Wong and Yi talk turkey, and lobster

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Ahead of her departure for Beijing yesterday — the first visit by an Australian minister since 2019 — Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong has played down the likelihood of significant immediate breakthroughs on issues such as two Australians detained in the country, journalist Cheng Lei and writer Yang Hengjun.

“Many of the hard issues in the relationship will take time to resolve in our interests. Speculation about outcomes obviously has implications for leverage, and I am certainly not interested in giving any country leverage other than Australia,” she said at a press conference with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

That said, the thaw in Sino-Australian relations that began with the end of the freeze on ministerial contact has shown signs it may continue. China’s General Administration of Customs posted an article encouraging consumers to buy Australian lobsters and ugg boots — lobsters are one of the products that have been subject to Chinese trade sanctions. There are wide hopes that Wong’s meeting with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi will be the start of a process that will end those trade sanctions, among other things.

Meanwhile, Kevin Rudd, our new ambassador to the United States — a “nonsense” media “obsession”, according to Albanese a few months ago, which turned out to be 100% accurate, as Crikey reports — has set out his priorities for the jobs he’s expected to assume next March. Unsurprisingly, given his latest project before this new gig was a book called The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping’s China, his major preoccupation is the US role in our regional security via the AUKUS deal.

[free_worm]

I ME MINE I ME MINE

A group of First Nations peoples that applied for the native title of the Pilliga area, which is in Gomeroi country in northern NSW, has lost its fight against Santos’ $3 billion gas development. The National Native Title Tribunal — which, as Jack Latimore reports in the Nine papers, manages native title applications and does not comprise Aboriginal peoples — has ruled in favour of the development.

The ruling potentially allows Santos to drill more than 850 coal seam gas wells in the native Pilliga Forest over the next 25 years, though local Indigenous peoples, who have fought the development on cultural and environmental grounds for years, say they will appeal. Gomeroi man Raymond Weatherall, a member of a representative body for the native title claimants, said it was a sad day for the Gomeroi people.

“It’s despicable that they wait until the last sitting day of the year to announce this,” he said. “But we won’t give up — it doesn’t matter what it takes. It’s been a long campaign, 10 years long. We know they always shift the goalposts. We’ll keep fighting.”

Meanwhile, a scathing report has been handed down in Western Australia concerning weak regulation of the mining industry in that state when it comes to environmental standards.

“I am concerned our environment is not currently adequately protected. Entities do not have a comprehensive approach to enforcement,” auditor-general Caroline Spencer concluded, citing examples such as “multiple breaches over 2021-22 by an established operator”, which led to no record of enforcement action by the Department of Mines, Regulation and Safety (DMIRS). Further, the report found that Department of Water and Environmental Regulation compliance officers were reassigned to fast-track mining approvals under a state government strategy. It was in the teeth of these circumstances that a crime like Rio Tinto’s destruction of significant 46,000-year-old cultural sites in Juukan Gorge was allowed to occur in 2020.

NO MORE TRUMP TO PLAY

Former US president Donald Trump was a pioneer throughout his endless weird, chaotic, terrifying, surreal, hilarious time in office, and he’s remained so since — the first president to be impeached twice is now the first to have criminal charges recommended against him by Congress. In its final public meeting, the congressional committee tasked with investigating the circumstances that led to the storming of the US Capitol on January 6 2021 unanimously voted to refer Trump and several allies to the US Department of Justice (DOJ) for potential criminal prosecution.

The House select committee, made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, has investigated the riot — and Trump’s broader plan for overthrowing the 2020 presidential election result — for 18 months.

“If we are to survive as a nation of laws and democracy, this can never happen again,” committee chair Bennie Thompson said in his opening address. “There’s one fact I believe is most important in preventing another January 6th: accountability. So today, beyond our findings, we will also show that evidence we’ve gathered points to further action beyond the power of this committee or the Congress to help ensure accountability on the law.”

SAY WHAT?

Interesting.

Elon Musk

The Twitter CEO went uncharacteristically silent for several hours after the results of his poll asking whether he should stand down — it, predictably, hadn’t gone great for him. When he did return to posting, rather than brazen meme-ing, he just quietly found people speculating that he had only lost on account of bot activity, replying with one word: “Interesting.”

