Rolling back the red carpet

RED ALERT

Australia has evicted Russia from its new embassy after it tried to bring possible spies to work there, according to The Australian ($). The Canberra site had been given to Russia 14 years ago, but construction has dragged on ever since, at least partly because of financial problems — workers claimed their contractor owed them $1.5 million. But then Russia tried to fly in its own contractors over the past couple of years to check the work of the local ones, the paper says. It might sound like an overreaction, but Australia did bug the Chinese embassy in the ’90s, as AP reported, and now China only uses its own contractors, too.

Anyway, Home Affairs reportedly blocked the Russian contractors’ entry to Australia, the Oz ($) continues, because of concerns they would include members of Russia’s Federal Security Service. But our National Capital Authority (NCA) used the “use it or lose it” policy to terminate Russia’s lease, ABC reports, calling the unfinished embassy an eyesore — and besides, it’s on a premium block near Lake Burley Griffin and Parliament House, the NCA said. The Russians were irate — a spokesperson says it was speaking to lawyers about “the unprecedented and highly unwelcome move by the NCA”. Is this a product of frosty diplomatic relations? At least partially. I wish I was making this up, but a kangaroo actually did try to break into the front gates of the Russian embassy this week — the Independent has the footage. The foiled attempt was logged by the embassy, which noted the “unauthorised access attempt”. The kangaroo fled the scene.

[free_worm]

SMOKE SIGNALS

Australia’s biggest polluters could be told to cut emissions by 6% a year as talks officially kick off between Energy Minister Chris Bowen and the 215 companies causing a third of our total greenhouse gasses, the SMH reports. The Albanese government is opening industry consultations across the country today about how our safeguard mechanism can be strengthened — it was created by the Coalition in 2016 to compel big hitters like coalmines, power plants, aluminum smelters and cement producers who create more than 100,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases a year to keep below that baseline or else pay for carbon credits to offset themselves, as Guardian Australia explains. But no company has been penalised for exceeding the baseline, even though one in five are, according to the Climate Council. Emissions are also up 4% since it was introduced. Industry will have one month to respond to Bowen’s overhaul of the mechanism, The Australian ($) continues — he’ll release a consultation paper today which reportedly floats tailoring the baseline for different mining, chemical, transport and energy companies. Any way you look at it, the baselines have to decline if we want to make our 43% target work — the paper says they might decline by between 3.5% and 6% a year.

What if there was a way to reduce our bills, reduce the country’s debt and help the climate? One of Australia’s top energy finance experts, Tim Buckley, has released a report which says if we fix loopholes and subsidies in our tax and royalties regime, $322 billion could be added to our budget bottom line over the next decade. Michael West Media continues that royalties are not taxes — they are “the cost which corporations pay to governments to extract our minerals from Australia’s soils and sea beds”. But fossil fuel giants are not likely to enjoy it — Queensland’s Treasurer Cameron Dick has doubled down overnight over the state’s royalty regime, after a sulking BHP shelved its $1 billion mine project over the new tax, The Courier-Mail ($) reports. There’s no doubt business is booming, however — Australian oil and gas company Santos posted a 300% increase in its underlying profit this year, Guardian Australia reports, described as “yet another example of the company burning our long-term future” by critics.

SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN

Two Indonesian boys named Anto (no surname) and Samsul Bahar who were part of a group of eight children prosecuted as adult people smugglers using flawed evidence under then attorney-general Christian Porter are asking new Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus for help. Guardian Australia reports the police used “fictitious dates of birth on sworn legal documents” that led to children as young as 13 going to maximum security prisons in WA in 2010. They spent years there. The two boys, aged 15, asked Porter to use powers of mercy so they could appeal their cases back in 2020. Porter said no. He said no court could find a miscarriage of justice had occurred. This year, six of the boys had their convictions overturned by the WA Appeal Court, which declared a miscarriage of justice had occurred. Dreyfus’ office is considering the matter.

