamen’s union that had joined the CFMEU was over at Coastal Shipping, whether Australian crews should be crewing those boats, and Albo didn’t agree with us. So we fought and we won, and Albo got rolled and he didn’t like it at all!

RW: This was a while ago, was it?
BK: Yeah, he blamed me for it. He rang up, a string of obscenities over the telephone. And I laughed. I said, so we won? HAHAHA. You know, another string of obscenities.

But, I mean, I sort of got trapped in there because, you know, I couldn’t just walk out on Bjelke-Petersen with the government going down. You know, I’m not a bloody runaway when they fire the first shots. You know, there’s a battle going on, and I just had to shoulder my rifle. And I’m just going to abandon my mates and walk away from the fight. 

RW: But a lot of those original mates are long gone from politics and some from this world. 
BK: No, that is a very good call, Rachel, actually. A very, very good call. 

---

Katter on being remembered as an ‘ordinary Australian’

RW: The last thing I want to ask is what do you want to be remembered for? 
BK: Oh, just being an ordinary Australian, you know, and that sounds a funny thing to say, but I reckon Albo and, you know, John Howard, I reckon they’d sort of be inclined to answer the question that way. You know, Hawke wouldn’t. Keating wouldn’t. Malcolm Turnbull wouldn’t.

RW: Well, you know what, I might let you go unless there’s any other final points you wanted to make.
BK: No, no, no, no. You know, I just — it’s sort of funny saying that I’m just, you know, an ordinary Australian, but I lived in a world where, you know, nine out of the 10 in my class, except for me, everyone in my class at school, their fathers worked in the railway. And I suppose the story that epitomises this best is I’d formed all the rugby leagues in inland North Queensland, and I’d spent so much time and so much of my life doing it, and it was worthwhile to do. But anyway, I was gettin’ a life membership, which I greatly prized for, and the rugby league was given a life membership, my uncle got a life membership. So this was infinitely more important to me, I couldn’t care less about a knight order, OAMs, but a life membership of the rugby league, I’d kill for that! But anyway, I’m landing in the aeroplane at the airport and the day before, the week before I’d been appointed a cabinet minister, and they had a big picture of me captaining the Tigers rugby league team in Cloncurry, and I looked very tough. It’s on the wall of Parliament House, and I do look very tough. And it’s a thorough motley crew, big blokes, little blokes, Black blokes, white blokes. But anyway, I’m captain. But it’s on the front of the Truth newspaper, the biggest circulation newspaper in Australia at the time. So anyway, I’m getting off the aeroplane to go to the dinner that night to be awarded my life membership. Bobby Charles, front row for Tigers, he started muttering obscenities at me. And I walked over and said, “Well, get it off your chest, Charlesy.” If I had to fight Charlesy, well I had to fight him. “Get it off your chest, get it off your chest!” And he said, “When were you ever effin’ bloody captain of Tigers?” “If I’m holding the football, and I’m the centre of the team, I am the captain. And if you don’t like it, well, you can fuckin’ well learn to live with it!” And I stormed off, see. But I’d only captained Tigers once! In like 15 years, I’d captained it once. And I was dirty, because I’d played A-grade in Brisbane. I was big time, super big time, you know. Come home and they wouldn’t give me the captaincy! And the bloke did give it to me, he was a much better captain than me. But anyway, it didn’t stop me from being dirty at the time. But the one game that I captained, the one game in 15 years, they took a photograph! So for all of posterity I’m the captain of Tigers! And Charlesy was right. It was the world’s greatest hypocrisy. But Charlesy couldn’t care less about me being a cabinet minister, or even getting my life membership. What he cared about was me being different, right? We’ve all got to be the same, we’ve all got to be equal, you know, Australian tall poppy syndrome. But you have to go. And when I went to Pormpuraaw, it kept reminding me of something…

The Bill comes due: Shorten’s exit is the end of a quarter-century battle for Labor

The Albo-supporting Left and the Conroy-Marles Right have been taking Shorten's outfit apart for months. Today they got him.

Stop Press: Your correspondent filed this epic yesterday for publication today. It details how piece by piece, Bill Shorten’s faction has been taken apart by the dominant Labor leadership group. And just to screw me, Bill just resigned, too late for me to rewrite, and too early to delay for 24 hours. If you’re wondering why Mr Save the NDIS is leaving politics in six months at the latest, here’s one account of it below…

John Setka and the CFMEU leadership were hoping things might settle down for a bit and… oh noes! There’s a story about an alleged crime boss building his alleged crime empire with the alleged assistance of the alleged CFMEU. Why does this keep happening? The Victorian ALP might have hoped things would calm down a bit and… oh noes! 

The Victorian branch of the Transport Workers Union (TWU) has been taken over by the federal body. Why does this keep… what? There are more allegations against Diana Asmar, beleaguered leader of the Health Workers Union (HWU), whose red clown hair has gone quite grey from the stress. Why does…™. And wouldn’t you know it, seems like the ABS was going to put a series of complex questions about sexuality and identity into the census and it all blew up and ONWDTKOH?

Well, I can see I’m going to have trouble convincing even the most persuaded reader that the census stuff-up was a feature of the ALP’s internal wars. And note: I am not accusing the ABS or Minister Andrew Leigh of any involvement in factional skullduggery. If only because in Leigh’s case I just think of him as that dude in Polyphonic Spree, just a happy man smiling and wandering around, holding a flute while behind him an army churns out content.

But I mean really. As Anthony Albanese and the National Left–TWU Right go to war against an insurgency, what pops into public view but a dilemma for which there is no good solution? There is no way to win this census “stuff-up”. All Albanese got to choose was which loss he would take. Stick with the new question and get a culture war playing to the outer suburban marginals. Kill it entirely and give the Greens the last 1,000 votes they need for Macnamara and Wills. 

The final decision — to split it in two and ask half the question — is Solomonic, but only if you never read that story to the end. 

Crib notes for the present

Ooooooooook, let’s backtrack a bit and start with the crib notes I am continually asked to provide. Here goes: There were once — talking decades here — three big factions (and some others) that are pertinent: Labor Unity, the main right grouping; the Victorian Socialist Left; and what’s now called the National Left. 

