Albo the hacker attacker

CYBER CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is launching an agency to fight mass cyberattacks by state-sponsored hackers, The Australian ($) reports. It’ll sit within Home Affairs and be called the National Office for Cyber Security. Cyber crime costs us more than $33 billion every year. The paper notes that US President Joe Biden created the US Office of the National Cyber Director in 2021. And the AFR ($) reports that the Australian Signals Directorate could get the power to take over the IT systems of every company in the country under proposed cybercrime reforms after the Optus and Medibank hacks. Home Affairs and Cybersecurity Minister Clare O’Neil says we have “a patchwork of policies, laws and frameworks” that fall woefully short of keeping us safe online.

Today the Australian Federal Police launches a campaign about foreign interference in our multicultural communities, the SMH ($) reports, with police to urge locals to report anything sus. Police are warning foreign interference targets those with Chinese, Russian, Iranian, Indian, Vietnamese, Thai, Cambodian or Laotian backgrounds. Meanwhile Queensland human rights commissioner Scott McDougall is urging police to watch for vigilante activity, where anti-crime Facebook groups discuss taking the law into their own hands, Guardian Australia reports. It says it has seen several pages that fit the bill, including posts that urge people to “run over” Indigenous kids. It comes as debate rages about “youth crime” in Queensland following new criminalised bail breach laws, and the NT following eased booze bans.

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IT’S REIGNING CROSSBENCHERS

It’s looking more likely a crossbench will be the kingmakers in NSW’s next Parliament, according to The Australian ($). The latest Newspoll shows 37% of voters going with the Coalition, 36% with Labor, and 15% with others (the Greens commanded the remaining 12%). On two-party preferred, it was 52-48 Coalition- Labor, and Dominic Perrottet remains the preferred premier at 43% to Chris Minns’ 33% (the rest didn’t know). Respondents to an AFR ($) poll this morning say pretty much the same — people prefer Perrottet. “People don’t know what Minns is for and what he’s about,” boss of poll conductor Freshwater, Mike Turner, said.

Meanwhile, the SMH ($) got its hands on a draft report by a parliamentary committee looking into council spending after the Canterbury-Bankstown mayor allegedly spent thousands of ratepayer dollars on a Bally briefcase and designer clothes from Armani, Hugo Boss and Michael Kors (not strictly against the rules, but not inline with “community expectations” either). The report also recommended councillors should have to ’fess up about overseas property after the same mayor, Khal Asfour, revealed he owned a flat in the Philippines. Under current rules, he didn’t need to declare it because it’s offshore.

SPAR OVER ATAR

Students who don’t get an ATAR are almost twice as likely as those with an ATAR to drop out of university in their first year, according to the Centre for Independent Studies. The West ($) reports that about a quarter of students at university right now didn’t get an ATAR, compared with 15% six years ago. There are a bunch of alternative pathways that don’t require the final-year exams — indeed some say we should do away with the ATAR altogether considering the intense pressure and stress it places on kids. But the CIS’s Rob Joseph says the study suggests universities are letting students in who don’t have the support they need to complete degrees.

Meanwhile, about three-quarters of young Australians don’t believe they’ll ever be able to buy a home. A study conducted for Nine newspapers ($) found 72% of those aged between 18 and 34 answered so. How can we fix this? Respondents said the government ought to tweak tax concessions such as negative gearing or capital gains discounts, and create more low-cost housing and “rent to buy” schemes. Speaking of housing — The Courier-Mail ($) has a rather eerie story this morning about Queensland’s “homicide houses” where “hammers to the head, fatal shootings and stabbings” have taken place. Landlords or realtors are not compelled to disclose if a home has a dark past, so an emerging volunteer-run website called HouseCreep is.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

It’s known as the happiest place on earth and one man can say no one has ever, or will ever, visit it more times than he. It began in 2012 when Jeff Reitz was given an annual pass to California’s Disneyland, as the LA Times tells it. He was recently unemployed and figured it would be a good way to break up the endless depressing days spent looking for a job. Lacing up his runners each day, he’d head to the theme park and walk around, seeing happy visitors and buoyant staff bringing the Disney dream to life. It just made Reitz feel good, and suddenly he’d visited every day for two months. On his 60th visit, he met a reporter who started following his social media posts, and after they wrote a story about his jaunts, people started noticing him.

Visitors would ask Reitz for a photo or even an autograph, and staff at Disneyland awarded him a certificate declaring him an honorary citizen of the park, throwing him a dinner and everything. As his Disneyland visit streak went into the thousands of days, it required a little more planning. Reitz had scored a job by this time, so he’d pop before, after or even during his work day. As the park closed during the pandemic, he’s visited some 2995 days in a row — or eight years, three months and 13 days. Guinness World Records declared him the record holder, something that can’t be broken since Disneyland now blocks several dates out for annual pass holders. Reflecting on his record, Reitz says he was very moved by the magical details at Disneyland — something visitors might miss in their excitement — like the audio for instance. “Most people don’t get to hear and realise how much thought and magic the engineers put into it.”