It comes as Dreyfus has agreed to consider raising the age of criminal responsibility in Australia from 10 after he met state and territory counterparts in Canberra to discuss the issue, the National Indigenous Times reports. The ACT and the Northern Territory have already committed to raising it, and the states are looking at following suit. Dreyfus recently received a petition signed by 200,000 people calling for the age to be lifted to 14. The Age of Criminal Responsibility Working Group will develop the proposal “paying particular attention to eliminating the overrepresentation of First Nations’ children in the criminal justice system”. It’s a dismal fact, but kids as young as 10 are being arrested, handcuffed and strip-searched in Australia.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

A 13-year-old dog named Abby has been rescued from a 150-metre-deep Missouri cave two long months after she went missing. Gerry Keene was exploring caves in Missouri with some friends when their brood of five kids ran ahead. All of a sudden the kids were back with overlapping breathless tales of a dog in a cavern. Keene was doubtful, but when he peered down, Abby’s salt-and-pepper furry body was curled up in a small forlorn ball on the rocky platform. Her black ears had perked up hopefully in the torchlight above — the photo is going to play your heartstrings like a harp. It was about 14 degrees down there, and nearly pitch black, and yet Abby had not given up. Keene says all she could do was raise her weary head — at first, she wasn’t able to get up, and was in “terrible shape”.

He and the kids didn’t know who Abby was, or if she was rabid, but they were determined to save her. They decided to lay down a blanket over a duffel bag to lure her out. At first, she feebly stood on four legs and, perhaps frightened, walked the other way. But after some coos from Keene and the kids, she turned around and plonked herself on the blanket. “It’s probably the warmest thing, the driest thing she’d been in for who knows how long,” Keene remembers thinking, as CBC continues. They managed to carry Abby up an incline and squeeze her through some tight gaps, noticing paw prints everywhere on the way out — probably evidence of her attempts to get free. She was reunited with her emotional owner Jeff Bohnert who had, after two devastating months, resigned to thinking she was gone forever. Abby is gaining weight and wagging her little tail again. “It’s amazing how she’s springing back already,” Bohnert said. “That’s my dog.”

Hoping you spot the opportunity for a good deed today, too.

SAY WHAT?

I have no interest in the book, I have no commercial interest in it whatsoever, but I cooperated with interviews that were done contemporaneously. That book was written based on interviews that were conducted at the time, in the middle of the tempest.

Scott Morrison

The former prime minister might’ve kept his five ministries a secret from everyone — including several of the relevant ministers — but he was happy to tell The Australian reporters Simon Benson and Geoff Chambers who were writing a book, Plagued, the revelations of which kicked off the whole saga on Monday.

CRIKEY RECAP

‘Short, dumpy girl’: Foxtel CEO insults Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke at House of the Dragon premiere

Cam Wilson

Aug 17, 2022

14

“Foxtel CEO Patrick Delany described Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke as a “short, dumpy girl” at the premiere of the long-awaited prequel series House of the Dragon, shocking attendees. Delany made the comments during a speech before the screening of the first episode of the series at the Sydney premiere at the Entertainment Quarter. The long-time Foxtel executive retold how he was late to start watching Game of Thrones.

“‘I was like, ‘What’s this show with the short, dumpy girl walking into the fire?’ he said. According to two attendees, the response to the comment was cold. A Foxtel Group spokesperson told Crikey that Delany’s comments were meant to be self-deprecating and light-hearted: “The aim was …”

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Wiki-melts, Howard’s ruined 7.30 chat, and even the Oz is stumped: the member for Cook just keeps giving

Charlie Lewis

Aug 17, 2022

28

“On the day he lost the top job, former prime minister Scott Morrison was described by Bernard Keane as “not merely Australia’s worst prime minister, he’s the worst prime minister for his own party on either side of politics”. And indeed, he has a special and powerful talent for ruining his colleagues’ day.

“Not content with having done so to Josh Frydenberg, Keith Pitt, Karen Andrews, Mathias Cormann and Peter Dutton, he reached back, past his own time in Parliament, to bugger up John Howard. Howard went on 7.30 last night, just wanting to talk about his new book, A Sense of Balance, and had to instead sustain a grilling at the hands of Sarah Ferguson, which he eventually got sick of …”

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So many questions, so few answers. We asked a lawyer to unravel Morrison’s biggest lies

Michael Bradley

Aug 17, 2022

57

“How can you have two ministers for one portfolio? There’s no law against it. There’s barely any law at all in relation to the appointment and responsibility of ministers. Section 64 of the constitution says that the governor-general appoints ministers of state, and they serve at his or her pleasure. It doesn’t say anything about portfolios or the practical workings of authority and decision-making.