In the 1990s, the hitherto dominant NSW Right went from being a supreme mix of efficiency and some beliefs to a shonky suburban warlord outfit. As left-right politics was coming apart, the Victorian Right took the lead and was itself fragmented, fracturing into groups led by, or identified with, ex-stupol and youf Labor figures: Bill Shorten, Stephen Conroy and — at the somewhat separate SDA union — David Feeney. Labor Unity (or the core of it) then became an alliance between the Shorten faction, based around the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU), and the Conroy faction, based around the TWU. 

Labor Unity came to be known as the “Short-Cons”. A “stability pact” was created between the Short-Cons and the Victorian Socialist Left, which had managed to come together with a unity unmatched by the Right. Both sides feared a repeat of the factional wars of the late 1970s, which saw branch-stacking reach a ludicrous pitch and elements of the NSW Right start to use outright violence to pursue their goals. 

Then, several years ago, the Short-Cons came apart, with the Cons departing. (I recall Bill Shorten was in a plane over Arctic Canada when the Cons threw the switch. That was very funny.) The AWU/Shorts then (or before) made a play for factional power by allying with former SDA rising star Adem Somyurek, who had started his own factionette, the Mods.

The emergence of the AWU/Shorts-Mods group, as Centre Unity, gave the CFMEU a potential partner in a new alliance. They jumped out of the Socialist Left and the new mega-alliance made its power play. That was manifested by the Jane Garrett nonsense a few years ago, in which the late, former member for Brunswick became a willing pawn in a war of position. 

The Herald Sun and others happily joined in constructing this decent but flawed and ultimately foolish inner-city Laborista as Jane of Arc, allegedly and ironically being torched by the firefighters union. 

Cometh the permanent security establishment

Now enters the field the permanent military-security establishment that works through the Labor Right. Factional fragmentation has forced them to spread their chips across the political gaming table. For decades they preferred the SDA Right, given its anti-communist credentials. They appear to have given their support — often given without any knowledge of those supported — to the AWU Shorts and Mods. 

They then withdrew it spectacularly by taping Adem Somyurek in military-espionage/German-porn-grade HD video, doing what most interpreted as branch-stacking. They then leaked it to Nine. 

At the same time, John Setka at the CFMEU began to be leaked against. A bit later began “Operation Daintree”, an investigation into the misuse of training grants provided to the HWU. The HWU was aligned with the AWU-Shorts. 

The AWU-Shorts-Mods had made their play, failed, and were now being taken apart. Their last act — and what had probably prompted the order for their liquidation — was an overly ambitious wave of, erm, “enthusiastic suburban branch recruitment” by Somyurek, which sought to take over branches run by the TWU-Cons and put them out of business. 

The TWU-Cons regained their supremacy. They then allied with the Albanese-led National Left, which marked the latter faction’s departure from anything that could recognisably be called “left”. The general arrangement of the various stability pacts has been that whichever faction does not have the leader job gets to set the policy agenda — “policy”, as in, whatever programs will allow them to smoothly reproduce as a faction. 

The current politics of Labor is a special version of this. The Albanese government relies on the Cons-TWU faction for its support, and they in turn demand the death-rattle ruinous AUKUS policy, which is a requirement of the permanent military-security establishment. The price of not doing that is — well, look. Watch the Somyurek tapes. Somyurek was defenestrated from an office that had no windows. These fuckers can do whatever they like to you. 

Operation Dumbo Drops

What’s happening now is a push by various forces to topple Anthony Albanese as prime minister from within. This is confusing to some because the first visible manifestation of this was the fightback against it, with the leaking to Nine of some thick files and tapes against the CFMEU (or against the Victorian-Tasmanian construction branch) — the CFMEU now being a loose unit with enough power to give rebels a lot of heft. 

The leakers have relied on the fact that Nine’s leadership, laced into corporate Australia, would love to nobble the CFMEU — and its journalists have Walkley gold dust in their eyes. What has resulted is an exposé campaign that anyone who is not just going along with can see has not nailed anything of any consequence. 

Yesterday’s story is a case in point. It pings developer George Alex, following his conviction for money laundering and tax evasion, and accuses the CFMEU of helping him do it. The evidence is:

During a police surveillance operation in March 2020, agents observed Alex meet CFMEU NSW boss Darren Greenfield on the Gold Coast. There is no suggestion that Greenfield engaged in any criminal conduct…

Police alleged Alex’s syndicate also enlisted former CFMEU officials to act as dummy directors for ‘franchisees’ of one of his shonky Queensland labour hire firms…

… the allegations that Alex’s illegal operation relied on his ties to serving and former CFMEU officials echo the picture painted of him in 2015 by the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption…

The CFMEU’s NSW branch has not only granted the firm — which this masthead has chosen not to name for legal reasons — hard-to-obtain labour hire EBAs but pushed it onto major building sites…

So, in summary, a CFMEU official met with a developer, the CFMEU signed EBAs with a company that employs construction workers, and may have facilitated a company willing to work with the CFMEU getting contracts. And former CFMEU officials became dummy directors — and it all “echoes the picture”. 

Echoes the picture? It’s the vibe of the thing. It’s a nothing story that conflates a union doing its job — getting EBAs for its members — with this secret squirrel spycraft. Photos obtained by The Age show Darren Greenfield having a cappuccino at Hog’s Breath Cafe. 

Pathetic stuff, with tabloid beat-up and overblown headers that The Age claims to be above. But this drive has succeeded in the aims of the people who leaked the material to Nine. Instead of the selective investigation of possible individual malfeasance by some officials in one state branch of one industry section of a six-industry union, the entire organisation has been placed in depoliticised administration for three years. Which pretty much takes it out of the factional equation.

The winnowing of Suleyman

So what prompted this risky move? Well, the clue is in the treatment of Mem Suleyman, the now-deposed leader of a lot of grassroots power in the Victorian branch of the TWU. My presumption is that Suleyman wanted his branch, his power base and himself to be something more and other than just a power bloc for people like Richard Marles — the elite, Melbourne University stupol Labor aristocrat whose career has been built on the TWU.

This could not be tolerated by forces who want Marles to retain his power. Marles is a defence minister who acts as a de facto foreign affairs minister, while the actual foreign affairs minister’s role is as a human shield for Labor to allow it to support Israel’s destruction of Gaza. 

