Hell in high water

WHEN IT RAINS IT POURS

Victoria is in the midst of a “significant flood emergency” according to the State Emergency Service (SES), which Victoria Premier ­Daniel Andrews declared “one of the most ­serious flood events we have had for quite some time”. About 10,000 properties have lost power, The Australian ($) reports. This morning people in Wedderburn were told to evacuate immediately, along with Seymour, Rochester and Benalla, The Age says. Shepparton can expect its worst flood in almost 30 years on Saturday afternoon, Guardian Australia continues, and Melbourne suburbs such as Essendon, Footscray, Moonee Ponds and Keilor were put on high alert last night too. At 9.16pm, the Maribyrnong River was at 2.33 metres and rising when VicEmergency told Keilor residents to move to higher ground.

NSW and Tasmania are copping dangerously heavy rainfall too as the 400-kilometre-wide deluge rains down on Australia’s south-east, news.com.au reports. About 500 people in Forbes, in NSW’s central west, were told to leave last night as the Lachlan River is expected to peak today at 10.6 metres (!), the ABC reports. If there’s one thing to remember it’s this: never, ever drive through flood waters. The SES warns that’s the single biggest killer during floods in Australia. In the northern half of Tasmania, the rivers have risen to a height not seen since deadly floods in 2016, Guardian Australia continues, but the mayor of Latrobe says people are well prepared with sandbags and are, like many others, bracing for more.

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OPPRESSED AND REPRESSED

Iranian-Australian woman Sara Bakhshi delivered a grim yet rousing recount of her treatment at the hands of Iran’s morality police on the ABC’s Q+A last night, arguing our government should label the Iranian government a “terrorist group”. There have been widespread protests in Iran and elsewhere for four weeks after Mahsa Amini, 22 — who was supposedly not wearing her hijab properly — died in custody last month. Seven people died overnight in demonstrations, as The New Daily reports. Bakhshi told Stan Grant and the panel that she was first detained — and kicked — aged just 12 for being a passenger in a car with her male cousin. She was kicked again as a teenager for nail polish, told not to return to a university class because her hair was out, and body searched on her departure to Australia to study here. She says we are altogether too relaxed about the Iranian government, and called members of it “murderers” and “friends of al-Qaeda” and the Taliban.

Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones gave a bit of a politician’s answer, saying “These are things we have to look at”, but Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong went harder in a tweet earlier this week, saying we condemn the “ongoing heavy-handed repression of protests by Iranian authorities”, and that the attacks on children and arrests of students at school were “particularly disturbing”. To another, slightly different overseas attack now, and the details of 35 AFP operations preventing drug cartels in Australia have been leaked after the Colombian government was hacked by an “environmental and anti-imperialist” group called Guacamaya. Incredibly — according to the SMH — the AFP didn’t even know about this until the paper contacted it. The cops said they’re working to “mitigate any potential threats to the safety of people, or ongoing investigations”. Interestingly, the paper included a line saying it had seen but destroyed copies of the hacked documents (and wiped metadata) — likely to deter an attack on itself.

POOR FELLOWS, MY COUNTRY

One in eight Australians live below the poverty line. That’s according to a new report from University of New South Wales and the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), which found 13.4% or 3 million Australians are doing it tough. The poverty line is $489 a week for single adults, and $1027 a week for a couple with two children — that’s half the median income after tax. It’s lower than at the beginning of the pandemic, news.com.au reports, when it was 14.6%, but massively higher than the 12% rate in June 2020 which was actually a 17-year low. Why? Proponents of universal basic income (UBI) will be bolstered to hear that it was the government COVID payments. They lifted 646,000 people out of poverty, which is 2.6% of the population. Cast your mind back and you may remember the $750 economic support payment and the $275 COVID supplement payment allowed singles on JobSeeker to go from $134 below the poverty line to $146 above it. Single parents with one child went from $67 below the poverty line to $228 above it. But it was axed on March 21, and replaced with a measly $25 a week boost to JobSeeker, as ABC reports. That’s a few bucks a day.

