Crikey Worm: Trump and Kim trade promises

WAR AND PEACE AND BIG PROMISES

News from US President Donald Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un’s historic summit in Singapore continues to drop, including Trump’s announcement that the US will suspend military exercises with South Korea in exchange for a denuclearisation pledge.

The Guardian reports that yesterday’s summit saw Trump and Kim sign off on a significant, if open-ended and vaguely-worded, joint statement pledging that North Korea will commit “to work toward complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”. While Trump says sanctions will remain until denuclearisation is complete, the US will cease expensive and “very provocative” war games with South Korea, a surprising and unprecedented concession. North Korea will reportedly also seek nuclear disarmament from other powers.

Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop has since welcomed the meeting with “cautious optimism”, and sought to offer Australian services in monitoring North Korea’s denuclearisation progress.

QUESTIONS OVER QLD BUDGET

Queensland MP Jackie Trad has handed down her first state budget as Treasurer, with highlights including a $1.51 billion surplus from last year, $45.8 billion pledged for infrastructure over the next four years, an extension of the state’s 50% payroll tax rebate scheme until June 2019, and a reduction of the state’s First Home Owners Grant scheme from $20,000 to $15,000.

The Brisbane Times reports that the Housing Industry Association and the Master Builders Association of Queensland have criticised the government for weakening housing affordability, with the scheme cuts set to take effect from July 2018. The Electrical Trades Union has also criticised the budget over jobs creation.

For more, the BT have published a cheat sheet for state budget winners and losers, as well as a preview of rate rises in the Brisbane City Council budget.

DARK MOFO UNVEILS HELL SPIDER

Organisers for Tasmania’s Dark Mofo festival have based this year’s “ogoh-ogoh”, a large demonic creature derived from Balinese Hindu culture, on the Tasmanian cave spider.

The Mercury ($) reports that each year demons are portrayed as endangered or extinct Tasmanian creatures, and that the 200kg handmade cave spider was created with local producers, Balinese artists, volunteers and a University of Tasmania Asian Studies lecturer. From opening night, punters will write fears down on paper and place them in the spider’s egg sac, until the ogoh-ogoh procession event on June 24 ends with the spider’s burning.

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THEY REALLY SAID THAT?

Ellenbrook Boost is hiring! If you are interested please email your resume to boostrocks@bigpond.com.

Christian Porter

Australia’s Attorney-General takes a minute to spruik Boost Juice via Facebook and, while bizarre and seemingly out of nowhere, it’s at least a bit more positive plug than the last time he had anything to do with employment programs.

CRIKEY QUICKIE: THE BEST OF YESTERDAY

How Australian courts are stacked against victims of sexual assaultBri Lee

“Much has been written about jury trials since the #MeToo wave came crashing through society. The movement that began with questioning men’s behaviour towards women has now rolled swiftly through to a questioning of the systems and establishments that either implicitly facilitate or expressly encourage sex offending. I’m interested in turning this critical lens in on the legal process itself.”

What would success look like for Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un?Professor Damien Kingsbury

“The fact that President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un have engaged in talks this morning means this meeting will already be deemed a success. All they have to do now is walk away saying they have agreed in principle to some relatively low-level matters and leave the details to their officials.”

Home Affairs admits involvement in ‘good Muslims’ recruitment schemeHelen Razer

“This past autumn, academic and Crikey contributor Shakira Hussein took in a decent meal and an agreeable view of Sydney Harbour. This past weekend, The Saturday Paper published what would quickly become her widely read account of that day spent in Woolloomooloo. The piece, of particular interest to Gosford’s rebel reverend Rod Bower and anonymous others who had attended similar events, reveals a little more than we Australians have previously seen about the state work often known in the West as Countering Violent Extremism (CVE).”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Complaint lodged over Ms Dhu custody death

SA government promises to ‘expedite’ Oakden compensation claims ($)

Tas abortion bid hinges on vote of Speaker

Giving private company taxpayer funds to bottle water without license is risky, NT Treasurer says

Top cop stood aside after officer complaint ($)

‘Missing’ guns: fresh doubts over Victoria Police firearms registry

Budget to deliver $20 million funds boost for fight against family violence ($)

John Lloyd chaired panel recommending candidates for role that could decide on investigation

Afghans sought in Defence inquiry ($)

Deal to be inked for Solomon Islands undersea internet cable Australia stopped China building

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Canberra

• Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will meet with Solomon Islands PM Rick Houenipwela.

• Veterans Affairs Minister Darren Chester will speak at the National Press Club on issues relating to regional Australia and veterans.

• Opening night ahead of Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s two day international conference, “Building Australia’s Strategy for Space”, to begin officially tomorrow. The event will feature a range of federal politicians and industry experts.

Sydney

• The Law Enforcement Conduct Commission will hold a public hearing into police handling of a female prisoner in an inner-city police station in April 2016.