And so, suddenly there were accusations that Suleyman was a sexual harasser! Well, we in the modern labour movement have zero tolerance for gender-based etc, etc, etc.

But… oh noes. The harassment accusations against Suleyman proved to be unfounded. This poor man has been traduced, the TWU federal office says. In fact, he has been so badly treated in political infighting in the branch that the only way to solve this is to disband the branch itself. 

The fix is in again

Simultaneously with the rebel faction in the TWU being nobbled, Albanese requested that the ALP federal executive suspend the Victorian branch’s role in preselections, thus preserving the National Left-Cons/TWU control of the status quo in Victoria. Wow. A repeat of the branch suspension and administration following the Somyurek revelations. 

Last time that made people in Victorian Labor so angry they ran an external campaign, through the Herald Sun and elsewhere, to attack the Labor leadership from the outside, even though it was months out from an election. They got pretty shellacked for that. Surely nothing that kamikaze will happen aga… oh noes! Albo! That census question! How did you handle that so badly? It must be incompetence, right folks? It couldn’t be that a series of booby traps were laid from which there was no escape without damage. 

So this is where we are. Labor is in an all-out internal war as it heads towards the election. The main factional alliance is fighting to maintain its dominance. Other smaller factions are fighting an insurgency, partly as a nap bet on attaining internal power, and partly for their own survival against a central alliance they now see as wanting total party dominance. 

Lawfare, against both the deserving and the undeserving, is becoming a general strategy. Nine is used as a conduit for whatever needs to be dropped, leaked, released.

Gear-stick death drive

When the principals of this finally exit politics, those from the right will go to sinecures in the defence industry, and those from the “left” will go to the same in industry superfunds — where, like Grahame McCulloch, former militant NTEU head now industry sup(e)remo, they may occasionally emerge to do the bidding of the government and state and, as CFMEU administrator, incorporate the last militant industrial union into the state apparatus. Okay, okay, to be fair, he may also protect it from worse. Bill himself, a man of integrity, is apparently going to Canberra Uni as VC. 

All of that is driving a foreign policy dictated by American interests, turning us into the white cop of Asia, drawing us towards a war with China that would be the very opposite of our national interest and may result in untold lethality for our population and our land. Spruiked, boosted and unscrutinised by a media organisation that doesn’t want to do anything to interrupt the supply of drops. 

Tune into Insiders, RN Breakfast, and read the Nine op-eds and the News Corp spittoon to hear nothing about this from people who have no idea what’s going on, and who lack both the basic knowledge to interpret it or any willingness to get it. 

The great Australian media. And solidarity forever, the mighty Australian Labor Party.

Oh noes, why does this keep on happening…

Do you care about the Labor Party’s factional infighting? 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.

Gerard Rennick’s revolutionary Reddit handle, Erin Molan’s Trump exclusive, and anti-Greens campaigners unmasked

Also in this week's Tips and Murmurs, the Lara Trump song we've all been waiting for.

If I can’t post, I don’t want your revolution

Just like anything that involves even semi-direct contact with actual humans, politicians engaging in a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) can be fraught. Even if you avoid any major blunders or controversies, you risk revealing that you are just profoundly dull. Dull is not something we’d call newly independent Senator Gerard Rennick, but he did experience the other side of the process: getting a fairly savage down-voting and some pretty hostile questioning about his views on COVID-19 and climate change. But what really caught our attention was Rennick’s username, the absolutely weapons-grade handle “Cool_Revolution_4559“.

We asked Rennick where he came up with the account name, and alas, it wasn’t his idea. “I had to create an account and that’s the name they gave me — no planning on my part” Rennick, who recently ditched the Liberals to form the People First Party, told Crikey over text. But he obviously quite liked it, saying: “Maybe I should have used that for the party name,” followed by the cry-laughing emoji.

Keeping their council

They may be difficult to hear over the crescendo of catastrophe booming from the New South Wales Liberals’ windows like a clown orchestra ahead of the state’s local council elections, but there are many other issues and interested parties involved in the race. There is Better Council, for example, a newly set up group attacking Greens-led councils for their “fixation” on the horrors taking place in Gaza at the expense, the group argues, of issues more directly under their responsibility. Those councils should focus on “rubbish not radicals!” announces the website, a sentiment echoed on a reported 50,000 flyers going out to voters in the lead-up to the September 14 vote.

We got a little curious. Some digging reveals the website was registered by a company called DBK Advisory Pty Ltd, with its director listed as Alexander Polson. On his LinkedIn, Polson describes the company as a “boutique advisory firm specialising in corporate strategy and public affairs”. Boutique is right — the website is, shall we say, a little basic, with just a contact sheet.

Polson’s CV is impressive — he was a staffer for Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham before becoming manager of government and industry affairs for the Commonwealth Bank, a role he held in the aftermath of the banking royal commission.

Sophie Calland, one of the group’s organisers, told Crikey Better Council was a “non-partisan grassroots group of young professionals who are passionate about keeping local government focused on local issues”.

“Our campaign is concerned with some of the priorities of certain Greens councillors, who we strongly believe are focusing too much on international issues rather than on what matters to local residents,” Calland told Crikey in an email.

“Our concern isn’t with any specific stance on international issues like Gaza. Instead, it’s about councillors spending valuable time and resources debating these topics, which can lead to divisive narratives and tensions, rather than addressing pressing local concerns.”

A spokesperson for the NSW Greens told us in an email: “They’re doing this because they’re scared of the political power of the Greens and the community trust we have to make kinder and more connected communities. Greens local council candidates and councillors have a proud record of standing up for local communities’ rights to have a say.”

For a song

Remember the ARK music factory? They were a pay-to-play outfit that gave rich parents the opportunity to shell out up to four grand to provide their kids with a theme park experience of pop stardom. It achieved brief notoriety in early 2011, when Rebecca Black’s Friday broke containment to become a ubiquitous mini-phenomenon, and we’d definitely read a piece about the lingering impact on culture trailing the 13-year-old simulacra pop star powered entirely by irony.

We bring it up because Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara has a new music video out, called “Hero”, and it called to mind ARK’s efforts as though remembered through the haze of sleep paralysis.

