Covid-19
(Image: AAP/James Gourley)

A CLINICAL APPROACH

Labor has made its first major health announcement — 50 urgent care clinics across every state and territory that could treat sprains and broken bones, cuts, wounds, insect bites, minor ear and eye problems, and minor burns from 8am to 10pm, Guardian Australia reports. It’ll be bulk-billed too — allowing families to get urgent care without going to the hospital. Labor modelled the idea off a pretty successful New Zealand scheme — about 2.5 million New Zealanders use them every year. Our $135 million trial would ease the pressure on our emergency departments, which are at breaking point in many places — indeed health staff are describing how “freakishly” busy days are now the norm at a new hospital in the Hunter Valley, with ambulance banking up, four-hour waits in outpatient clinics, wards at “surge capacity” and a clogged emergency department full of frustrated patients and stretched staff, The Newcastle Herald ($) reports.

Meanwhile the Australian Medical Association (AMA) will give Australia’s 45,840 GPs a little election pack, including election posters and template letters for patients to send to MPs, The Age reports. The AMA wants to see GPs get way more funding for rebates — they say one in 10 Australians visit the GP once a month, and GPs feel they need to spend longer with patients, as well as get more allied health workers like pharmacists, dieticians, physiotherapists, and podiatrists on site. It comes as the Coalition’s 10-year primary care plan was not funded in the budget last month.

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DON’T SEEK AND YE SHAN’T FIND

Labor will not be reviewing the JobSeeker rate — a payment amounting to $46 a day, or $642.70 a fortnight for a single person with no kids — the SMH reports. In June 2020, opposition spokesperson for social services Linda Burney declared JobSeeker was too low to live on, and promised Labor would review it — but since then, the Coalition has slightly increased it by $50 a fortnight. Considering the average rent for a unit in Sydney is $490, and in Melbourne $375 (that’s before any bills or food) it’s hard to imagine just how difficult living on JobSeeker would be. The Australian Council of Social Service says it’s particularly tough on “single parents, older women, [and] people with a disability”. But opposition assistant treasury spokesperson Andrew Leigh says Labor is looking more broadly at easing cost-of-living pressures — like boosting social housing, to create 30,000 more homes for the vulnerable, The Australian ($) reports. The Greens — who want it to be $88 a day — say Labor and the Liberals are both asking people to live below the poverty line.

Meanwhile, Coalition campaign spokesperson Anne Ruston was wrong when she said Labor has always “presided over … higher unemployment rates”, The New Daily has found. ABS data shows unemployment fell to 4% twice under Labor in 2008, which is the same rate it’s at now. Prior to 2008, under John Howard, it was 6.3%. Ruston also says over 30 years Labor has “delivered higher unemployment” — looking at the data, there is a 1% difference in the Coalition’s favour, but economists say it’s a moot point anyway: governments of the day can influence job rates, sure, but they don’t “deliver” them — that’s down to financial crises, the pandemic, and even China’s industrialisation. It comes as the Coalition has upcycled a past promise to bring over a million jobs in five years, but we don’t have enough workers the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry says. We’d need to drastically raise our migration cap from 160,000 to 220,000 to make it work, The Age reports.

GETTING YOUR MONEY’S WORTH

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is going for Labor Leader Anthony Albanese’s jugular over economic management, saying his opponent “doesn’t know, and he doesn’t understand” our economy. But is that true? Albanese pointed out yesterday he has an economics degree from the University of Sydney and worked as an economic policy advisor to the Hawke government, as AFR reports. But The Australian’s ($) Sharri Markson says that’s inflated — saying Albo was actually a “research officer” according to his parliamentary biography. When she put it to his camp, they said he was employed as an economist. Semantics or something worth reporting? You be the judge.

Federal opposition Treasury spokesperson Jim Chalmers says the idea the Coalition is better at managing the chequebook is a fallacy anyway. “This Coalition government has taxed more, borrowed more, and spent more than the last Labor government — but delivered less,” he writes in The Australian ($). He called the Coalition the second-highest taxing government of the past 30 years, after Howard, saying right now Australians are taxed an extra $5275 a year compared to Labor’s government in 2013.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

Cranes are, without a doubt, the revered romantics of the animal kingdom. The slender birds find the one, live faithfully by each other’s side, dance and sing together, and defend their home as a united front. When a sarus crane leaves this world, Indian mythology states that the other will often die of a broken heart. But sometimes monogamy can feel a little tight about the collar — even for a crane — and this is where the story seems to get a little saucy. A recent study suggests sarus cranes have been known to welcome a third crane into their relationship. The relationship sees the offspring receive more care — oftentimes, the third crane will even sing the same personalised song as the happy couple.

But, scientist K. S. Gopi Sundar says, it’s not necessarily the hot and heavy polyamory we might think of. It’s more like an avian au pair than a thruple. Of 193 trios among more than 11,500 crane pairs scientists looked at, only two of the three mated and had kids. I guess romance ain’t dead after all. Scientists say it’s actually pretty common to see parenting duties happen in threes in the animal kingdom — including monkeys, mongooses, spiders, insects, birds and fish. Wait — how do we know the two that mated were the original couple, The New York Times wonders? Sundar replies that he doesn’t actually want to know if cranes cheat on each other. “Why destroy this mythology for a statistic and for a scientific paper?” he asks.

Wishing you a little romance this morning too.

SAY WHAT?

As I quoted the Ramones on day one of the campaign, here is a Taylor Swift comment for you. My theory is: “Shake it off”.