The report drew its data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. ACOSS boss Cassandra Goldie says the report is a “source of great shame” for the country and urged the government to reconsider the “unconscionable” stage three tax cuts, Guardian Australia continues. And the pressure is on for us leading up to Christmas, 7News reports — NAB’s consumer sentiment survey, released on Thursday, says we can expect to pay $1700 more on household expenses. That’s $59 more on groceries, $35 on fuel and $76 on gas, electricity and water a week. OK — things are really tough, but there are little rituals we can do to cheer ourselves at least a little, as The New York Times reports (I know, I know, I can be infuriatingly bright-eyed). Count yellow doors on your walk for mindfulness, one reader suggests, or spend some time watching the birds (a “bird sit”) each morning. Do a handstand while solving a problem, or touch your toes each morning to achieve one tiny goal first thing. It sounds twee, but the moments of bliss do add up.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

Some boffins taught a lab-grown brain to play a video game and now they’re going to get it drunk. It’s the sort of sentence that brings a tear of pride to the Australian eye. The 800,000 brain cells were grown by Melbourne scientists who worked out they could stimulate the cells to do things — like play Pong. Remember that early-computer-era game that is kind of like squash? The scientists indicated to the cells what side the ball was on using electrodes, and feedback from the electrodes taught them to return the ball as if they were the paddle, as The New Daily explains. It was tricky because, unlike your pooch, the cells couldn’t be incentivised with dopamine — like a pat or treat. But the cells’ “remarkable” penchant for predictability helped, and led “to something that resembles intelligence”, Cortical Labs’ Brett Kagan says.

So, of course, our natural impulse was to inebriate the cells and see if they get worse at Pong. Heeere’s to 800,000-artificial-brain-cells, they’re true blue, they’re a piss-pot through and through, as the drinking song goes… But the soon-to-be-boozy experiment, dubbed “DishBrain” by the bio-tech start-up, could have several significant outcomes for medical research, according to the scientists working on it — we’re getting a vivid insight into how the brain works, with potential learnings about conditions like epilepsy and dementia. The cells are also a much more ethical alternative to testing new drugs or gene therapies on animals. So what now? In the short term, scientists will give the cells a slosh of ethanol as well as various medicines and monitor their game performance, while longer term the findings offer the possibility of experimenting on a living model brain. Drink responsibility, 800,000 cells…

Wishing you a breakthrough — big or small — today, and a restful weekend.

As always, I welcome you dropping into my inbox if you’re feeling chatty — tell me what you like or loathe about the Worm, or anything — eelsworthy@crikey.com.au

SAY WHAT?

We know our people have done it tough, including long periods of stand-down and a two-year wage freeze.

Alan Joyce

The embattled Qantas CEO has announced he’ll boost worker pay by 10% after a “tough” period… at the hands of Joyce and his fellow decision-makers, that is. The national carrier reported a profit before tax of about $1.2 billion for the first half of 2022-23. And all you had to do was go without your luggage for half of your holiday for it to happen…

CRIKEY RECAP

It’s the last days of social media as we know it

Cam Wilson

Oct 13, 2022

“… Now Twitter might be drastically changing its products in a way that makes me very pessimistic about its future. Facebook looks like it’s dying as it sheds users. I wouldn’t be surprised if Instagram follows a very similar pathway soon. Instead people are spending time on the new tech juggernaut TikTok; messaging apps like WhatsApp, Meta’s Messenger and Snapchat; chat platforms such as Discord (like Slack but for fun!); and the most recent buzzy app BeReal.

“These are all very different, but what they have in common is that all but one are ‘dark social’ — platforms where social interactions are invisible to the public. Instead of being out in the open plains of social media, people are retreating to online enclaves with curated communities and individuals. The only exception is TikTok, but I believe that the Chinese short video app is so algorithmically driven that it’s essentially private.”

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Hillsong saga might well unravel the special deal for other religious charities

David Hardaker

Oct 13, 2022

12

“It raises the question of whether or not the ACNC, which is governed by federal laws, has enforcement powers over a state-registered entity. The ACNC said it was unable to comment on the circumstances of a particular charity. A spokesperson said that ‘speaking generally’ the ACNC had jurisdiction over all charities registered with the ACNC, in relation to their registration as a charity.

“Hillsong has previously said it values “good governance”, that it is cooperating with the ACNC and that it will defend the allegations which have been made in the Federal Court action. Crikey two days ago asked Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury Andrew Leigh if he plans to address the appropriateness of the BRC exemptions. We have not received a response. Crikey’s request remains open.”

