Hot mic Pezzullo

CENSOR SENSOR

Department of Home Affairs secretary Michael Pezzullo sent hundreds of encrypted messages to Liberal Party lobbyist Scott Briggs that show the public servant’s efforts to “undermine political and public service enemies” and “promote the careers of conservative politicians he considered allies”, the SMH ($) says, including one message that told Briggs to “get rid of” then defence industry minister Christopher Pyne. In another, Pezzullo wrote: “I would like to see [Peter] Dutton come back to [Home Affairs]. No reason for him to stay on backbench that I can see.” Briggs agreed. Political and constitutional experts said some showed Pezzullo was working outside the rules for senior public servants, who must be apolitical and independent. Pezzullo also “boasted of his efforts to make press freedom a ‘dead duck’ and repeatedly lobbied Briggs to convince Scott Morrison to introduce a media censorship regime”, the paper adds.

Speaking of “censorship” — The Australian ($) claims its senior arts writer Rosemary Neill has been “cancelled twice” over the paper’s investigation into alleged white interference on Indigenous art at the APY Art Centre Collective (a National Gallery of Australia recent review cleared 28 APYACC paintings, the National Indigenous Times reports). The paper says invitations to Alice Springs’ Desert Mob and Vincent Namatjira’s exhibition Desert Songs were both rescinded. The first was a purported resourcing issue, but the second time it was because of “wilfully inaccurate” Oz stories that implicated “unethical practices” by Iwantja Arts centre. Everyone from the Oz is barred, the note added. The paper reckons it didn’t mention Iwantja, but Iwantja artists had group exhibitions at APYACC galleries in Melbourne this month and in ­Sydney in 2022.

TRADE MISSION

Treasurer Jim Chalmers is spending $41 million to get more people working in the care economy, digitisation and emissions reduction, Guardian Australia reports — $31 million will be for six new TAFE centres of excellence, which connect students with industry, and $10 million for higher and degree apprenticeships (higher apprenticeships: vocational study combined with paid internships; degree apprenticeships: uni combined with paid internships). Interestingly, today’s white paper urges more employment — saying 2.8 million or one-fifth of the workforce is either looking for work or under-utilised at work. But the AFR ($) points out it’s kind of at odds with RBA governor Michele Bullock signalling unemployment needs to rise to keep inflation lower. Eh, that’s an assumption, Chalmers said — something that raised the eyebrows of one expert who told the paper it didn’t sound like the words of a “serious economic manager”.

Meanwhile Chinese group travellers can apply for visitor visas again, the ABC reports, a tourism cohort that was worth $580 million to the economy in 2019. It’s called the approved destination status (ADS) visitor visa, and the move comes just one month after China lifted a ban on group tours to Australia. It’s awesome news for the economy, Tourism Minister Don Farrell said — before the pandemic, “China was our largest source of tourism, worth about $12 billion”. Speaking of the pandemic, the inquiry needs to look at the $1,000 fines for people sitting in the park during lockdowns which had the worst impact on disadvantaged and vulnerable people. That’s according to human rights commissioner Lorraine Finlay, the SMH ($) says, who was dismayed the inquiry (which isn’t a royal commission) won’t look at school shutdowns, border closures, curfews, policing restrictions or other measures that involved state governments.

BRAVUS/ADANI CHANGE OF HEART

Adani (now known as Bravus) has dropped a claim that activist Ben Pennings illegally accessed secret information, Guardian Australia reports, alleging he only unlawfully induced a breach of contract. Pennings set up a website asking people to “dob in a contractor” that was working on the mine — Adani reckoned it costs hundreds of millions in lost contracts. Oh, spare me. Last year it revised that figure to $17 million, the paper says. Adani said Australians should be free to work without intimidation, but Pennings countered “throughout this trial, millions of Australians have suffered through floods, heatwaves and bushfires supercharged by climate change”. Both parties will return to court on Monday.

To another billionaire-led company that experts say is speeding up our impending climate apocalypse — and Lachlan Murdoch got $6.4 million from News Corp Australia when he ascended to the throne of News Corp and Fox, the SMH ($) reports. It’s peanuts compared with father Rupert’s $219 million golden handshake from his US operation Fox Corp, the paper notes — wait until we learn of his soon-to-be-published updated entitlements. And what a legacy Rupert leaves. Climate scientist Joëlle Gergis said it’s hard to think of a person who damaged our climate action efforts more, Guardian Australia reports, while climate scientist Michael Mann said Rupert would “go down in history as one of the greatest climate villains”, despite claiming there were “no climate change deniers” around his company. Memo to Rupert: just four days ago Sky News Australia’s Andrew Bolt slammed “global warming panic” being pushed by climate zealots — in April, a Herald Sun op-ed Bolt wrote read that data proves the “climate crisis” isn’t real.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

Idyllwild mayor Max III, with his blond hair and love for kissing babies, is the typical all-American congressman — and as a third-generation mayor, you might say he was bred that way. Plus he’s relatable: he is often seen chowing down on cheeseburgers, and he visits hospitals, schools and nursing homes. Recently he even lay alongside those in their final days at a local hospice to provide respectful reassurance, something that really won him points with the adoring voters. But Max III keeps eating his ties — three in his first month in office alone. What more can one really expect from a bouncy, dopey, one-year-old golden retriever? The Guardian’s Emma Madden, who describes him as resembling a “young, fluffy Tom Selleck”, reports he’s kept on the political track by his chief-of-staff Phyllis Mueller (a human).