Anthony Albanese

Incredibly, this is actually not the first time the Labor Leader has dabbled in the catchy pop song. Take a look at this extremely sweet 2016 video of Albanese having a little boogie to “Shake it Off” with some primary school kids. Anthony Albanese, a Swiftie?

CRIKEY RECAP

Scott Morrison knows exactly what he’s doing when he talks about trans people

Apr 12, 2022

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“All of this article has been about politics, but debates about trans people doesn’t just concern politicians. It affects trans people. They are among the most marginalised and socioeconomically disadvantaged. They are at higher risk of suicidal ideation, self harm and mental health issues.

“They’re the ones who have to hear their identity and rights debated by the national media, despite it really affecting very, very few people. They will, no doubt, be chilled by a promise from the prime minister on the campaign trail on Monday: ‘I’ll have more to say about that at another time’.”

Coalition throws more billions at fossil fuels as Albo’s apology tour continues

Apr 12, 2022

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“If Labor’s Anthony Albanese spent much of today apologising for getting some basic numbers wrong yesterday, the fossil fuel industry was hearing all the right numbers from the Coalition: Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce announced a remarkable $1.5 billion handout to the gas industry to establish a new port facility in Darwin.

“There’s an electoral case for the spending, however — Labor holds the seat of Solomon by just 3%. We thus have our first truly substantial entry for Crikey’s Porkwatch 2022, and how fitting that it both targets a marginal seat and looks after the Coalition’s fossil fuel donors.”

Welcome to Mackellar, where a sunburnt, flood-ravaged nation will not be looking come election night — or will it?

Apr 12, 2022

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“Falinski has trodden the well-worn path into modern political office: he has been a former president of the Australian Young Liberals, staffer for opposition leader John Hewson and former NSW premier Barry O’Farrell, and a councillor on the Warringah Council (until it was merged with the Northern Beaches Council in 2016).

“On the occasion of his anointment as candidate for Mackellar, he declared: ‘There’s no other seat that I’ve ever wanted to represent in the federal Parliament than Mackellar.’ His instinct for a secure tenure was solid. In the 2019 election, Falinski won 53.01% of first preferences. Can he hold on to his prized seat? Or will his independent challenger, the climate change warrior and Narrabeen GP Dr Sophie Scamps do a Zali Steggall?”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Brooklyn shooting: 16 injured in New York City subway station (BBC)

Red states push LGBTQ restrictions as education battles intensify (The New York Times)

Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak fined over lockdown parties (BBC)

‘Hurricane Hazel’: Canada political icon, 101, still flying high as airport director (The Guardian)

How Australia’s Omicron battle compares with NZ (NZ Herald)

Iran summons Afghan envoy after diplomatic mission attacks (Al Jazeera)

US inflation accelerated to 8.5% in March, hitting four-decade high (The Wall Street Journal)

The climate crisis is supercharging rainfall in hurricanes, scientists report (CNN)

A German state is last in almost everything. but it’s no. 1 in vaccines. (The New York Times)

India: Muslims see wave of attacks, hate speech on Hindu festival (Al Jazeera)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Albanese can’t be all things to the Greens and the bush — Barnaby Joyce (The AFR): “Regional Australia is asking Labor to put a bit more thought into what is the plan for us, rather than demand we bend to them. We want a real competition for the vote in regional Australia. But until Labor cuts the Greens and their policies loose, we will have that political battle with minor parties. The Nationals and Liberals say let’s build Hells Gates Dam, Urannah Dam and Dungowan Dam, on top of the work we’re already doing in building Rookwood Weir, Scottsdale Irrigation Scheme and a plethora of other water projects to deliver water security across our nation and expand our agricultural capacity. The Labor Party is either silent or sneering.

“Labor says it believes in the coal industry. But deputy leader Richard Marles is on the record as saying it is a “good thing” that coal jobs be lost and the industry closed down. Labor says it is a competent economic manager while not being able to point to any current replacement to earn our nation the money that our second biggest export does. Writing in The Australian Financial Review on Monday, Mr Albanese was merely ticking a box by “speaking” to regional Australia, issuing a patronising plea from a party that has left Chifley’s Bathurst far behind as a fading black-and-white photo on the mantlepiece of memorabilia.”

Did the Morrison government really prevent 40,000 COVID deaths? A health economist checks claims against facts — Simon Eckermann (The Conversation): “The federal government’s claims of success show it did not learn the importance of the precautionary principle — a decision-making approach used in public health and environmental fields that urges caution when the science and risks are still uncertain – and wasted the luck Australia had in 2020. To say there has been a saving of 40,000 lives relies on a comparison to the northern hemisphere at the beginning of the pandemic when Australia had a climatic cloak of protection and a safe distance from which to learn from overseas evidence.

“New Zealand provides a more useful comparison if we’re to judge the success of the Morrison government’s pandemic handling. Our neighbour faced the closest set of climate and wider conditions to us and had similarly high levels of PCR testing (at least until Omicron overwhelmed testing in late 2021). On this comparison, Australia did not do well.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

The Latest Headlines

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)

  • Greens Leader Adam Bandt will give a speech titled “Leaders 2022 Election Address: Greens and the Balance of Power” at the National Press Club.

Yuggera Country (also known as Brisbane)

  • Reporter Jason Om will discuss his new memoir, All Mixed Up, which explores his family’s past and his multicultural upbringing, at Avid Reader bookshop. You can catch this one online.