Biden: ‘Other team’ bombed Gaza hospital

STILL DOUBTS OVER GAZA CARNAGE

US President Joe Biden says the hospital blast that killed 471 Palestinians appears to have been “done by the other team” — that is, not Israel — the ABC reports. He later told reporters he based this statement on “the data I was shown by my defence department” — The Wall Street Journal ($) reports a White House official explained: “Our current assessment, based on analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information, is that Israel is not responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza.”  However, Biden added when he was standing alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the country: “There’s a lot of people out there not sure, so we’ve got a lot, we’ve got to overcome a lot of things.” Back home, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton have come together to wave through $10 million to upgrade security at synagogues and mosques, as well as 177 faith-based schools, the SMH ($) reports (it already had $40 million earmarked for it).

Australia is on alert for signs of neo-Nazis and Islamic extremists amid the Hamas-Israel conflict, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation chief Mike Burgess said. The SMH ($) described it as “high alert”, but that feels a little over-egged considering Burgess’ actual words were that it was “possible” extremists will plan violence here. He was speaking at an intelligence summit where Five Eyes accused China of the biggest intellectual property theft in history, news.com.au says. Speaking of — we would not be “passive bystanders” and watch the US and China go to war over Taiwan, Defence Minister Richard Marles said, because the consequences would be “so grave”. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “a failure of deterrence”, he continued as Guardian Australia reports, and we can’t let it happen in our region. The paper qualifies he’s not confirming we’d go to war, but rather that we must work tirelessly with allies to stop it from happening.

NO GENTLEMAN’S AGREEMENT

Just kidding, Queensland’s Liberal National Party said about its support for the state’s Indigenous Treaty laws, even though it voted them through. The Australian ($) reports Opposition Leader David Crisafulli no longer believes in the legislation that would see Treaty deals with up to 150 First Nation groups across the state. Just three of 30 electorates in Queensland voted Yes, the paper notes, and they were all Greens seats in Brisbane. The Treaty Institute and truth-telling inquiry will start its work early next year, ahead of the October 26 state election. Meanwhile Nationals Senate leader Bridget McKenzie said she supported a failed motion from Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price into Indigenous child sexual abuse, Sky News Australia reports. But we’ve had no fewer than 22 reports on the issue since 1997, Labor MP Andrew Charlton countered — we’re taking “action”, citing the $262.6 million for First Nations women and children’s safety in the budget.

Meanwhile SA’s Voice to Parliament is happening, failed referendum or not. It’ll have 46 elected members from six regions that meet up to six times a year, The Advertiser ($) reports. There will also be 55 members on four committees (native title bodies with 25 members, Stolen Generations with six, First Nations youth with 12, and First Nations Elders with 12). One Nation MLC Sarah Game is trying to repeal it. She says “it’s time to abolish all race-based laws and policies”, presumably calling for another referendum as our constitution already references race several times, including 51(xxvi) which allows the Commonwealth Parliament to make laws about “the people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws”, as RMIT reports, no matter whether they benefit or disadvantage racial groups. And by golly, haven’t they! Cast your mind back to John Howard’s Hindmarsh Island Bridge Act 1997 for more, as Crikey’s Maeve McGregor reports.

TRICKS OF THE TRADE

Trade Minister Don Farrell appointed former Labor senator Chris Ketter as the next senior trade and investment commissioner and consul-general in San Francisco, The Australian ($) reports, but the Australian Trade and Investment Commission’s Kirstyn Thomson was the preferred candidate of the recruitment panel. The paper says Ketter “has no experience in trade investment and did not apply for the job” and will be trained by Thompson. Insult to injury? Nah, she said. She’s since become our senior trade commissioner in Singapore, and told the paper it’s a “better fit”. More jobs for the boys or much ado about nothing? You decide.

To another workplace matter now and NSW employers could face decades of jail time if their staff die on the job, state Industrial Relations Minister Sophie Cotsis announced as the SMH ($) reports. Right now employers can face up to five years if “gross negligence” is proven, but compare that with Victoria where it’s up to 20 years and a $16.5 million fine — that’s because it’s categorised as “workplace manslaughter”. The paper adds some 263 people died at work in NSW between 2017 and 2022, the highest of any state. It comes as NSW Parliament will peruse laws that would probably see pubs and clubs trade later, the SMH ($) reports, by putting Liquor and Gaming NSW in charge of complaints and replacing environmental planning laws with a decibel test.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

Woombye has a big pineapple, Robertson has a big potato, Kimba has a big galah, and Waroona has a lifesized cow with a cult-like fashion following. Known as Mooriel, the fibreglass dairy queen has stood immobile outside the Western Australian town’s visitor centre for years. She was left behind after a 2009 publicly funded exhibition in Margaret River, the ABC says, one of many scattered across small towns in the south-west of the state. What sets her aside from the herd, however, is her fashion sense. She’s frequently dressed in brightly coloured outfits including summer hats, lovingly crocheted dresses and even as the late queen.