There’s the faintly synthetic edge to her otherwise utterly anonymous vocals. The strange cheapness of the video (didn’t you marry into a billionaire family?). The decidedly “first draft” lyrics — a tribute to firefighters — and chord progression that sounds like a jingle writer being asked to evoke the Twilight soundtrack for an insurance ad. And perhaps most of all, the sense that the majority of the work has been outsourced to a professional — in this case, Florida-based singer Madeline Jaymes.

Incidentally, we wonder if Erin Molan asked Lara about it during the pair’s recent hang.

Molan has secured a “world exclusive” interview with Lara and husband Eric for Sky News Australia this Friday. We wouldn’t want to guess at the tone of the chat, but the picture above, the hug-filled promo and Sky News’ reliably sycophantic interactions thus far with the Trumps may hold some clue.

Kyle and Jackie O ARN’t having a good time

ARN Media has had a torrid time of it lately. The company fired its Melbourne breakfast duo, Jase Hawkins and Lauren Phillips, in favour of beaming the Sydney-based Kyle and Jackie O into Melbourne, hoping that the shock-based style would garner the same success it does in the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is the capital of New South Wales.

Instead, Sandilands and Henderson have limped to sixth spot in the most recent Melbourne ratings, comfortably trailing their predecessors (who have moved to Nova).

Questions continue to circle about the decision-makers at ARN. The company’s chief content officer, Duncan Campbell, pleaded guilty in November 2023 to one count of common assault against his ex-partner, but this week we learnt that when The Australian’s Jenna Clarke put questions to ARN about Campbell, she was instead met with the offer of another story. ARN’s CEO, Ciaran Davis, provided a character reference for Campbell in court, with News Corp reporting he praised Campbell as a valued employee.

We asked ARN whether it would provide us with Davis’ character reference, and whether it was standard practice for the company’s communications staff to trade answers to journalists for other stories. We also asked whether the company intended to retain Campbell.

A spokesperson for ARN said they wouldn’t comment as it was a private matter and didn’t even offer us any other stories for our trouble.

Jim Chalmers’ spray at the RBA is embarrassing

If only the government and the RBA could row in the same direction. But the blame for policy divergence has to rest entirely with the government.

There’s nothing in the Reserve Bank Act, or in the concept of central bank independence more generally, that says the treasurer can’t be as critical of the RBA as he likes. There’s a lot of silly hand-wringing about “inappropriateness” every time this happens. Our economists should not be so delicate. A government at war with its own money printer is a sign of the bank’s independence, rather than a lack of it.

But Jim Chalmers’ salvo against the RBA this close to an election is embarrassing and desperate. Foreshadowing the anaemic GDP growth figures released yesterday, the treasurer declared that the fault is all with the RBA: it is “smashing the economy” by keeping interest rates high to slow inflation. 

It’s not unusual for governments to be frustrated when monetary policy contradicts their political strategy. It is unusual for a treasurer to so aggressively try to offload blame for sluggish growth onto a central bank whose governor he appointed and whose mandate and approach he endorsed less than a year ago.

The problem for the Albanese government is simple. There is a fundamental tension between the government’s election strategy (to relieve the pressure of inflation on household budgets through fiscal transfers and try to prop up the economy with government spending) and the RBA’s requirement to get inflation down — inflation that is exacerbated by the government’s fiscal transfers and expenditure. So we have had higher interest rates for longer while the Albanese government has tried to shield voters from the impact of those higher rates while keeping spending high.

Chalmers knows full well that monetary and fiscal policy can work against each other. Back during the global financial crisis, an internal government meeting between treasurer Wayne Swan, prime minister Kevin Rudd, treasury secretary Ken Henry, and “senior staff” specifically discussed how, if government spending increased, the RBA would likely keep interest rates higher than it would otherwise (I wrote about the implications of this meeting for ABC’s The Drum here). Chalmers was Swan’s principal adviser when that meeting occurred. 

If only the government and the RBA could row in the same direction. But the blame for policy divergence has to rest entirely with the government. RBA policy choices are strictly bounded by its legislative objectives and its extremely limited set of tools. Chalmers has a lot more discretion.

We might have some sympathy for Chalmers’ predicament. It must be galling to see other central banks starting to reduce rates. Voters always blame the elected government for a poor economy. They are right to. Ultimately it is Parliament that has the most tools to boost productivity and through that economic growth. 

But there’s no time before the election to turn private sector growth around and there’s seemingly no appetite within the government to resolve the fiscal-monetary contradiction. Chalmers’ comments on Sunday were immediately following Anthony Albanese’s Saturday announcement of further “cost of living” relief in the form of increased rent assistance payments. 

After the economic data this week, there’s a good chance that the RBA will change tack soon. But you can see what Chalmers is trying to do: shift blame onto the bank for the economy’s poor performance generally.

I started by observing that there’s nothing wrong, in principle, with the treasurer complaining about RBA policy. Yet this is a sensitive moment for the central bank. At the same time as Chalmers is accusing the bank of economic recklessness, he is also trying to finalise the overhaul of its governance, splitting the board into a monetary and governance committee. The treasurer wants this reform to be bipartisan. After this week’s events, the Coalition should insist that any reform and associated personnel choices wait until election season is over, whoever wins.

Crikey’s 2024 Australian news job cuts tracker

2024 is shaping up to be a grim year for the Australian news industry. Here are the job cuts that we know about so far.

Things are looking grim for the Australian news industry. While some media leaders are pinning the blame on Meta for ending its lucrative deals, other factors like a soft advertising market and the international, cross-sector competition for eyeballs are also to blame for falling Australian media revenues and diminishing valuations. Not even growing concern about misinformation or a steadying of the number of Australians who are interested in, consume and pay for news is enough to cushion the blow.

While the Australian News Mapping Project keeps track of the number of news outlets across the country, nowhere is keeping track of how these newsrooms are changing. In 2021, journalist union the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) estimated there were fewer than 10,000 journalists working, down 5,000 from the decade before.

Crikey is assembling a list of reported newsroom job cuts at media companies around the country. This list is a work in progress based on reporting and public statements about present and future tipped job cuts. It is subject to change and will be updated as information becomes available.

Know about upcoming job cuts? You can anonymously tip off Crikey here or Cam Wilson directly here.