CRIKEY RECAP

‘We failed and we shouldn’t have’: NDIA apologises for AAT mismanagement

Amber Schultz

Dec 20, 2022

10

“The National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) has apologised to participants who believe they were not treated fairly when challenging its decisions in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT).

“Crikey understands the agency is assessing 70 model litigant complaints, where participants and advocates claim the agency and its lawyers haven’t acted honestly and fairly. The agency spends tens of millions of dollars on external legal fees every year. ‘The NDIA apologises to participants engaged in dispute resolution processes where their experience has been deficient or inadequate.’ “

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Was 2022 a tipping point in the fight for democracy or just a pause in politics?

Bernard Keane

Dec 20, 2022

48

“In May, Scott Morrison was on the end of a humiliating defeat that left his party a smoking ruin. But politics wasn’t done with the former prime minister. A book on his brilliant handling of the pandemic by News Corp hagiographers emerged soon afterwards, which revealed that his norm-breaking and relentless mendacity extended to secretly taking on the ministries of his colleagues and not telling them, Parliament or voters. What was intended as a vanity project led to him being censured and his own colleagues demanding he leave politics.

“In July, Boris Johnson, another pathological liar, was forced out of office in the UK after yet another scandal under the prime ministership of the former journalist and panel show regular. When his immediate successor, Liz Truss, blew up within weeks, Johnson momentarily believed his Churchillian wilderness was coming to a close until, unusually, reality dawned that his return was simply not feasible without turning UK politics from a laughing stock into a full-blown circus.”

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‘A lot of unknowns’: Queensland Police face questions on Wieambilla shooters’ history

Cam Wilson

Dec 20, 2022

25

“Queensland Police are refusing to disclose what information they had on the Wieambilla shooters before the attack, as questions mount over the decision to send junior officers to visit individuals with a recent history of hostile and erratic behaviour that was known to police.

“In the week since the attack on a remote property in Queensland’s Western Downs that left three victims — including two police officers — and the three perpetrators dead, the state’s police service has given few details about the lead-up to the shooting.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Perrottet’s pleas over controversial male candidate for Pittwater ignored (The Sydney Morning Herald)

Ukraine war: Volodymyr Zelenskyy visits frontline city of Bakhmut (BBC)

White nationalist Thomas Sewell found guilty of assaulting security guard as his friend filmed (ABC)

‘Not anti-vaxxers’: Dr Kerryn Phelps says she suffered COVID vaccine injury, calls for more research (The Age)

‘Christmas miracle’ as four missing teens found at Swan Island, more than 30km from Rosebud (Herald Sun)

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese returns from South-East Asia diplomatic tour with gifts galore (The West Australian)

Former WA MP avoids jail, threw phone into sea before corruption probe (WAToday)

Frank Bainimarama’s reign as leader of Fiji ends after 16 years (Guardian Australia)

He defended the NYPD in court. Then they arrested him. (ProPublica)

German court convicts 97-year-old ex-Nazi camp typist (Al Jazeera)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Menopause remains taboo in most workplaces. This needs to change — Sydney Colussi, Elizabeth Hill and Marian Baird (Guardian Australia): “In Australia, women retire earlier than men, but there are few studies on the role menopause plays in influencing the decision to leave work.

“The studies that are available show menopause can be a source of distress and discrimination for workers. One recent study on the experiences of women in the higher education and healthcare sectors in Australia found workplaces are often poorly equipped to offer support for menopause. The study found sexist and ageist workplace cultures made women reluctant to even discuss the issue.”

Will Penny Wong revive China relations or be ‘played like a trout’? — Yvonne Preston (The Sydney Morning Herald) ($): “Fifty years ago, during the prime ministership of Billy McMahon, relations were at a significantly low ebb. Equally, the relationship seemed set for a real change, as is the case today, with Penny Wong headed to Beijing on an official visit, the first contact at an official level between the two countries in years.

“The same dramatic change in the relationship was about to occur when Gough Whitlam went on an official trip to China in 1971, even before he became prime minister. On his return, McMahon famously sneered that Whitlam had been played like a trout by Zhou Enlai.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)

• Foreign affairs committee hearing on the human rights implications of recent violence in Iran — representatives of DFAT, AFP, as well Geoffrey Robertson KC and others to appear.

• The Australian Bureau of Statistics to release provisional deaths data for measuring changes in patterns of mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia, reference period January to September 2022.