Labor’s foot on the gas

BURN, BABY, BURN

Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has quietly approved a Santos gas project that will operate until 2077, when Earth will be a fiery ball of molten lava because we keep approving fossil fuel projects even though the International Energy Agency says it’s the biggest thing we need to stop doing. Plibersek’s tick of approval was posted online at 4.55pm yesterday — the Australia Institute’s Roderick Campbell happened to notice it while browsing the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act’s notices, as Michael West Media tells it. The fracking project is in the Surat Basin, southwest of Gladstone, and public comments back in 2021 listed threatened species and impact on water resources as two major concerns.

The Greens are livid. Leader Adam Bandt pointed out it was approved without a media release or public statement and said Santos has donated half a million dollars to the Labor Party since 2015. Kooyong MP Monique Ryan said Santos’ project was “an excellent return on their investment” considering its donations. So why did this happen? A government spokesperson told Guardian Australia the project, which is a small expansion of an existing one, had met “strict environmental approval conditions”. Santos was clicking its heels in glee. A spokesperson told the paper it would spend “more than a billion dollars this year alone” drilling new wells. Not to deliver us energy, however — it’s for contracts with Korea and Malaysia, it qualified. Oh. Meanwhile, expect a summer of bushfires, former commissioner of Fire and Rescue NSW Greg Mullins told the SMH ($). The “compounding factor of climate change” means grassfires will turn into “something we’ve never really seen before”.

[free_worm]

ASIO IS SPOOKED

Judges, military veterans and journalists are being targeted by foreign spies at never-before-seen levels, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) boss Mike Burgess has warned. The top spook added that a “hive of spies” had been removed in the past year, the ABC reports, saying it felt like “hand-to-hand combat” — although he didn’t name any countries. He noted repeated attempts to hack our media, and described a plot where an Australian-born lackey would lure senior journalists on purported study tours of foreign countries, even introducing them to “local officials” who were actually more spies, as Guardian Australia describes. ASIO thwarted it. Burgess said everyone from public servants to academics and business people has been like, ease up a bit, Burgo (I assume this is his nickname), as The Australian ($) adds. But they give “flimsy” reasoning, Burgess said, such as that everyone spies or that it’s just networking.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Australia will boost defence manufacturing so we don’t need to rely on anyone else for ships, submarines and weapons, the SMH ($) reports. There was some concern we wouldn’t have the capability to build or maintain the subs as part of the AUKUS pact, which Albanese called our “single biggest leap” in defence capability. He also confirmed he’ll release an unclassified version of the defence strategic review — led by former defence boss Angus Houston and former defence minister Stephen Smith — before the May budget. The PM also declared “energy security is national security”, declaring his vision for Australia to become a renewable superpower. As Crikey reports, we import 90% of our solar panels from China, as well as two-thirds of our EV batteries — even though we’re home to nearly half (47%) the world’s lithium, a critical renewable technology mineral.

A HOUSE NOT A HOME

A Queensland woman known only as Kara told news.com.au she had to pee in her sink because her rental agency refused to deal with a broken toilet. A plumber came out to fix it, but to no avail — so Kara emailed the agency again. She was told there were roots growing in the pipes, which supposedly made it a council problem. From then on, Kara said, the agent “ignored all of my messages and calls for over a month”. She ended up moving out. To another dismal renter story in the headlines and a Sydney man named Olan says he’s just received a rent increase of $185, or a 34% jump, from $545 to $730. 9News reports he lives in Ryde and did not expect soaring rents to hit his suburb. He called for the NSW government to cap increases, saying it was happening “all around Sydney” and were often worse than his.

Meanwhile, the Victorian government’s new affordable rental housing will be allocated to tenants via a random ballot, Guardian Australia reports, rather than assessing on need. It works like this: there’ll be 2400 homes where the rent will be locked at least 10% below the market rent for different Melbourne areas, but no more than 30% of the home’s income. In regional Victoria, it’ll be capped at the market rent in the area. The Renters and Housing Union’s Monty Hill said he gets that resources to sort through needs-based applications might be scant but there are definitely people out there who need affordable housing more than others. The Age ($) reports unpaid energy and water bills are up 30% compared with the same time last year, according to debt collection company ARMA Group.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

Someone sewed a life-sized great white shark its own rainbow leotard and it accidentally became a worldwide icon of Sydney WorldPride 2023. The 10-metre prop belongs to the Australian Museum and was intended to be just another colourful ornament as the celebrations unfolded in the harbour city. He has been christened Progress Shark, and his snazzy sequined costume was created by artist George Buchanan in her garage in Sydney. It wasn’t easy to sew a shark a leotard, she told Guardian Australia seriously. It took about six or seven hours in total: “I had to measure the shark first. It’s not symmetrical so it was difficult to get it right.”

The result? Legions of adoring fans here and abroad — the BBC rather fondly described Progress Shark as “inherently Australian — funny, irreverent and, stereotypically, dressed for the beach”. Sydney artist Laura Connell said she felt she had “never connected to something so deeply as I have to Progress Shark … It’s everything we never knew we needed.” The museum can’t believe how Progress Shark has captured hearts and minds, adding for some reason that he is “scientifically and anatomically correct”.

It’s hard to pinpoint what the appeal of Progress Shark is. Maybe it’s the juxtaposition of the joyful costume and his bereft, bugged-out eyes offering no mercy and no empathy to passers-by — kind of like suddenly spotting your meanest old neighbour trudging around his garden bed wearing a rainbow pride shirt. Perhaps Progress Shark serves as a poignant reminder to all of us that love and acceptance can be found in even the most unlikely of places, or from the most unlikely of people. Or maybe he just makes people laugh. “It’s a ridiculous choice,” Buchanan says. “But that’s actually what is making people happy.”