Australian Community Media 

NEW: Australian Community Media (ACM) informed staff on September 4 that the company would be cutting 35 editorial positions, including around 12-14 from its biggest mastheads, The Canberra Times, Newcastle Herald and Illawarra Mercury. An email sent to staff by managing director Tony Kendall, seen by Crikey, blamed the “loss of federal government advertising revenue and the loss of payments from Meta” for the cuts, on top of “reduced revenue from display and classifieds advertising and print circulation” and inflation.

“There were a few tears. People are angry in our office — resources have been cut right to the bone already. There’s this motto the executive leadership team keeps regurgitating, ‘do less with less’, which doesn’t marry up with them asking us to continue driving subscriptions with less staff.” (An ACM staffer speaking to Crikey, September 4, 2024)   

News Corp Australia

“Twenty editorial staff would lose their jobs, said people with direct knowledge of the plans, speaking on condition of anonymity. Ten of the staff would be taking voluntary redundancies. Titles affected include The Courier-Mail, The Daily Telegraph, The Hobart Mercury, Adelaide Advertiser and News Corp’s free news and lifestyle division, which includes the news.com.au website … No regional staff or journalists from The Australian or the Herald Sun will be made redundant.” (Nine papers’ Calum Jaspan, July 10, 2024)

“The restructure is aimed at saving up to $65 million, will likely result in north of 100 redundancies and will leave News Corp with three publishing divisions and a sales unit, elevating key executives and editors while casting others aside.” (Australian Financial Review’s Sam Buckingham-Jones, May 29, 2024)

Nine Entertainment Co

NEW: “As foreshadowed in June, we have been working with our people in reshaping the publishing business to ensure a sustainable future in response to the challenging advertising market and collapse of the Meta deal.” (A Nine spokesperson to Crikey on August 20 after the company executed 85 redundancies)

“Nine-owned Pedestrian Group chief executive Matt Rowley will lead the departures as the organisation slashes up to 40 jobs” (The Sydney Morning Herald, July 8)

Rowley told Crikey in March that the company was continuing to “power on”. Pedestrian will exit its licensing deals with a number of third-party brands, seeing the death in Australia of the likes of Refinery29, Gizmodo, Lifehacker and Kotaku.

Crikey understands an all-staff meeting was called at Pedestrian at 4pm on the Thursday prior to the announcement, with at least one commercial partner blindsided by the decision.

“From our nationwide team of almost 5,000 people, around 200 jobs are expected to be affected across Nine including some vacant and casual roles not being filled.” (Nine CEO Mike Sneesby in an all-staff email on June 28, obtained by Crikey)

“We are looking at reducing the publishing division headcount by between 70 and 90 staff over coming months.” (Nine managing director Tory Maguire in an all-staff Slack message on June 28, obtained by Crikey)

Seven West Media

“The Kerry Stokes-controlled Seven West Media will make up to 150 jobs redundant … The job cuts are not limited to any one division, with journalists from the television and print divisions, sales and marketing staff, as well as some printing staff to be cut.” (Nine papers’ Calum Jaspan, June 24, 2024)

“Seven West Media is splitting itself into three divisions and elevating two of the company’s longstanding executives as it attempts to cut $100 million in costs … Seven’s chief content boss Angus Ross will become managing director of the television division, and chief digital officer Gereurd Roberts will become managing director of digital. Chief executive of Seven West Media WA, Maryna Fewster, will remain in her position and the company’s sales team will be split across all three divisions.” (The Australian Financial Review’s Zoe Samios, June 26, 2024) 

On June 27, Crikey reported that Seven’s newest digital masthead The Nightly would avoid the job cuts.

Paramount Global/Network 10

“Paramount Global — the owner of Network 10 — has announced that it will be axing Australian staff in a bid to cut costs.” (The Australian’s Sophie Elsworth, February 14, 2024)

The stench from Star Casino is enveloping the Queensland government

The Queensland government looks willing to do anything, including gagging the media and using taxpayer money to prop up a rotten company, in its quest for the Queens Wharf precinct to succeed.

Last week wasn’t a good week for the Hong Kong-based Chow Tai Fook Enterprises (CTFE), part of the Cheng family’s property, jewellery, hotel and gaming conglomerate.

From 2022, the Queensland government undertook a 16-month inquiry into the company’s suitability as a junior partner in Star Casino’s Queens Wharf complex in light of CTFE’s links with a convicted fraudster with alleged ties to organised crime. In May, the Queensland government (which refused to release the report) used contortions like “there was not an appropriate basis to find unsuitability” to wave away the links, and explained the company’s refusal to share information with the Queensland casino regulator as the result of “differences in cultural and organisational expectations”. At the same time, the government further deferred a suspension of Star’s casino licences, imposed in the wake of Star being found to be unsuitable to hold a licence.

At the time, the Nine newspapers got hold of a section of the report and asked the government about it. Rather than respond to the inquiries, the Miles government promptly tipped off CTFE, who ran straight to court to gag the media from revealing any contents of the report. Given that the report supposedly found insufficient basis for blocking CTFE, why it rushed to court to prevent anyone from knowing about it invites considerable speculation. The Queensland government dobbing on journalists to a foreign company is also a shabby look.

Last week CTFE rushed back to court, this time to injunct Nine from publishing the whole report — supported by the Queensland government, which agreed to act as witness for the company.

While the courts looked favourably on CTFE’s application, thus keeping Australians in the dark about the failings of a foreign company linked to organised crime, things were a little grimmer in Hong Kong. On Friday evening, the company’s property arm, New World Development, reported its first loss in 20 years — HK$19-20 billion (around A$3.7-$3.8 billion). Shares in the main company in CTFE, Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group, are down nearly 50% this year as the Hong Kong property market tanks.

Problems around the Queens Wharf casino, where CTFE holds 25%, and with ailing partner Star — in which CTFE holds a stake of around 5% — are thus another front of unwanted news in the Cheng family empire.

But it’s not for lack of trying on the part of the Queensland government. Not only did it wave away serious allegations of links with organised crime, delay its suspension of Crown’s licence, tip off CTFE about journalists asking questions and agree to back the company’s efforts to gag journalists, last week, via the Queensland casino regulator (the Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation), it issued Star a licence for the Queens Wharf casino two days before the second Bell report dropped in NSW. The inquiry concluded the company was still not fit to hold a casino licence in Sydney.

