Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching
Labor senator Kimberley Kitching (Image: AAP/Mick Tsikas)

VALE KIMBERLEY KITCHING

Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching has died aged 52 from a suspected heart attack. Prime Minister Scott Morrison tweeted that he was “deeply saddened at the news”, continuing that he had “great respect” for her and — somewhat oddly — mentioned in his statement that Kitching was “a practicing [sic] Catholic”. Former Labor leader Bill Shorten says Kitching had a heart problem, and described the “immense loss to Labor and the nation”. Indeed Labor Leader Anthony Albanese tweeted the “Labor family is in shock”. Kitching was admired across the floor, it seems — Nationals Leader Barnaby Joyce wrote he’s “so terribly upset” about the loss of his “dear friend”, while Liberal Senator James Paterson called her a “true patriot” and a “warrior for her cause”.

Kitching had been a member of the Labor party for three decades, worked as a Melbourne councillor in the early 2000s, and had also managed the Health Workers’ Union. During her career she chaired Parliament’s Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee, and was the deputy chair of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee, SBS reported. Perhaps Kitching’s strongest legacy could be her work on the Magnitsky legislation — these laws are now being used to sanction Russian oligarchs in Australia (The Conversation in the US explains how they work). On a personal level, Kitching was described as “funny and fun to be around” by colleague Madeleine King. “I wish I told her that,” she wrote.

[free_worm]

IN A SORRY STATE

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is set to announce Queensland is now part of the state of emergency declaration, ABC reports, even though Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk initially refused the offer. Morrison will ask the governor-general to declare it so after seeing parts of the state’s south-east yesterday. But Palaszczuk says it’s pointless — “the time for that national emergency [declaration] was probably a week ago”, she says, as The New Daily reports. Morrison explained — some might say mansplained — there was a “bit of a misunderstanding” over the tussle, saying the declaration doesn’t unlock more funding or more deployments, it just removes some regulatory hurdles. Morrison has also defended denying 17 of the state’s 20 applications for flood-prevention funding, saying it was a state responsibility. But Palaszczuk asked, as The Brisbane Times reports, well, what’s the point of the Commonwealth’s $5 billion Emergency Response Fund then?

As the deployments continue into flood-affected areas in NSW and Queensland, the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group say we are too dependent on the Australian Defence Force troops, as AFR reports. The group says this disaster has demonstrated the insufficient disaster response leadership in Canberra, a sentiment some victims of the flood seem to share. Around 5000 personnel were deployed across Queensland and NSW yesterday — four times the amount of Queensland’s 2011 flood disaster — but former ADF chief Chris Barrie has before warned the ADF is no substitute for good climate policy.

HITTING THE GAS

You could spend an extra $1100 on petrol this year, according to Morgan Stanley, as petrol surges above $2.20 a litre. It’ll cost Australians a mammoth $12 billion this year, The Australian ($) reports. Senator Rex Patrick is urging the government to provide a temporary reduction in the 44.2c-a-litre fuel excise, but Treasurer Josh Frydenberg seems to be on the fence, saying that money goes towards our transport infrastructure.

He told the AFR yesterday we should prepare ourselves for a rising cost of living amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, but opposition treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers says it’s disingenuous for Frydenberg to pretend petrol wasn’t surging before the conflict.  So what should we do? The SMH has a good op-ed this morning about how Australians — particularly women — can better secure their financial future. Keeping your own bank account, learning to invest, making sure you’re not underpaid, creating a budget and knowing your assets are among some easy strategies to implement now — as well as investing in yourself with education and wellness.

In the US, as a possible sign of things to come, the Federal Reserve will likely hike rates next week, AFR reports, as inflation has hit a new 40-year high of 7.9% driven by a surge in gas, food, and housing costs. Speaking of — our own Reserve Bank’s deputy governor Guy Debelle has quit the post to join billionaire Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue Future Industries, The Australian ($) reports. Debelle acknowledged it’s something completely different for him after three decades with the RBA, but says he is determined to help the country decarbonise.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

Some guys named Marshall Mayer and Gareth Johnson were like, let’s buy an island — so they started a project called Let’s Buy an Island in 2018, where they crowd-funded enough money to, well, buy an island. In December 2019, they’d raised a quarter of a million US dollars and bought a tiny Belizian island called Coffee Caye. But they’re not stopping there. They’re turning it into a micro-nation called Principality of Islandia, with its own national flag, anthem and government. They’ve sold 100 shares of the island for US$3250 a pop, and those people have one vote in the democratic decision-making. One of the investors asked CNN, why wouldn’t I invest? “I can tell all my friends that I own an island!”. Indeed.

So is this sort of thing possible? Kind of. There are other micronations worldwide, like The Principality of Sealand (former WWII platform that became “independent” in 1967) and the Republic of Uzupis, a neighbourhood in Lithuania that has its own constitution. So why’d they buy an island? Mayer says it was the post-Trump, post-Brexit, COVID world that made him do it (well, when you put it like that). Mayer says he hopes the island will be a force for good, and has been throwing around ideas for coral regeneration, as well as glamping accommodation. But for now, it’s just cool that buying an island brought together investors from 25 countries (everyone automatically gets citizenship). “It was a crazy leap of faith to take, but our initial goal of buying an island, we’ve done it,” Mayer says.