Hoping you feel the love around you today.

SAY WHAT?

Isn’t [coming forward] what Reynolds did when speaking to The Australian? Yet her story was brushed off by Wong, Gallagher and the usual phalanx of journalists who, on any other day, obsess about workplace harassment.

Janet Albrechtsen

The Australian columnist is complaining that her story about former defence minister Linda Reynolds’ tough two years — which opened by dwelling on Brittany Higgins’ Carla Zampatti jacket, for some reason — was not taken seriously by other journalists or politicians.

CRIKEY RECAP

Anti-vaxxers rally behind woman denied transplant and platformed by Nine’s Today show

Julia Bergin

Feb 21, 2023

70

“He fielded claims from Derderian (and Stefanovic), explaining the medical protocols and decision-making behind the Alfred Hospital transplant team’s decision to deny Derderian a new heart … Stefanovic asked him whether this indicated doctors would no longer treat unvaccinated patients as a matter of policy, to which Coatsworth explained this was a medical decision, not a matter of mandates.

“Nine’s director of morning television, Steven Burling, told Crikey that at no point did Today spread medical misinformation in regard to the transplant segment, reiterating that Derderian’s ‘personal decision’ to not get a COVID-19 vaccination did not change the fact that she required surgery to prolong her life.”

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Sanitising Roald Dahl’s words treats readers like fools

James Ley

Feb 21, 2023

45

“Dahl was an unpleasant man with unpleasant ideas, but you can’t censor your way to a better world. His young readers are far better off being exposed to what he really thought. Ignorance is not bliss and readers are not fools, even when they are children.

“Literature — even ideologically unsound children’s literature — is about being exposed to unusual things, difficult things, learning how to interpret them in context and seeing them for what they are. Reading is not about making you feel comfortable by reflecting values you already hold back at you. If that is what you want, you don’t need a book. Go kiss a mirror.”

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Greens need to let go of Trump-like populism. Like him, it’s past its use-by date

Dennis Atkins

Feb 21, 2023

90

“Another reality check in all this is the exposure of the Greens as the preeminent populist party in Canberra. As we’ve seen with climate action, they take unrealistic absolutist positions and then demagogue the other side. It’s the same populism they’re playing on public housing and infrastructure — two ambitious government programs built on the earnings from multibillion-dollar investment funds.

“Chandler–Mather sounded more like former radical leftist British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn than a Bob Brown figure when he railed against the sharemarket earlier this month while explaining the Greens’ refusal to support Labor’s social housing policy based on a $10 billion investment fund.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Death toll from latest earthquakes in Turkey reaches eight (The Guardian)

Putin rages against West in speech decried as absurd propaganda (Al Jazeera)

Spain officials quit over trains that were made too wide for tunnels (BBC)

What to know about JK Rowling’s new podcast and history of harmful anti-trans comments (CNN)

Russia suspends participation in major new START nuclear arms treaty (EuroNews)

Canada’s inflation rate slowed to 5.9% in January, but food costs continue to rise (CBC)

Japan poised to raise age of consent from 13 in overhaul of sexual offence laws (The Guardian)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Homeownership out as Gen Z finds financial success differently — Wijith Wijeyasiri (SMH) ($): “Modern technology has led to a plethora of investment platforms that make it simple for us to enter the sharemarket at an incredibly low price. These platforms give us access to both Australian and globally listed companies that offer a diverse range of options from tech powerhouses such as Meta, Alphabet (Google) and Microsoft, as well as real estate groups, mining conglomerates and healthcare. For a quantitative perspective, since 1900 the Australian sharemarket has returned an average of 13.2% per annum, whilst the average gross rental yield from property is currently sitting at 3.1%.

“Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) also offer an easy way to create a diversified portfolio. Similar to shares, ETFs can be bought through investment platforms and represent a basket of different companies, allowing investors to get greater exposure to a variety of themes. For example, ETFs can be categorised to allow you to align your capital with cause, such as Australian equities, global equities, ethical investing or even commodities such as oil and gold. These forms of investing offer cheaper, more diversified portfolios, but also leads to greater knowledge of the financial landscape and the inner workings of financial services and institutions.”

Asia is telling us our reputation as a reliable energy supplier is under threat — Paul Everingham (AFR) ($): “An underappreciated aspect of the situation — at least in Australia — is that natural gas is critical to underpinning Asia’s progress towards net zero ambitions. A region that is already home to more than half the world’s population continues to grow rapidly and will need 20% more energy by 2050. Many countries in Asia currently rely on coal for the majority of electricity generation and lower-carbon LNG can be the transition fuel that allows climate targets to be met while renewable energy and future fuel capabilities and technology continue to evolve.

“The world can’t get to net zero unless Asia makes significant progress on its climate targets. Asia, meanwhile, hopes that pathway will involve the Australian natural gas industry being the dependable partner it has been for decades now. Customers and partners in Asia — along with industry participants in Australia — are expressing significant reservations over the direction these reforms are heading and how they will impact their view of Australia as both an investment destination and supplier of choice.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Online

• The Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union’s Glenn Thompson and the Australia Institute’s Allan Behm will chat about nuclear-powered submarines and our shipbuilding capabilities in a webinar.

Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)

• Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will speak about national security at the National Press Club.

Yuggera and Turrbal Country (also known as Brisbane)

• Anti-human trafficking advocate Jas Rawlinson will speak about her book, The Stories We Carry, at Avid Reader bookshop.