The Queensland government seems open to doing whatever is necessary to prop up Star — now suspended from ASX trading — with Steven Miles saying “This is a fantastic asset for our city. It is a big job generator. It is a major attraction to our city and state. It is an important platform for Brisbane 2032 and everything that we’re going to do in our city over the next decade or so. So we want to keep them open.”

Star’s request for yet another taxpayer handout was so egregious that even the gambling-obsessed Minns government in NSW laughed it off. Star has already received a ridiculous cut in its taxes from the NSW government, and chance after chance to get its shambolic operations in order. Finally, the begging bowl has been ignored. But not in Brisbane. Up north, it seems if question is if there is anything Star could ever do that would lead to appropriate regulatory action.

As the NSW decision shows, this isn’t the normal cupidity and venality of state governments dealing with gambling interests. This is a state government that has allowed major urban planning to be hijacked by a gambling company with a long record of refusing to comply with basic regulatory requirements, like money laundering regulation.

Late Wednesday, Star released a statement to the ASX revealing something that will strike terror into investors: it is seeking advice on its accounts, and “the advice being provided has extended, from time to time, to considering the application of provisions of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (including the safe harbour provisions)”. The “safe harbour” insolvency regime allows a company’s directors to implement a restructure without the risk of personal liability for debts should the restructure ultimately fail. That means huge losses, write-downs or impairments. It is a drastic, last-resort move to call for protection — and a real mark of desperation.

Queensland Labor, with visions of tower-lined river banks and Olympic glamour, has ignored repeated signs that there’s something deeply rotten in Star and within its partners. With investors and bankers unenthused by the prospect of tipping good money after bad into the company — or, in the case of CTFE, having financial challenges of their own elsewhere in the company — the Miles government, in its last days, looks set to dump taxpayers with the bill for its failings.

Is it time for Queensland to cut Star loose? 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.

Trump Media keeps sinking lower and lower. Will Donald abandon ship?

The price of shares in Donald Trump's Trump Media continues to plummet, with the former president looking at billions in paper losses compared to just a couple of months ago.

Donald Trump’s failure to respond to the arrival of Kamala Harris as his opponent is destroying billions of dollars in paper profits he has locked up in his near-60% owned Trump Media company. The question is, how soon will he sell out, leaving other investors holding increasingly worthless stock?

The lock on his controlling stake in Trump Media ends on September 19. He can’t sell until then. In recent weeks, he’s had to sit and watch as the value of the shares has fallen — and fallen, and fallen.

They fell to $US16.98 on Wednesday (down more than 6% in one day) to yet another a record low for this year. They fell below $US20 for the first time a week ago.

That means they have fallen 58% from their most recent peak of $US40.58 on July 15 — two days after the assassination attempt that at the time seemed to clinch the presidency for him — only for Joe Biden to give way to Kamala Harris and for the vice-president launch a near-perfect start to her campaign.

Trump’s stake in the company is now worth $US1.97 billion, compared to a book value of $US4.65 billion when the shares were at $US40.58.

Complicating matters for Trump is that two founding shareholders, who own 18 million shares, have the same lock date as him. The company tried and failed to use the courts to block the shareholders from selling come the 19th.

Trump’s long history shows that he won’t care about other investors in his ventures — he famously allowed his Atlantic City casino business to go bust while reaping enormous profits from it. Trump’s holding is still, at least for now, worth a lot of money. But in selling the shares, it will give us a good idea that he knows he has lost the election; that Trump Media’s one key asset — him — no longer has enough appeal to make the company a viable concern, and that he’s willing to withstand criticism for taking the money and running.

Kamala Harris’ campaign has taken off, but Trump still has one advantage — if he can rein himself in

The Democrats are on a roll, but Trump still leads on key issues with American voters. The question is whether he has the discipline to stay on message.

Six weeks ago, it was inconceivable that Vice President Kamala Harris would be in the driver’s seat of this year’s US presidential election.

Harris was the afterthought running mate of President Joe Biden, a historically unpopular incumbent. Donald Trump, having survived an assassination attempt by millimetres, had a commanding lead in a presidential race for the first time in his political career.

Republicans were also coming off a flawless national convention that gave a strong message of party unity and enthusiasm for Trump’s third consecutive run for the top office. Even the vice-presidential selection of Senator JD Vance, a recent convert to Trump’s nationalist project, was seen as evidence of the former president’s strength.

Yet this week, on the cusp of early voting, Harris leads Trump by nearly two percentage points in the RealClearPolitics national polling average and by 3.2 points in the FiveThirtyEight polling roundup.

Democrats, evidently ecstatic over Biden’s departure from the race, have embraced Harris’ relative youthfulness and vitality. Although she has a strong progressive track record, Harris’ popularity has soared as she has embraced moderate positions on energy, immigration and key foreign policy issues. Her vibe appears to be superhuman.

Does this mean Harris will run away with the presidency? Or can Trump get back in this race?

Flailing at the worst time

Since Harris’ ascendancy to the nomination (perhaps the fastest in modern American politics), Trump’s campaign has been flailing.

He questioned her racial identity before a group of Black journalists, a rhetorical manoeuvre that predictably landed with a thud. He has spent a couple of weeks flip‑flopping on abortion, enraging his pro‑life supporters.

Most recently, his maladroit campaign turned a visit to Arlington National Cemetery honouring service members killed during the US pullout from Afghanistan into a complete disaster. Harris and the media are slamming Trump for politicising the hallowed resting place of national heroes and even bullying the cemetery’s staff.

It may seem hopeless for the Republicans. The race, however, is not what it appears.

In fact, the candidates remain quite close in the critical swing states. The three “blue wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, in particular, are vital to Harris’ chances. Harris knows this and is even willing to campaign with Biden in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where his blue‑collar, working‑class appeal is greatest.

Each campaign is spending tens of millions on ads in Pennsylvania alone. They know that turning out their voters in that state could be the key to overall victory.

SWING STATE POLLS with @thehill

2024 Presidential Election

AZ: Trump 50%, Harris 47%
GA: Harris 49%, Trump 48%
MI: Harris 50%, Trump 47%
NV: Harris 49%, Trump 48%
NC: Trump 49%, Harris 48%
PA: Trump 48%, Harris 48%
WI: Trump 49%, Harris 48%https://t.co/6kUM620BMz pic.twitter.com/ejf3DKXcYU

— Emerson College Polling (@EmersonPolling) August 29, 2024

Loath to lean into his advantage

Trump also has a latent advantage that may prove helpful in the end. On several key issues, he is still out‑polling Harris: the economy, inflation and immigration.

