State of emergency

HELL AND HIGH WATER

A dam in NSW’s south-west slopes is spilling the equivalent of half of Sydney Harbour’s water every day, the SMH reports, as the State Emergency Service (SES) was telling people in South Albury and Western Plains Tourist Park to get out right now. Wyangala Dam is gushing a record-breaking 230,000 megalitres daily, compared to the harbour’s 562,000 megalitres. Emergency Services Minister Steph Cooke has asked New Zealand to send a dozen flood rescue operators and 70 local government areas have declared a natural disaster. The Central West has been “hit very hard” in the past 24 hours, WaterNSW said, but the torrid weather actually is into its 62nd day with more rain forecast for this weekend by the Bureau of Meteorology. Guardian Australia reports water moved through Molong like an “ocean” overnight, cracking windows and flooding every business. As of yesterday afternoon, the SES had responded to more than 855 requests for assistance and 204 flood rescues in 24 hours — there were 140 flood rescues in Eugowra, equal to one in five residents.

In not-unrelated news, the world’s “biggest” carbon pollution reduction project at Chevron’s Gorgon gas plant is working at just a third of capacity after six long years, WA Today reports. (By the way, Chevron paid just $30 in tax, Crikey adds, on $113 million in taxable income off $9.2 billion in revenue… but I digress.) The multinational was permitted to build an $81 billion gas export plant as long as it promised to store all the carbon dioxide and bury at least 80% of it. Its annual report showed it stored 1.6 million tonnes of CO2 and released 3.4 million tonnes into the atmosphere. What could possibly go wrong? It comes as Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen will call out the World Bank for failing to address the climate crisis, Guardian Australia reports. Bowen will say the tide has turned since the Morrison era, pointing to our new 48% reduction target and methane pledge, but says there’s more to do. Bowen’s naming and shaming of the World Bank has been echoed by the US, UK and German governments, who say it hasn’t delivered climate finance to the worst-affected countries. World Bank’s Trump-appointed chief, David Malpass, told a New York Times event in September that he did not “even know” whether he believed climate science.

[free_worm]

HE SAID, XI SAID

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping today, The Australian ($) reports, after Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said his country was “ready to meet Australia halfway”. An Australian PM hasn’t met with Xi since Malcolm Turnbull in 2016 — Albo says the scheduled meeting, to take place on the G20 sidelines in Bali, is a “successful outcome”. We’ve gotta talk, even if we don’t agree, he said, though he declined to say what was on the agenda. It follows a landmark three-hour meeting between US President Joe Biden and Xi at the G20, BBC reports. Afterwards, Biden says he doesn’t believe China will invade Taiwan any time soon but stressed that the US would defend Taiwan if it did. Both Biden’s and Xi’s camps made one thing clear: we do not want to come to blows with each other, not right now when the world is at a “crossroads”, Xi’s side said, an allusion to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

So what’s happened between Turnbull’s 2016 meeting with Xi and now? For one, former PM Scott Morrison called for a UN inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 in 2020, Guardian Australia reports, which was described as damaging our bi-country bond “beyond repair” at the time by state media. Before that, Chinese telco Huawei was sensationally blocked from supplying Australia’s 5G network on national security grounds, but some called it plain old xenophobia (it was probably both). Then there are two high-profile imprisoned Chinese-Australian journalists — Cheng Lei and Yang Hengjun — who have been jailed under shrouded circumstances. Yang, a well-known democracy blogger, has claimed he has been tortured, while Cheng, a news anchor on the Chinese state-run broadcaster, and her Australian-born kids are yet to learn the outcome of her fate, SBS says. Both had closed-door trials for supposedly supplying state secrets overseas.

MARK HIS WORDS

The McGowan government will hold emergency crisis talks about children in custody in Western Australia, The West ($) reports, after the distressing footage of a 14-year-old Indigenous kid being “folded up” by prison guards at Banksia Hill juvenile detention centre. Last night Premier Mark McGowan said he and Corrective Services Minister Bill Johnston will meet with inspector of custodial services Eamon Ryan, police commissioner Col Blanch, commissioner for children and young people Jacqueline McGowan-Jones, former Australian of the Year Fiona Stanley and people from the Telethon Kids Institute. Watch the ABC Four Corners episode on it here. Ten youth prison guards are under investigation over allegations of excessive force, the broadcaster adds. Dismally, Australia is one of the only countries in the developed world to still lock up children as young as 10 — it’s thought that, across Australia, 600 children under the age of 13 are locked up, Crikey reports.