Hoping you notice the magic in the world today.

SAY WHAT?

No I don’t. Well, I can guarantee it’s no one there on the desk.

Anthony Albanese

The PM told The Project panel that he didn’t know who the mystery Australian who has more than half a billion dollars in their superannuation account right now is, but he was sure it wasn’t any of them.

CRIKEY RECAP

‘Extraordinary’ search for NSW premier’s brother involves multiple private eye firms and a 1900km trip

Anton Nilsson

Feb 23, 2023

7

“At least two teams of private investigators are searching statewide for NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet’s brother and several other Liberals, trying to serve them with summonses to give evidence to a parliamentary inquiry. Committee sources described the search, involving multiple agents travelling hundreds of kilometres, as ‘quite extraordinary’.

“Private-eye progress reports obtained by Crikey indicate agents from two different firms have knocked on at least 13 doors, including in the area near Deniliquin by the Victorian-NSW border. One progress report noted agents had travelled ‘in excess of 1900 kilometres’ during one failed mission.”

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The reason Labor is gaslighting the nation about its climate policy and the Greens

Maeve McGregor

Feb 24, 2023

177

“In so doing, Labor has — with the help of a largely willing and compliant media — successfully recast the debate as a political test for the Greens, rather than of itself, and one that leaves the minor party in a catch-22 bind.

“Should the Greens ultimately support the legislation absent any material concessions, the received wisdom is they will look politically weak. Should the party refuse to support it, the force of Labor’s misleading narrative might irretrievably damage it in the minds of many Australians, or so Labor hopes.”

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A ‘profit-price spiral’ is the biggest driver of inflation and interest rates in Australia

John Buckley

Feb 24, 2023

27

“The figures prompted renewed criticism of the central bank, where concerns over a wage-price spiral — in which wages increases drive price increases which in turn lead to further wage increases — were central to its monetary policy outlook earlier this month, forecasting pay increases to run past 4% this year.

“Economists agreed the data showed no evidence of a wage-price spiral. Treasurer Jim Chalmers said wages growth ‘isn’t the problem’ driving inflation, but is instead part of a solution to easing cost-of-living pressures. Australia Institute senior economist Matt Grudnoff said it’s clear profits were playing a central role in driving inflation in Australia, and that to blame workers was ‘gaslighting of the highest order’.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Migrant shipwreck in southern Italy kills 58, including children (Reuters)

Cracking the code of catastrophic floods in New Zealand (Stuff)

Oregon decriminalised drugs 2 years ago. What can British Columbia learn from its rocky start? (CBC)

Dilbert cartoon dropped by US newspapers over creator’s racist comments (The Guardian)

The confronting pictures that capture El Salvador’s crackdown on gangsters (SBS)

Marianne Williamson says she will run for president again (The New York Times)

US says China will face ‘real costs’ if it provides lethal aid to Russia for war in Ukraine (CNN)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Why you can’t predict the future of religion — Ross Douthat (The New York Times) ($): “A unique religious culture exists across the Mountain West because one of Finney’s upstate New York contemporaries believed he received a revelation from the angel Moroni. Arguably the most important movement within global Christianity today exists because of a revival that began with an African-American preacher and his followers praying together in a shabby part of Los Angeles in 1906.

“And I can quote you chapter and verse on the reasonability of theism, but in the causal chain of history I’m a Christian because t2000 years ago a motley group of provincials in Roman Palestine believed they’d seen their teacher heal the sick and raise the dead and then rise transfigured from the grave — and then because, two millenniums later, as a child in suburban Connecticut, I watched my own parents fall to the floor and speak in tongues.”

Fertility, obesity, productivity … the crazy cost of a Sydney house is not just financial — Margot Saville (The SMH) ($): “Another issue directly affected by housing costs in this country is the soaring rates of obesity, a devastating health problem which is estimated to cost the taxpayer billions of dollars. In 2021, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare produced a report stating that rates of obesity in people who were paying off a mortgage or renting were 1.2 times higher than people who had paid off their houses (after controlling for other factors).

“There are many factors at play here; people paying a high percentage of their income on housing have less money to spend on healthy food. Dwellings in the outer suburbs are cheaper, but those residents face long commutes by car or public transport, giving them much less time after work to exercise, prepare nutritious food and get enough rest — which all contribute to one’s weight and overall health. In addition, rental properties may not have appropriate cooking facilities or enough space to store food, making it even harder to cook decent meals.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Online

• RMIT University’s David Hayward, Uniting Vic.Tas’s Bronwyn Pike, and La Trobe University’s Irene Blackberry are among the speakers at a webinar about the Australian care economy.

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

• Psychologist Chris Cheers will talk about his new book, The New Rulebook, at Better Read Than Dead bookshop.

Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)

• Ecologist and author Alison Pouliot will create an interactive fungus display and chat about her new book, Underground Lovers, as part of an event held by the Wheeler Centre.