With Harris winning the vibes contest, Trump needs to break through with voters on these public policy matters. Trump will have the opportunity to do just that in the first presidential debate on September 10.

Recent polling suggests that American public opinion on immigration has taken a sharp rightward turn in the last four years.@nicolenarea analyzes the latest data: https://t.co/vQfUZFr3Dp pic.twitter.com/1SRXRMKGe5

— Vox (@voxdotcom) August 27, 2024

To reframe the race in his favour, he will have to show that Harris has herself shifted position on immigration and energy policy. In her only media interview since becoming the Democrats’ presidential nominee, for instance, Harris said she no longer supported a ban on fracking, which she had backed in 2019.

But can Trump manage this? So far, he has not demonstrated the discipline required to make this a race on policy. He appears to be more interested in competing on the vibes front, discussing who is better looking (Harris or himself) and who is attracting the biggest crowds to their speeches.

Trump’s top campaign advisers this year, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, are a more accomplished and disciplined team than he has ever had. Through the Republican convention in July, the pair had successfully manoeuvred Trump, who had been deeply damaged by the January 6 insurrection, to a leading position against Biden. They orchestrated a near‑sweep of talented Republican challengers in the primaries and kept Trump’s focus on the issues that mattered to voters.

Rather than leaning into their advice, however, Trump appears to be disengaging from his campaign managers’ steady hands. In recent weeks, he has also brought back Corey Lewandowski, who ran his 2016 presidential campaign, sparking rumours of a campaign shake‑up.

Perhaps Trump’s near-death experience at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July has made him want to do things “his way”. Perhaps he is tired of being managed. Perhaps he is alarmed by Harris’ gravity-defying rise in the polls.

In any case, he needs to return to a focus on the policy issues where he connects most with voters to get back on top of this race.

If he doesn’t, he’ll lose his second presidential campaign in a row.

This piece was first published in The Conversation.

Do you think Trump can still win in November? 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.

All eyes on Bullock following weak growth

Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock is expected to respond to sluggish economic growth today, and backlash about the government's census questions continues.

BULLOCK TO RESPOND TO WEAK ECONOMY

All eyes are set to turn to governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Michele Bullock, today when she gives a speech to the Anika Foundation. Yesterday, the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed Australia’s economy grew by just 0.2% in the June quarter, equating to 1% over the past year.

That sluggish growth and its impact has led coverage overnight, with The Australian leading with Treasurer Jim Chalmers saying his budget strategy had been vindicated as the country would likely be in ­recession if not for government spending. Yesterday’s growth figures were in line with the RBA’s forecasts and the paper said markets and economists had different predictions on what comes next. The money markets are reportedly predicting an almost 70% chance the RBA will reduce the cash rate from 4.35% to 4.1% in its December meeting, while the majority of economists think the earliest the bank will move rates is at its February meeting.

The data on Wednesday also showed household spending coming in notably weaker than forecasted, AAP highlighted, with the ABC quoting Westpac senior economist Pat Bustamante as saying it was a “big surprise”. He added: “In stark contrast [to the weakness in consumer spending], total new spending by governments continues to grow strongly and is now at a record share of the economy [27.3% of GDP, from a previous peak of 27.1% of GDP in the September quarter 2021].”

The Australian said Chalmers will pit his budget strategy against the Coalition’s push for greater budget austerity before Parliament returns next week. “We resisted the kind of free advice that … we should slash and burn in the budget and deliver some kind of scorched earth austerity,” the treasurer is quoted as saying. “That would have been absolutely disastrous for the economy, we now know that’s the case. We struck exactly the right balance in our budget and these numbers do vindicate the balanced approach we took.”

As the government attempts to spin the economic results and waits to hear what the RBA governor has to say about them at midday, it has yet again come under pressure to implement a complete ban on gambling ads — something it continues to resist. The call for the ban comes in a new report from the Grattan Institute, which also says there should be a mandatory pre-commitment loss limit for online gambling and poker machines and that the number of machines should be cut in each state, Guardian Australia reports. The new study found the average annual loss per adult in Australia was $1,635, significantly more than the average in countries such as the US ($809) and New Zealand ($584), the ABC said.

Grattan Institute chief executive Aruna Sathanapally said Australia had let the “gambling industry run wild, and gamblers, their families and the broader community are paying the price”, Guardian Australia reports. “It’s time our politicians stood up to the powerful gambling lobby and reined the industry in,” Sathanapally added.

The Sydney Morning Herald has broken down the country’s gambling losses and the industry’s political influence in a series of eye-catching charts here. And a reminder, Crikey’s Punted series can be found here.

CENSUS BACKLASH CONTINUES

On the theme of a government under pressure to make a different decision, numerous publications are leading this morning with the fact health and research organisations are calling for questions on gender and sexual orientation to be included in the next census after the chaos of last week (you can find a refresher in Monday’s Worm). A joint statement from the likes of the Kirby Institute, the Australian Human Rights Institute and the Centre for Social Research in Health, said the questions were needed to fill in gaps in much-needed research, Guardian Australia highlighted.

The ABC says the organisations warn excluding LGBTQIA+ questions from the 2026 questionnaire would put people at greater risk of “marginalisation and disadvantage”. The national broadcaster includes the full text of the statement in its coverage, which includes the organisations declaring: “Historical erasure and underrepresentation in data underscore the urgent need for an accurate reflection of population diversity. Including these questions in the 2026 Census is crucial to fulfilling Australia’s commitment to equitable public health and to enhancing our national data infrastructure … We call on our leaders to be clear and bold in ensuring no-one is overlooked due to data gaps.”

The federal government will be desperate to put criticism of recent decisions and the economy blame game behind it and may be pleased to see the coverage of its recent AI announcement this morning. AAP highlights the release of voluntary guidelines, including businesses being encouraged to warn customers when they are using artificial intelligence, to highlight its risks and to provide ways for people to appeal decisions made by AI. The newswire adds a four-week consultation would be held on mandatory restrictions on high-risk AI uses, such as facial recognition, medical devices and recruitment processes.