Meanwhile the Catholic Church is pressuring alleged victims of now-dead paedophile priests to accept “paltry amounts” or else have their claims blocked permanently, according to lawyers who spoke to Guardian Australia. Arnold Thomas & Becker, which is pursuing claims on behalf of more than 700 abuse victims, told the paper the church and other institutions were increasingly seeking stays “on the basis that they cannot have a ‘fair trial’ because of the delay taken by a survivor to come forward”. Shine Lawyers special counsel Thomas Wallace‑Pannell agreed, noting “aggressive postures” on such cases becoming commonplace.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

Like all folks going cold turkey — whether from booze, scrolling TikTok, those gleaming jumbo muffins at your local café, or more illicit substances — Jake Robson needed a project. Something to keep his hands busy, to fill the downtime his substance abuse used to eat up. One day he came across a YouTube video about fishing and a lightbulb went on in his head. He swiftly kitted himself out with the gear and perched himself on the edge of Melbourne’s waterways, a line hanging into the murky water beneath. So far Robson has caught and hauled up e-bikes, shopping trolleys and fish hooks — he’s actually a magnetic fisherman, who fishes metal scrap out of rivers and docks using strong magnets attached to a rope. Robson is determined to help clean up the waters of his city, and part of him hopes it can serve as a sort of penance for his past. “I’ve done a lot of wrong things,” he tells ABC, “and this is my little way of giving back.”

And Robson is often not alone. Sometimes the father of three, who served time in prison, heads out magnetic fishing with his 13-year-old boy Hayden to shoot the breeze together, imparting quiet lessons about litter. Robson’s three-year-old hates to miss out, and furiously practises using magnets on spoons for his own days out with Dad when he’s a bit older. Other times Robson sits with his buddy Travis Carra. Carra also struggled with substance abuse in the past, but when he’s out magnetic fishing with Robson, he just feels calm. It’s “therapeutic”, Carra says, “out with a mate, both sober, throwing the magnet out into the water, seeing what we can get, bonding”. And it makes them feel good, like they’re doing the right thing “getting the litter, the toxic metal out of the water”. They sell the metal scrap for about $150 a tonne and donate it to substance abuse charities. It’s not about the money, Robson says. It’s just about making the world a bit more beautiful. It’s about helping out in little ways. Many hands make light work, and all that.

Hoping you see the good in the world today.

SAY WHAT?

I don’t trust the Chinese. I’ve made that quite clear. I’m really not sure what’s going to come out of this. If they can lift the trade sanctions that would be a good start. Let’s see how willing China is or how much more they would like us to bend over to them.

Jacqui Lambie

The independent senator raised plenty of eyebrows with her characteristically blunt assessment of how we should handle relations with China, including not “bending over” — an allusion to a bow, one hopes. Fortunately, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is taking a lot less brute force into the meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping today.

CRIKEY RECAP

Murdochs call out ‘Trumpty Dumpty’ — but who is going to fall?

Christopher Warren

Nov 14, 2022

10

“The New York Post ‘Trumpty Dumpty’ post-election front page was the shot heard around the world. Then came the follow-up salvo — the jaunty “It’s DeSantis’ time now”. Just what are the Murdochs up to? Seems like they want the party back — or at least their Fox audience. Post-election, it looks like Trump is at his weakest; time to kick him while he’s down. And right now, they’re in a hurry.

“It looks like Trump is planning to announce he’s running for the 2024 presidency this week. In the former president’s classic style, it risks putting him back in the middle of the story. Meanwhile, at the Murdochs’ media outlets, it’s all hands on deck to stop him. The New York Post front pages are providing the meme-able tabloid colour. (The paper itself has a circulation of about 146,000 in a city of 8.5 million people.) But the front pages are never for their readership. They’re a memo to the Republican elite.”

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FTX collapse highlights the profound harms of cryptocurrency

Bernard Keane and Glenn Dyer

Nov 14, 2022

24

“The spruikers of cryptocurrencies — the politicians, the business geniuses, the ‘one in five Australians has bought crypto!’ crowd in the media — have gone curiously quiet as FTX, once the most well-regarded cryptocurrency exchange, has imploded, sending $32 billion in valuation up in smoke and the value of bitcoin plummeting yet again. It has now lost two-thirds of its value since January.

“There are a huge number of beneficiaries of these collapses — and the benefits will be all the greater if bitcoin falls further in value. The biggest winner is the effort to control CO2 emissions and energy prices. As the Financial Times pointed out, bitcoin mining used to use around 0.5% of the entire world’s power output. But the lower the price goes, the less profitable mining becomes, reducing energy demand and CO2 emissions.”