But when bleary-eyed volunteers peered out at the quiet street at Friday’s knock-off time, Mooriel was gone. It was all hands on deck on Saturday morning as locals and police gathered to piece together perhaps the greatest mystery the town had seen in years — maybe ever. I saw the old girl on the back of a ute leaving town, one piped up, to many cries of dismay. So the local cop came in on Monday — his day off — and got to work narrowing down the suspects. After all, how many people in regional Australia have a ute? There was no room for error — “He knows of the importance to the community that cow holds,” Shire President Mike Walmsley said. They tracked that cow all the way to Perth, where they thankfully found her in perfect condition. Two men were arrested, presumably for lactose intolerance.

Hoping you find something that you feared lost.

SAY WHAT?

This is actually the bitter reality: it is a parking fines scheme that applies to the possession of ice, heroin, cocaine, MDMA and speed. Parking offences in Canberra are now treated more seriously than the dangerous drugs that do so much harm to our community.

Michaelia Cash

The West Australian Liberal senator says she has a “duty” to try to override incoming ACT drug laws that will see people with a personal possession of drugs be fined instead of charged, even though she admits her federal bill to intervene in territory laws will probably fail.

CRIKEY RECAP

What’s next for Peter Dutton?

BERNARD KEANE

“But there’ll be two pressures on him that might make moving on quickly a little harder. One is that the No victory and campaign strategy has breathed new life into assimilationism, and not the weak variety either.

“Led by Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and with full-throated support from a number of her colleagues and News Corp, the new assimilationism proposes the complete obliteration of Indigenous programs and an end to separate Indigenous policies, a permanent rejection of any recognition of the historical fact of colonisation, and the dismissal of any traumas of colonisation as either a delusion or fabricated.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Vladimir Putin feted at Xi Jinping’s global Belt and Road summit (BBC)

After writing an anti-Israel letter, Harvard students are doxxed (The New York Times) ($)

These are the 20 Republicans who voted against Jim Jordan for speaker (CNN)

Drought turns Amazonian capital into climate dystopia (The Guardian)

Disinformation surge threatens to fuel Israel-Hamas conflict (Reuters)

French airports evacuated after spate of bomb threats and security alerts (euronews)

THE COMMENTARIAT

It’s high time we put royal commissions out of commission — Peter Hoysted (The Australian) ($): “In the past two weeks alone there have been calls for six separate royal commissions. It’s a heaving cocktail of grievance. Offshore detention, the PwC/Deloitte consulting scandal, the Royal Children’s Hospital in Perth. There are demands for two royal commissions in South Australia, the first into early childhood education followed closely by greyhounds. Best not get those two mixed up. Another cry for a royal commission came from a low rent media organisation into the media itself or the bits of it it doesn’t like.

“There is a vast chasm between expectation and delivery. The public perception is a contemporary version of the Spanish Inquisition where the guilty or the professionally inept are savagely grilled under oath. The rack and thumbscrew interrogations have been replaced by surgical j’accuse questioning where process is ­punishment bookmarked by ­rictus-filled perp walks before the huddled media. The short history of royal commissions in this country is that they are almost always bland and rarely lead to improved outcomes.”

If you thought the Voice was bad, just wait until the next election — Niki Savva (The SMH) ($): “Social media posts during the referendum, echoing or amplifying No campaign material, offer a glimpse into the future. Chinese Australians were told via WeChat messages from multiple senders — among many other things including that a future referendum could see them expelled from the country — that the Voice would promote segregation and division, and that it would provide Indigenous kids with free places at private schools, meaning Chinese-Australian children would either be unable to get in or their fees would skyrocket. WhatsApp messages circulating in Muslim communities warned that if the Voice succeeded, their relatives would no longer be able to come to Australia.

“Dutton has shown a predilection for inflammatory language. He did it on the Voice, and he has done it on the Middle East, despite a rare and obvious caution from the head of ASIO, Mike Burgess, to cool it. Dutton flagged his intention to use immigration most clearly in his budget reply speech in May where he said net overseas migration of 1.5 million over five years would worsen cost of living and inflation. It is the issue most ripe for exploitation because it can feed into every grievance and every prejudice, including from migrants. Houses too expensive? Roads too congested? Can’t find a job or get a hospital bed? Whatever ails you, blame immigration.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

• Former Greens leader and environmentalist Bob Brown will talk about his new book, Thera, at Glee Books.

• Author Natalie Bayley will speak about her new book, Bone Rites, at Better Read Than Dead bookshop.

Yuggera and Turrbal Country (also known as Brisbane)

• Author Charlotte Wood will talk about her new book, Stone Yard Devotional, at Avid Reader bookshop.

Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)

• ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr will give the 2023 State of the Territory address at the National Gallery of Australia.