Tips and rumours

From the Crikey grapevine, the latest tips and rumours …

Stutchbury the lede. Ms Tips has noted with interest that Harry Stutchbury, son of Australian Financial Review editor-in-chief Michael Stutchbury is taking over as the head of the New South Wales Young Liberals, joining the company of a fairly illustrious (or at least high profile) group of conservatives (former NSW presidents count among their number John Howard, Gladys Berejiklian, Joe Hockey and Phillip Ruddock). Stutchbury replaces the equally media adjacent Alex Dore (nephew of Daily Telegraph editor Chris Dore). Stuchbury the younger is a staffer at the NSW branch of the Minerals Council of Australia, and what raised an eyebrow or two in the Crikey bunker was looking back at the Fin coverage of the Mineral Council over the last few months. It hasn’t been all rainbows and joy: reporting on the frustration MCA members (particularly BHP, who is reviewing its membership) feel at the Council’s coal-focused response to the Finkel review and telling investors “Don’t buy the Minerals Council costings of coal power“. Trouble at home? Are we to see more intense coverage of the NSW Young Libs in coming months? Contact us if you know more. 

Climate change to cause record insurance losses. To Nate, Maria, Harvey and Irma we now can add Ophelia, the 10th Hurricane of the US season — a tie for the all time record set back in 1878(!). Ophelia is way out in the mid Atlantic, southwest of the Azores according to the American authorities, with maximum sustained winds of 120 kilometres an hour, which makes her a blowy little lass at this early stage (She can be seen on this page, looking at a plenitude of targets from the Atlantic, bobbing along at around 5 kph). The current season ends on November 30, so there still is time for an 11th storm to form and set an all time new record. The National Hurricane Centre says in terms of what it calls Accumulated Cyclone Energy, which measures the combined strength and duration of tropical storms and hurricanes, September was the most active month on record. 

But according to our climate guru, former prime minister Tony Abbott there’s no such thing of global warming, just storms, rain and wind and stuff. Or there is, but it’s a good thing. Meanwhile the executive suites of insurers worldwide are getting jumpy now that Ophelia has joined the cast (especially QBE, the big Australian global insurer and reinsurer). Harvey, Nate, Irma, Maria, Debbie (in Australia), floods in Peru, a big storm in northern Germany late last week, two quakes in Mexico, and the unknown bill from the terrible Californian fires will push the overall cost to them from insurance claims for 2017 to a new record of more than US$105 billion (the previous record set for insurance losses in 2011).

That year the total economic cost of disasters was more than US$380 billion — dominated by the NZ quake in Christchurch (the second in less than half a year), the Northeastern Japan quake, tsunami and then the Fukushima nuclear power station disaster (whose cost is being mostly absorbed — more than US$120 billion — by the government), as well as a category 5 cyclone (Yasi), floods and storms in and around central Queensland and the flooding in the Brisbane River Valley and then the city. The Californian fires will be a multi-billion dollar damage bill with more than 1500 homes and business destroyed (and 17 deaths and more than 150 people reported missing). Disasters in the US always cost more than in most other countries because the damage impinges on so many well-populated areas.

Gillard’s flip-flops. Ms Tips has long admired former Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s quiet dignity since leaving office — particularly when contrasted with antics of her male counterparts Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd, neither of whom can seemingly walk past a reflective surface without telling it in detail what the current prime minister should be doing. She deserves credit for this. Which is what makes it so odd that one area of policy she does make a point of commenting on is one where her own record is less than stellar. 

As Prime Minister, in 2011, she voiced her opposition to marriage equality, saying it was due to her “conservative upbringing”, saying :

“I think that there are some important things from our past that need to continue to be part of our present and part of our future,” she said. “If I was in a different walk of life, if I’d continued in the law and was partner of a law firm now, I would express the same view, that I think for our culture, for our heritage, the Marriage Act and marriage being between a man and a woman has a special status.” 

She voted no when the issue came before the lower house in September 2012. A year later, post her ousting, she revised her view, saying opposing marriage equality was a result of her feminist view that marriage itself was a antiquated, patriarchal institution: 

” …if someone had said to me as a 20-year-old, ‘What about you get into a white dress to symbolise virginity and you get your father to walk you down an aisle and give you away to a man who is waiting at the end of the aisle,’ I would have looked with puzzlement like, ‘What on earth would I do that for?’ I think that marriage in our society could play its traditional role and we could come up with other institutions which value partnerships, value love, value lifetime commitment. I have a valuable lifetime commitment and haven’t felt the need at any point to make that into a marriage. So I know that’s a really different reasoning than most people come at these issues, but that’s my reasoning.”

Then, in August 2015 — a safe distance from any right wing ALP factional warlords —  she changed her mind again, saying she now supported same sex marriage and criticising then PM Tony Abbott’s proposed plebiscite on the subject. And finally, on October 10 this year, she re-iterated her support (and that of Beyondblue, where she is chair of the board), and expressed concerns about the “trackable” mental health issues faced by LGBTQI Australian’s “not because of their sexuality, but because of the discrimination they face … there are enhanced risks of depression, of anxiety of suicide”. If only this could have somehow been avoided. Of course, of course, people can change their mind on any matter. But perhaps Gillard could show a little more candour about the reasons for her previous stances.

Happy little Vegemites at NYT. The New York Times‘ entry into the Australian market has had mixed reviews, with a settling in period marked by criticism from other corners of the media and a few missteps alongside some good yarns. Yesterday the Grey Lady decided to review Australia’s favourite breakfast spread — Vegemite. But it wasn’t just any old Vegemite, it’s the new and more pricey “Blend 17,” which the company’s marketing manager says in the story is of a “higher intensity” than the standard stuff. The piece, written by Australian freelancer Adam Baidawi (who’s been writing regularly for the Times), calls the spread’s packaging “achingly artisanal”: “includes an unnecessary cardboard box, a gold-colored lid and a price tag more than double that of a traditional jar”. The results of the reviews are that the more expensive stuff — “proudly made in Port Melbourne” — is more salty and has more of an aftertaste than normal Vegemite. We’re just so lucky the New York Times is on it.

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