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Crypto’s Enron moment? How FTX went from $32 billion to $0 in just one week

Cam Wilson

Nov 14, 2022

25

“This sudden announcement sent the token’s price tumbling and people rushed to withdraw their money from FTX — reportedly US$6 billion in crypto tokens in 72 hours, up from a daily average of tens of millions. Meanwhile, both FTX and Alameda were holding FTT, which was worth less and less.

“Eventually, Bankman-Fried reached out to [Binance CEO Changpeng] Zhao, asking him to buy FTX so they could survive the liquidity crunch. Zhao agreed at first, announcing the deal, before pulling out after seeing the state of FTX’s books.  Less than 10 days after the leaked financials and five days after Zhao’s tweet, FTX filed for bankruptcy and Bankman-Fried resigned.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

EU, UK sanction dozens of Iranian officials over rights abuses (Al Jazeera)

Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees (The New York Times)

Ukraine war: Kherson liberation ‘beginning of the end of the war’, says Zelenskyy (EuroNews)

Iran issues first death sentence over protests (The Guardian)

Google to pay about $400 million to settle location-tracking lawsuit-sources (Reuters)

Afghan supreme leader orders full implementation of sharia law (The Guardian)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Defence’s strategy of secrecy is no longer defensible — Jim Molan (The Australian) ($): “Last week, I participated in Senate estimates for the government’s October budget. This was not my first estimates, but my first from opposition. Like previous estimates, I found it to be a civil, sometimes collegiate, yet generally unenlightening experience. We are fortunate to have a democracy requiring ministers and senior bureaucrats to regularly present themselves for scrutiny on how they spend public money and run their departments. Estimates, when it works well, can encourage defensible policy-making and implementation. It can also shed light on poor behaviour and force governments to justify their decisions and positions.

“But it doesn’t always work well. In my area of focus, defence and national security, estimates has proven frustrating from government and opposition. In public and parliamentary forums where oversight is sought, Defence, more than any other department, conceals its activities behind a veil of security. Last week, I asked defence officials what war they were preparing to fight. I asked Penny Wong, representing the minister for defence, her views on the nation’s preparedness for conflict. I sought defence’s response to the declining strength of our traditional ally, the US, and the impact on Australia’s need for self-sufficiency. This offered an opportunity for frank dialogue with the Australian people. Yet, each question was avoided or deflected. Nearly a century after ‘loose lips sink ships’ entered our lexicon, the idea that tactical, operational details involving our defence force remain secret is familiar and accepted by Australians.”

Biggest climate challenges lie ahead for Victorian election victors — Tony Wood (The Age): “The physical evidence of climate change is all around us. This decade is critical for the global, national and state challenges of tackling climate change and transforming our economy to net zero emissions. At the same time, Australia is unusually well-placed to be successful if we get it right. Yet, neither side of the election debate in Victoria has a compelling story on this most important of issues. In 2020, Victoria’s greenhouse gas emissions were 83 million tonnes, a 30% reduction on the level in 2005, which is the base year against which our targets are now compared. Changes in the mix of electricity generation and in land use delivered most of the good news story.

“The biggest contributor was electricity generation with about half of the total reduction, significantly larger than the national average of about one-third because of Victoria’s historical reliance on brown coal. The biggest challenges lie ahead … On electricity emissions, we have done the easy bit — lots of rooftop solar panels, and solar and wind farms constructed where the transmission grid had capacity. The next decade will require new transmission and storage infrastructure to balance a system with very high levels of wind and solar. At the same time, all the remaining coal-fired power stations will need to be closed while maintaining reliable and affordable electricity supply.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Online

• Guardian Australia’s Katharine Murphy and Essential Media’s Peter Lewis will unpack the fortnight’s political news in a webinar for the Australia Institute.

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

• Authors Melinda Muth and Bob Selden will chat about their new book, Setting the Tone from the Top, at Glee Books.

• The Kirby Institute’s Behzad Hajarizadeh will give the 2022 Brett Tindall Memorial Lecture about his world-leading research into hepatitis C treatment uptake. You can also catch this online.

Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)

• Julian Assange’s father John Shipton and lawyer Jennifer Robinson will chat to journalist Rachael Brown about Assange’s imprisonment in the UK in a talk held by the Wheeler Centre.

Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)

• Guardian Australia’s Amy Remeikis will give the 18th annual Dymphna Clark Lecture on the role of civility in political life, at the Australian National University.