Mueller and her husband founded a marketing agency that counts Porsche and Xerox among its clients, but they’ve always lived on $100,000 a year and donated the rest to charity — even during years they made “several million”, she admits. Her desire to help the world turned political when her young niece squeezed her dog’s testicles without him even flinching — that’s when she realised golden retrievers were the perfect fit for office. Max I had a thumping electoral win shortly afterwards, as did his son Max II when cancer came knocking. She tried to reply to all the messages of condolence that poured in from all over the world, but could only get through 2,000 a day. Mueller gets it — politics can be so divisive and bitter, but dogs are so unifying with the love and joy they bring. “I want to remind people that there is good in the world,” Mueller says.

Hoping you learn something from your dog today.

SAY WHAT?

I welcome Peggy Johnson and Tony Abbott’s nominations to the [Fox] board. They bring skills, experience and perspectives that will contribute to the board and benefit Fox.

Lachlan Murdoch

Which specific skills, experiences, and perspectives of our former PM, who once ate a raw onion and was once ranked our second-worst leader by 66 political scientists and historians, are not clear. The Greens’ Sarah Hanson-Young said Abbott’s appointment practically guarantees global climate action will be hindered.

CRIKEY RECAP

Who does Jacinta Nampijinpa Price represent? Crikey breaks down Indigenous voting patterns in the NT

JULIA BERGIN

“Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) tally room data from the 2022 federal election indicates that remote Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory voted overwhelmingly for Labor Senator Malarndirri McCarthy over Country Liberal Party (CLP) Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. The numbers challenge comments made by prominent No advocate Price that she is a ‘vessel’ and voice for Indigenous people in federal politics …

“The CLP vote predominantly came from pastoral (and non-Indigenous) parts of the territory. A spokesperson for AEC NT told Crikey that although it does not collect voter ethnicity (including Indigeneity) during enrolment or casting of votes, any votes collected from an Indigenous community as part of its remote voter service ‘can be assumed to have come from a demographic of majority Indigenous voters’.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Italy: Meloni admits she hoped to do ‘better’ on migration as numbers skyrocket (euronews)

[Azerbaijan region] Nagorno-Karabakh’s 120,000 Armenians will leave for Armenia, leadership says (Reuters)

Vladimir Kara-Murza: Putin opponent in isolation cell in Siberian jail (BBC)

Chinese authorities reportedly sentence Uyghur professor to life in prison (The Guardian)

Kosovo monastery siege ends after heavy gun battles (BBC)

THE COMMENTARIAT

America faces a woeful choice between criminality and senility — George Brandis (The SMH) ($): “The several criminal prosecutions have not, so far, significantly dented Trump’s approval ratings. While they were always going to galvanise his base — for whom every new indictment reinforces their belief that Trump is the victim of an establishment mega-conspiracy — what has surprised pundits is how independents have reacted. While they still break in Biden’s favour, they have not fled from Trump in droves. In a bitterly divided America, cynical and weary voters have become so used to Trump’s outrageous behaviour that it has lost its capacity to shock. It has become the new normal. Even for independents who don’t like him, Trump has so stretched the boundaries of what counts as impermissible political conduct that they barely exist any more.

“There is a second reason why, whatever the justice system throws at him, Trump remains competitive. That is Biden himself. In 2020, Trump was the only issue: he was, effectively, running against himself. Biden — never a strong candidate — was just the default choice for those determined to see Trump out of the Oval Office. Today — while paradoxically Trump still commands more attention than the president himself — Biden is as much the issue as Trump. Which means that, as 2024 approaches, the question of Biden’s fitness for office — mental and physical — looms increasingly large. For all Trump’s faults, this is one problem he does not have.”

COVID probe must seek to expose power of expert class — Nick Cater (The Australian) ($): “By the second half of March 2020, it was evident the virus was a highly discriminating killer, delivering a passing blow to many but a horrible death to a few. The notion that top-down, universal lockdowns were the best way to stop its spread now seems absurd. Yet it was the received wisdom at the time, reinforced in newspaper editorials, commentary and by the experts on the ABC. The same dogma was later attached to the belief that the vaccines were effective and safe. To question those assumptions and the coercion that followed was taboo. Statistical evidence was considered sound when it conformed with the narrative and deemed to be misconstrued or manufactured when it didn’t.

“This pattern of behaviour from the anointed was hardly new. As economist Thomas Sowell painstakingly outlined more than a decade ago in his book Intellectuals and Society, the intelligentsia have made so many axiomatic mistakes in the last 250 years that it would be surprising if they had got this one right. They were dogmatically wrong about the so-called science of eugenics; their response to the Great Depression, and their insistence that there was no need to enlarge and equip our military forces when we could talk to Hitler nicely. They were wrong that the welfare state would end poverty and social housing would end homelessness. They have been wrong repeatedly in expecting that reducing penalties and policing would reduce crime.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Muwinina Country (also known as Hobart)

• Uluru Dialogue co-chairs Pat Anderson and Megan Davis will talk about the Voice to Parliament referendum and the Regional Dialogues and the National Constitutional Convention at Uluru in 2017 at the Theatre Royal.

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

• Author Holly Craig will talk about her new book, The Shallows, at Better Read Than Dead bookshop.

Yuggera and Turrbal Country (also known as Brisbane)

• ABC Classic’s Weekend Breakfast’s Ed Le Brocq will talk about his new book, Sound Bites, at Avid Reader bookshop.