Guardian Australia reports Federal Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic released a discussion paper proposing 10 “mandatory guardrails”. Husic said in a statement the public was aware “AI can do great things” but wanted protections “if things go off the rails”. The paper says a European Union-style act of Parliament could be used to regulate minimum standards on high-risk AI across the economy.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE…

A social media craze involving people in Spain placing pineapples in their shopping trolleys has resulted in “chaotic scenes”, Sky News reports.

The trend involves single people going to Mercadona supermarkets between 7pm and 8pm and placing the fruit upside down in their trolley. They are then supposed to go to the wine aisle to find others doing the same. Apparently, if you then spot someone you like, you bump your trolley against theirs to start a conversation.

All of which doesn’t sound too harmful, but Sky reports police were called in Bilbao, northern Spain, after a flash mob of hopeful singles “overwhelmed” a Mercadona store. And the BBC revealed staff are unsurprisingly not too thrilled at having to collect discarded pineapples from around the stores at the end of their shifts.

The phenomenon appears to have been driven by a TikTok video from actor and comedian Vivy Lin.

Say What?

I don’t know whether to hug him or yell at him because — what a platform he ended up giving me, honestly.

Rachael “Raygun” Gunn

Australia’s infamous breakdancer spoke to The Project last night about the fallout from her viral performance at the Olympic Games. Guardian Australia quotes her as saying the vitriol she received was “pretty alarming” and that she had “mixed emotions” about a skit on Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show inspired by her performance in Paris.

CRIKEY RECAP

Toxic cost of Labor’s WA obsession just keeps growing

BERNARD KEANE

The WA government is a rotten plaything of mining and energy interests, operating as the policy arm, and private militia, of big miners and fossil fuel companies. By dedicating itself so determinedly to satisfying every demand emanating from the state, the Albanese government offers a national version of the WA disease, at huge expense to the taxpayer.

The only issue that is not up for debate is Labor’s changes to industrial relations laws, which have, unsurprisingly, prompted extensive complaints from mining companies. But in its union donors, Labor has a far more important constituency to please than mining companies on IR. Besides, it will be aware that it’s pro forma for mining companies — whose ranks include some major wage thieves — to claim any industrial relations changes will destroy mining, end investment, collapse the economy etc.

But on other issues, Labor’s precarious electoral state serves to massively magnify the malignant political influence of the resources sector and the media it controls. A government that is happy to curb the export revenue generated by foreign students can’t even bring itself to tax properly the export revenue earnt by fossil fuel giants from West Australian offshore gas projects, let alone curb those exports to reduce Australia’s disproportionate contribution to the climate crisis.

Up in arms: Inside the eight-year battle against Melbourne University’s weapons company links

JAMES COSTA

Many students and staff weren’t satisfied with the level of detail, or the framing of the declarations “as a sign of good faith and conscience”, as one protest organiser put it, but expressed hope it signalled a shift.

But new insights into an eight-year campaign by anti-war activists on the campus — including academics, students and professional staff — indicates a steadfast determination at the highest levels to maintain links to companies involved in weapons development, and signals substantial resistance to the second part of the protest agenda: divestment.

An investigation by The Citizen, exploring meeting notes and the recollections of key players in that campaign, including some senior academics, indicated that their repeated objections to the university’s association with weapons companies have been deflected or dismissed.

How everything became about the Greens blocking the CPRS in 2009

CHARLIE LEWIS

Continuing with its admirable commitment to bipartisanship in the exact ways its voters don’t want, Labor is seeking the opposition’s support for its watered-down, industry-approved version of the Environmental Protection Agency. And it’s not just the Coalition on Labor’s mind, apparently.

“If the Greens party doesn’t support the government’s EPA laws, this could be their carbon pollution reduction scheme mistake mark two,” Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said.

If you are among the huge chunk of voters for whom the CPRS barely rates as a distant political memory, worry not, Labor is always here to remind you (as are we). The CPRS — an emissions trading scheme for anthropogenic greenhouse gases — was widely regarded as an inadequate policy and friendless in all directions. After it was voted down in the Senate in 2009, including by the Greens, Labor replaced it with a more effective scheme.

That hasn’t stopped Labor from dedicating an exhausting amount of time on the subject in the nearly 15 years since. Here’s the story about how, as far as Labor is concerned, everything ever is about the Greens’ decision to vote against the CPRS.

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Georgia high school shooting leaves four confirmed dead and nine injured (The Guardian)

‘From the river to the sea’ doesn’t violate Meta rules: Oversight panel (al-Jazeera)

‘Decades of failure’ by UK government led to Grenfell fire, report finds (The Financial Times) ($)

US announces plan to counter Russian influence ahead of 2024 election (The New York Times) ($)

‘Fake heiress’ Anna Sorokin will compete on ‘Dancing With the Stars’ amid deportation battle (Associated Press)

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro declares Christmas to begin in October (Sky News)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Now the Australian economy is on its knees, will the RBA finally start cutting interest rates? — Greg Jericho (Guardian Australia): So far we have not gone into a recession — but only because our population has grown and the government has kept spending, mostly on healthcare and social assistance linked to the NDIS.

The next lot of GDP figures will contain the stage three tax cuts, which should boost household incomes. Similarly, a lack of any more interest rate rises should at least mean we’re no longer getting hit, even if the pain of all the punches remains.

But given the economy has clearly slowed sooner than the RBA expected, perhaps it might start to think about lowering rates sooner than previously anticipated.

The Libs had a man with a plan to fix their problems. If only they’d told him — Alexandra Smith (The Sydney Morning Herald): Dutton would not have cared much about NSW’s council-nomination debacle. He would, however, care that if the NSW division could not manage the simple task of lodging nomination forms, it was highly unlikely to be in a position to help win a federal election. The moderates, led by the godfather of the faction, Don Harwin, can accuse Dutton of political opportunism all they like, but the recent track record of the NSW division speaks for itself.

The NSW Liberals need a major overhaul and, with a looming federal election, Dutton could not afford to take any risks with a party that was not up to the job. But in taking first steps to clean up the party, he has faltered at the first hurdle.

To allay fears that he is purely trying to oust his factional opponents, Dutton should rethink the makeup of the committee imposed on NSW. That must include a woman, preferably one who has been consulted on her appointment before it is publicly announced.