• Lendlease and Two Good Co will run a competition where corporate Australia teams up with local street artists for gender equality. Minister for Family and Community Services and Minister for Social Housing Pru Goward and Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore will help judge competition, and winning works will be exhibited on almost 60m of hoarding on Underwood Street.

• Greater Sydney Commission chief commissioner Lucy Turnbull and NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance will speak at The Global Sydney Forum, an innovation and entrepreneurship event in Sydney’s southern CBD.

• Treasurer Scott Morrison will open Western Sydney University’s newest high-rise vertical campus. .

• Police will host a press conference ahead of a large-scale, four-week forensic search for missing 3yo boy, William Tyrrell, near his grandmother’s Kendall home in Port Macquarie where he vanished in 2014.

• 18 cyclists for the month-long Steven Walter Children’s Cancer Foundation’s Around Australia Ride will arrive in Kirrawee after travelling 15,000kms around the country.

Melbourne

• Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, Opposition Leader Matthew Guy and Greens leader Samantha Ratnam will address VCOSS’ Good Life Summit, a discussion with Victoria’s social policy and advocacy bodies ahead of the November state election.

• The Public Accounts and Estimates Committee will hear from Agriculture and Regional Development Minister Jaala Pulford and Police and Water Minister Lisa Neville.

• Victoria’s Coordinator-General Corey Hannett, Transurban executive Wes Ballantine and Consult Australia’s Megan Motto will discuss infrastructure investment at a CEDA forum.

• Melbourne Festival’s artistic director Jonathan Holloway and Arts Centre CEO Claire Spencer will hold an early announcement for a 2018 festival highlight.

• Jill Gallagher AO, Victoria’s first Treaty Advancement Commissioner, will present the Monash University Annual Reconciliation Lecture on achieving Treaty in Victoria.

• The Centre for Urban Research will host “Eco-Suburbia: Low Carbon Futures”, a panel discussion on urban sustainability with local housing and planning experts.

Perth

• Opposition Leader Bill Shorten will appear at Northbridge TAFE for a press conference early this morning.

• Day one of the two day Association of Mining and Exploration Companies Convention, to feature speeches from 2018 Australian of the Year Michelle Simmons and Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, Senator Matthew Canavan.

• A parliamentary hearing into the potential for plumbing products and materials to contribute to the presence of lead in drinking water will hear from Australian Building Codes Board chief executive officer Neil Savery and WA Building Commissioner Ken Bowron.

• A parliamentary hearing on microgrids and associated technology will hear from representatives for the Australian Services Union (WA Branch) and an Energy Made Clean/Lendlease Joint Venture.

• A Public Accounts Committee hearing will examine agency responses to more than 20 performance audits reports from 2015 and 2016, including the Department of Education’s response to “Managing Student Attendance in WA Public Schools.”

Brisbane

• Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Deputy Premier and Treasurer Jackie Trad will speak at a post-budget lunch.

• Primo Smallgoods, with partners Todae Solar and CleanPeak Energy, will begin construction of Australia’s largest single rooftop solar installation, a 3.2 megawatt solar panel system, at their Wacol site.

Darwin

• The Northern Territory’s Estimates Committee will hear from Chief Minister Michael Gunner. 

Hobart

• Tasmania’s Labor opposition will move a motion in Parliament calling on the Liberal government to offer surgical abortions at public hospitals.

• National Catholic Safeguarding Ltd will hold a public standards consultation forum in response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Adelaide

• Minister for Education and Training Simon Birmingham and Liberal candidate for Mayo Georgina Downer will visit Yankalilla Area School to launch the ‘Engineering is Elementary’ pilot program in South Australia.

• Journalist Carole Whitelock will help launch A History of South Australia, by Paul Sendziuk and Robert Foster, at Dymocks Adelaide.

Hamilton, Victoria

• Racing Minister Martin Pakula will make new infrastructure announcements at Dunkeld Racecourse and the Hamilton Racing Club.

London, England

• First ODI for the Australian men’s cricket team tour of England.

THE COMMENTARIAT

War, killing and memorials: How much to remember the dead? — Nicholas Stuart (Sydney Morning Herald): “Most Aussies today can’t trace their lineage back to a personal connection with the Anzac legend. For them, spending $500 million on a memorial that divides us isn’t a sensible use of money. There are plenty of other museums we could establish and keep the memorial for its real job. To remember. Others insist it’s obscene to have halls sponsored by companies that profit from war (in a memorial!).”

Solar 2.0: PV and storage deals show signs of rapid energy transition — Giles Parkinson and Sophie Vorrath (RenewEconomy): “Josh Frydenberg might have been right when he said that the Coalition’s proposed National Energy Guarantee would not stop investment in wind and solar: It probably doesn’t matter how big a wall of policy and regulatory inertia is built, the plunging costs of renewables and rise of storage solutions and smart business models means it can’t actually be stopped. Slowed, maybe. Stopped, no.”

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