“So, in theory, you can have two ministers of health, merrily exercising all the extraordinary powers given to that role — for example, the Biosecurity Act power to lock you up in your own home, in shackles, and force you to undergo medical procedures against your will. Look it up. Morrison could have done that to you.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

El Salvador extends state of exception as arrests hit 50,000 (Al Jazeera)

Pence calls on Republicans to stop assailing the FBI after Mar-a-Lago search (The New York Times)

Liz Cheney loses Wyoming primary to Trump-endorsed election conspiracy theorist Harriet Hageman (SBS)

China inducing rainfall to combat severe drought (BBC)

U.K. inflation tops 10%, underlining gloomy outlook for Europe (The Wall Street Journal) ($)

Bangladesh tells UN that Rohingya refugees must return to Myanmar (Al Jazeera)

Mexico sees its energy future in fossil fuels, not renewables (The New York Times)

Kabul mosque attack: ‘many casualties feared’ (BBC)

THE COMMENTARIAT

West must muscle up to meet our perilous times — Tony Abbott (The Australian) ($): “Plainly what’s needed is a rapid resurgence of the democracies’ military power, economic strength and cultural self-confidence, yet it’s hard to see any of this being led from Washington, where the administration is focused on correcting perceived racial injustice, even though minorities have never had a fairer go; and combating what it calls a climate emergency, even though there’s a looming strategic emergency that could kill millions and impoverish billions, far more surely and far more quickly than a couple of degrees of global warming a few decades hence.

“Should cutting emissions remain the world’s highest priority when it has the practical effect of making the democracies relatively weaker and dictatorships relatively stronger? Just to pose the question, I think, gives the answer. Global and regional leadership can’t just be left to an America in relative decline. Japan needs to take its rightful place as the main democracy of the western Pacific, without unique restrictions on its armed forces. India needs to hasten its emergence as the second democratic superpower in a world that sorely needs another strong force for good. Britain needs to make Far Eastern deployments — like last year’s by HMS Queen Elizabeth — routine events. And Australia needs to end decades of strategic complacency, because leaving the heavy lifting to others is unworthy and unwise.”

There will be blood (most of it inside the NSW parties) — Alexandra Smith (the SMH): “Transport Minister David Elliott has never shied way from political fisticuffs, even if that includes landing blows on his own. His government may be under siege, but the self-appointed troublemaker has shown he is prepared to fight anyone if it gives him a chance of survival. After his brief flirtation with a federal tilt ahead of this year’s election, Elliott had seemingly landed on the decision to quit politics. He agreed to tie up some unfinished business in his new Transport portfolio and then see out his days on the backbench.

“But somewhere along the line, his thoughts shifted and Elliott is still in cabinet and his decision to leave Macquarie Street not so concrete. But he has hit a major stumbling block. Elliott’s electorate of Baulkham Hills will be abolished at the state election after a boundary redistribution. He will have to convince his Liberal colleagues to give him a new seat if his political career is to continue. At this stage, that seems unlikely. Not one to go quietly, Elliott has declared war. Not on Labor but on his Liberal factional nemesis Matt Kean, who beat him to the deputy party leadership. Had Elliott won that contest, it would have helped secure his future.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Whadjuk Noongar Country (also known as Perth)

• Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury Andrew Leigh will host a forum about building community alongside Australian charities, at Perth Town Hall.

Larrakia Country (also known as Darwin)

• Greens leader Adam Bandt will speak at the ACN National Nursing Forum at the Darwin Convention Centre.

Yuggera Country (also known as Brisbane)

• Writer Jessie Cole will chat about her memoir, Desire: A Reckoning, at Avid Reader bookshop. You can also catch this one online.

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

• The 30th Annual Ernie Awards for sexist remarks will mark their final year of highlighting sexism and inappropriate speech in Australia at a gala dinner at NSW Parliament House.

Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)

• Sex discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins will speak at the Women In Sport Congress, where sports experts from Australia and overseas will gather across three days at the Melbourne MCG.

Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)

• Former prime minister John Howard will discuss his new book, A Sense of Balance, at the National Press Club.