Another AUKUS deal on the table

A ROARING TRADE

Australia, the US and the UK would have a military-style free trade zone under new regulatory tweaks, the SMH ($) reports, so we can share sensitive tech without China and Russia seeing. The licence-free export zone would spark innovation from “industry, higher education and research sectors”, the government said. But the changes would also criminalise the sharing of sensitive technology with foreigners in Australia (punishable by up to 10 years’ jail!), which could make research collaboration with anyone outside the AUKUS bubble rather difficult. So what counts as sensitive tech? Nuclear materials, computers, sensors, lasers and even microorganisms and chemicals, the bill lists. It comes as the US has gone to the Supreme Court of Appeal to say it shouldn’t be sued over a Darwin army explosion that injured a marine, the NT News ($) reports.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is headed off on his 18th overseas trip next week, and his third trip to the US (to attend the APEC forum in San Francisco). Deputy Opposition Leader Sussan Ley was contractually bound to criticise “Airbus Albo”, but this is shaping up to be a pretty decent era for our foreign relations — The Advertiser ($) lists warmer Beijing vibes benefiting trade, a bonza $5 billion Microsoft investment, and a $1 billion weapon carrier contract for Germany among some of the outcomes. It comes as Greens leader Adam Bandt joined 400 people on Parliament House’s lawn to slam Albanese for not calling for a Gaza ceasefire, Sky News Australia reports. Israeli troops reached the gates of Gaza’s largest hospital today, The Guardian says, while hundreds of patients, including babies, remain trapped inside. The death toll in Gaza is now 11,180, its health ministry said via WaPo ($), meaning one person in every 200 has been killed.

HOME TRUTHS

Only the rich can buy homes right now, ANZ chief executive Shayne Elliott told The Australian ($), because it’s the toughest time in 30 years to get approval for a mortgage. The ABS says the average Australian mortgage is $598,867, which is nearly double the 2013 average. Former treasurer Peter Costello said the extremely high number of migrants (as many as 600,000!) in the past year had created a demand for an extra 200,000 homes. “What’s going to be driving inflation in the near term? Rents,” Costello, who is the outgoing Future Fund chairman, said.

Meanwhile renters on JobSeeker spend at least 78% of their income on one-bedroom apartments in capital cities, Guardian Australia reports, except in Sydney where they’d have to spend 137% of their $22,100 income to afford it. So, yeah. They can’t. If you’re a single pensioner, you’d be parting with half of your income for rent in all capitals except Adelaide and Hobart. More generally across the renting population, the report found it’s become tougher to afford every major city except Hobart and Canberra, while Melbourne and the ACT are the only places (on average) where you can get away with spending a quarter or less of your income on rent. No coastal Sydney suburbs had acceptable rental affordability, the Brisbane Times ($) adds. Grim.

WITH GAY ABANDON

Former PM Tony Abbott lied to his cabinet about same-sex marriage (SSM) and it was the beginning of the end for his leadership, Queensland MP Warren Entsch told Sky News Australia. Before SSM was legalised, Entsch had asked Abbott for a “conscious” vote (I think Sky means conscience vote here) — the then-PM agreed they could talk about it in the party room. But when Entsch raised it in the next meeting, several senior ministers accused him of “hijacking” the meeting. So he whipped his phone out and showed them the message from Tones confirming it. Senior figures were “furious”, Entsch remembers. “He had lied to his colleagues.” The moment former Liberal MP Luke Simpkin lost faith in Abbott, however, was his bizarre knighthood of Prince Philip.

Meanwhile political donors scored contracts worth an average of $3.3 million, Guardian Australia reports, while non-political donors got contracts worth $762,449. That’s according to the Centre for Public Integrity’s analysis of a decade of donation disclosures and procurement data — it also found donors were 2.49 times more likely to win contracts. The centre agrees with a bill from the Greens that bans firms from getting contracts within a year of their last donation, but constitutional expert Anne Twomey said that doesn’t distinguish between coincidence and corruption. Speaking of big contracts, Labor is reining in big road and rail projects — the states have to go halves, Transport Minister Catherine King will say today as the AFR ($) reports, and we’ll only give them money if they cough up at least $250 million.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

Whether it’s knocking our coffee over our laptop keyboard, smashing a wine glass while clearing a table at a restaurant, or dropping a sterilised needle on to a hospital floor, we’ve all had butter-fingers at work. Spare a thought for NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara at the International Space Station (ISS), however, who dropped a toolbox that is now orbiting earth. They were some 320km from the surface tinkering away at a faulty solar panel when it happened. It’s no big deal — some back-of-envelope calculations that presumably involved spin, gravity, force and other nerdy things showed it would eventually disintegrate upon re-entry to the earth’s atmosphere.