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The rise of ADHD in the 21st century

Guy Rundle

Oct 13, 2022

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“But let’s also say something else. ADHD is a condition whose undesirability stems largely from it making difficult the achievement of certain life qualities set and defined by our culture. It’s not like a broken leg or asthma, which are clear dysfunctions in the universal preconditions of life. And it’s not even like some mental/neurological conditions that undermine the capacity to live any sort of life in any culture.

“Severe bipolar disorder (manic depression in the old money) would be an example of such — a relatively hard-wired disorder, controllable in many cases by lithium or other medication. Few non-modern cultures identify something like ADHD as a disorder, though they may well have terms for a certain type of skittish, flighty, adventurous character; most cultures, of all types, identify something like bipolar disorder as a disabling malady, however they explain it.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Iraqi Parliament elects Abdul Latif Rashid as new president (Al Jazeera)

‘We told the truth’: Sandy Hook families win $1 billion from Alex Jones (The New York Times)

German business chiefs clash with Berlin over China policies (Reuters)

‘Nature is unravelling’: global wildlife populations have sunk 69% since 1970, new report warns (EuroNews)

US core inflation hit new four-decade high last month (The Wall Street Journal) ($)

Switzerland proposes $1000 fines for breaking ‘burqa ban’ (Al Jazeera)

Parkland shooter gets life in prison for deadliest US high school massacre (The Guardian)

Rare protest against China’s leader before meeting (BBC)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Sydney died on the 6:01 to Central — Thomas Mitchell (The SMH): “This delay was due to flooding at Central Station, but we’re at the point where the reason doesn’t really matter. Sydney’s commuters have accepted that the cause (industrial action, trackwork, a single drop of rain) is no longer important, but the effect (a deep hatred for the city you once loved) is impossible to ignore. It took me two hours to travel three stops from North Sydney to Central on the train, including an agonising 40 minutes spent idling at Milsons Point, taunted by the maniacal smile of Luna Park. Fittingly, I began to suspect that I might have to literally sleep on [he train] and see where I end up in the morning (still not at Central).

“The only upside to being stuck in an airless carriage was that it gave me time to catalogue all my justifications for cancelling Australia’s most populous city, beginning with the drenched elephant in the room. Sydney has long relied on its ideal weather to paper over the cracks of this city. We’re like a crumbling mansion on the harbour foreshore; you overlook the numerous structural flaws because, on a beautiful day, there’s still nowhere you’d rather be. Except there are no more beautiful days. This year is already Sydney’s wettest year on record, with more than 2.2 metres of rain having fallen since January, and it is only set to get wetter.”

Lower the voting age for a more robust democracy — George Williams (The Australian) ($): “At the beginning of the 20th century, democracies such as Australia permitted people to vote if they were 21 years or older. A wave of change occurred in the 1970s when Australia and other nations lowered the age to 18. This century has brought a new wave of reform, with a growing number of democracies moving to 16 years. This has occurred in local, state or national elections in countries including Britain, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the Philippines, Argentina, Nicaragua and Brazil, to name but a few.

“These democracies recognise that 16- and 17-year-olds can participate more fully in democratic processes. Lowering the voting age also has the positive effect of introducing people to their obligations as citizens when this can be accompanied by civics education in schools. Conferring voting rights at 16 is also consistent with other laws. In Australia, 16- and 17-year-olds can leave school, get a job, drive a car, pay taxes, enlist in the defence forces and consent to medical procedures. It is time to add the right to vote to the list to recognise that this age group has more to offer our democracy.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Kaurna Country (also known as Adelaide)

• Former prime minister Julia Gillard will appear in conversation at the University of Adelaide to chat about her new book, Not Now, Not Ever.

Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)

• The Finders Keepers SS22 Melbourne/Naarm Markets are on this weekend at The Royal Exhibition Building, with loads of food, art, design and a bar.

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

• Broadcaster Jacinta Parsons and journalist Caro Meldrum–Hanna will be in conversation about the former’s new book, A Question of Age, at Better Read Than Dead bookshop.

• Authors Margaret Cunneen and Andrew L Urban will talk about their respective books, The Boxing Butterfly and Gladys: Staying Strong, at Glee Books.