Wishing you a bright idea today too, and have a restful weekend ahead.

SAY WHAT?

Well, and I said this a long time ago, we are playing right into their hands with the green energy. The windmills. They don’t work. They’re too expensive. They kill all the birds. They ruin your landscapes.

Donald Trump

The former president was in over his very coiffed head when he was asked about how the Russia-Ukraine war — which he has described as both “genius” and then a “holocaust” — will end. His obsession with windmills actually dates back to a 2015 UK Supreme Court ruling that said the former toddler-in-chief couldn’t stop the construction of a windmill farm that would obscure the view from one of his golf courses. Trump was ordered to pay the legal bills.

CRIKEY RECAP

Grace Tame reveals details of what was said in ‘Morrison threat’

Mar 10, 2022

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“Advocating for better education around the language of abuse and the tactics of abusers is a big part of what the Grace Tame Foundation is set up to do. Yet the intimidating caller was, allegedly, all too happy to withdraw any support for this work over any words or actions that made Scott Morrison look bad.

“When pressed on her experiences in dealing with the current government, Tame asserted that she was apolitical and wanted to work with people on all sides for change ‘because the abuse of children transcends politics’.”

What Kerry Stokes and Mark McGowan’s text messages tell you about power in Australia

Mar 10, 2022

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“Some of yesterday’s text message revelations were in keeping with that: we got McGowan calling Palmer the ‘worst Australian who is not in jail’ and WA Attorney-General John Quigley letting McGowan know that he was ‘not making love in the sweet hours before dawn, instead worrying how to defeat Clive :D’, which, look, thanks for that.

“We also learned, with dreary predictability, that a lot of private correspondence featured cheap shots at Palmer’s weight. But the day’s proceedings also illustrate a lot about how power works in this country in the form of the chummy texts between McGowan and Kerry Stokes …”

Scott Morrison is toxic waste for a government in desperate trouble

Mar 10, 2022

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“Twenty-six years later, journalists are too scarred by Scott Morrison’s miracle win in 2019 to reflect the sentiment on the ground: he is viscerally loathed. This is a prime minister who can’t even do a street walk in a disaster area — after announcing tens of millions of dollars in extra assistance — for fear of being abused by locals.

“A prime minister who won’t let the media film him even on carefully orchestrated visits to affected residences and businesses for fear of a Cobargo welcome.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Infographic: How much of your country’s oil comes from Russia? (Al Jazeera)

4 falsehoods Russians are told about the war (The New York Times)

Ukraine war: [Chelsea FC owner] Roman Abramovich sanctioned by UK (BBC)

China’s promotion of Russian disinformation indicates where its loyalties lie (CNN)

Elon Musk has sold 7 homes for nearly $130m after vowing to ‘own no house’ (The Wall Street Journal) ($)

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: List of key events from day 15 (Al Jazeera)

The physical scars of our warming planet are everywhere (The New York Times)

Chile couples’ joy as first same-sex marriages held (BBC)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Marshall flicks the switch to vaudeville to win the debate — John Ferguson (The Australian) ($): “Steven Marshall won the leaders’ debate and has given himself an important opportunity to deal himself back into the campaign. The South Australian premier used humour as an effective weapon to win over the room and his experience to sell his messages. These assessments are subjective, particularly given that Labor’s Peter Malinauskas managed to get his talking points out to the audience and particularly hammered Marshall on health.

“In many ways, it was a very high standard debate that belied perceptions that Marshall’s goose has already been cooked. This perception has been fuelled by strategists on both sides reckoning that the Malinauskas train is a runaway political machine that will win government. The most important concession of the debate was Marshall suggesting some of the onerous virus restrictions could have been lifted earlier. People seem to be forgetting just how important the virus is to the March 19 election.”

The cold war terrors are back, baby, and generation X finally has something to offer the young — Van Badham (Guardian Australia): “Generation X teens coming of age in the 1980s also did so in the shadow of a prophesied ‘nuclear winter’; scientists realised the destruction of atomic war would pump so much soot into the atmosphere that descending cold darkness would cause global crop failure and famine. All this was learned at the height of a cold war, in which Chernobyl was melting down, and the then-Soviet states and the west had literally thousands of warheads pointed at one another.

“We were just kids — and generationally powerless to do anything about it. They didn’t call gen X the ‘bleak generation’ for nothing. The fear of annihilation saturates the cultural products consumed by gen X as young people. We were given children’s books about nuclear horror — Z for Zachariah, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes and the devastating graphic novel Where the Wind Blows. They were terrifying — a desperate gambit from the adults who wrote them to frighten us away from making bad decisions in the future we’re living in now.”

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Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

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