We wouldn’t even know about the rather unfortunate workplace mistake except that O’Hara and Moghbeli’s Japanese colleague, astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, happened to snap a photo of the floating toolbox — check it out here. Furukawa was actually intending to photograph Mount Fuji, Moghbeli told ground control, and it appears the toolbox wanted to check the famous Japanese landmark out too. NASA was pretty good about it, joking to the gals that they might be able to grab the toolbox when it completes an orbit around the entire globe. You can see the toolbox if you have a pair of binoculars and the time to scan the skies, Stuff says.

Hoping you can laugh at a mistake today, too.

SAY WHAT?

It’s 2023, Hamish, not 2014.

Andrew Giles

Ceasefire continues to be the hardest word for politicians — the immigration minister was responding to journalist Hamish Macdonald when asked why he signed a letter 10 years ago condemning “the ongoing Israeli military bombardment and invasion of Gaza” but isn’t calling for it now.

CRIKEY RECAP

Anti-vaxxers are winning local elections across Western Australia

CAM WILSON

“Born of the COVID-19 pandemic, the group started as a primarily anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown group which a Crikey investigation revealed was behind a group of online anti-Dan Andrews groups.

“Since then, Stand Up Now Australia has morphed into a broadly conspiratorial and anti-institutional sovereign citizen movement. Some of its recent campaigns include opposing an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, Australia’s proposed digital ID system and the World Health Organization’s international health regulations.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

If Gaza was in your city, how much would be destroyed? (Al Jazeera)

Ukraine war: Russian state media retract report of Russian retreat (BBC)

Speaker Mike Johnson enters big government shutdown test days ahead of deadline
(CNN)

US bets on small nuclear reactors to help fix a huge climate problem (The New York Times) ($)

UK’s Sunak brings back [former PM David] Cameron, sacks [Suella] Braverman (Reuters)

Everything you need to know about the Dutch general election (euronews)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Bringing David Cameron back is a gamble with an uncertain pay-off — Syliva Hui (The SMH) ($): “As political comebacks go, former British prime minister David Cameron’s return to government as foreign secretary is more dramatic and unexpected than most. After unsuccessfully campaigning during the 2016 Brexit referendum for Britain to vote to ‘remain’ in the European Union, Cameron resigned immediately and has been out of politics since. He is not even a lawmaker, and his return to senior government leadership as an unelected member of Parliament’s House of Lords, though not unprecedented, is rare and has prompted concerns about accountability.

“Questions have been raised about Sunak’s decision given that Cameron’s legacy on Brexit and other political decisions remains deeply contentious … An Oxford-educated former public relations executive, Cameron led the Conservatives back to power in 2010 after 13 years in opposition. He led Britain for six years, and in the first of his two terms in office his party shared power with the smaller Liberal Democrats in an uneasy coalition.”

Ancient hatreds have no place on our streets — Kylie Moore-Gilbert (The Australian) ($): “Most pro-Palestine protesters certainly are not anti-Semites, and I share many of their concerns about the disproportionate loss of life in Gaza. I understand why many are calling for a ceasefire, while I might quibble over the timing of such calls. However Islamists, including those in Australia, almost unfailingly are anti-Semitic. And many of these rallies and marches for Palestine, including at the Sydney Opera House and in the Jewish suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne, have been dominated by Islamists. If an Islamist view of the world teaches there is no distinction between Israelis and Jews, it makes sense that such individuals might target Australian Jewish neighbourhoods.

“If Israelis are the enemy, Jews also are the enemy. So these horrors compound and reverberate here, on our streets. The mind boggles how, after more than two decades of draconian laws and an outsized focus on homegrown terrorism, NSW Police have been unable to identify those chanting ‘Gas the Jews’ at the heart of our biggest city. There is so much that is unspeakable about the horrors flashing across our screens. There is something unhealthy about news outlets’ seemingly endless live updates and the garbled hot takes of every person who, fresh from commenting on epidemiology, now suddenly has a PhD in Middle East politics.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

• Comedian Rhys Nicholson will talk to writer Benjamin Law about the former’s new book, Dish, at Better Read Than Dead bookshop.

Yuggera and Turrbal Country (also known as Brisbane)

• Sustainability expert Clare Press will talk about her new book, Wear Next, at Avid Reader bookshop.

Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)

• UN Special Rapporteur for Palestinian Human Rights Francesca Albanese will address the National Press Club.