Good morning, early birds. Donald Trump has called on a collection of governors to “dominate” and arrest protesters and, despite everything, the Morrison government apparently will not rule out rebooting robodebt. | | It's the news you need to know.
Chris Woods
Reporter | |
| | | | | | INDEPENDENT AUTOPSY FINDINGS TO BE RELEASED According to The Sydney Morning Herald’s live blog, the attorney for George Floyd‘s family is set to release findings from an independent autopsy into Floyd’s death, while Donald Trump has called on a collection of governors to “dominate” and arrest protesters. The news comes after protesters surrounded the White House, a semi-trailer driver was arrested for speeding into a Minneapolis protest, a third man was killed — this time in a shooting with Kentucky police and the National Guard — and even more frankly unbelievable police actions, with some newer examples including: Las Vegas police just kind of grabbing and dragging a random passer-by; Phoenix Police putting ICE holds on three arrested protesters; and NYPD union the Sergeants Benevolent Association doxxing New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s daughter Chiara de Blasio, who, after being arrested for protesting, had her arrest information published on Twitter including her home address and ID number. On the protesters’ end, The Associate Press reports that at least 4400 people have been arrested for offences ranging from stealing and vandalism to blocking highways, breaking curfew, and peacefully protesting. In one of the more delightful, still-at-large counterexamples, someone has apparently blocked the Chicago police scanner with the 2007 hit Chocolate Rain. PS: As Perth Now reports, hundreds of Western Australians rallied in Perth last night both in solidarity and in protest of Indigenous deaths in custody. | ANOTHER FRANKEN-ROBODEBT SCHEME? According to The Guardian, the Morrison government will not rule out rebooting robodebt after putting the option to the solicitor general last year. This is despite announcing on Friday they would repay 460,000 “debts” accrued since 2015, as well as multiple reports of the scheme’s connection with recipient suicides. The news comes after Scott Morrison expressed “great regrets” over the scheme but refused to apologise, with The Sydney Morning Herald reporting that he even blamed the controversy on a decades-old income-averaging principle “followed by Labor and Coalition” rather than the now-unlawful ATO income averaging method the Turnbull government introduced in 2015. Lifeline: 13 11 14. | HOMEBUYERS SCHEME IS A BIT OF A FIXER UPPER According to News.com.au, the Morrison government is introducing a homebuyers scheme that will offer grants of around $25,000 to build new homes, but in the case of renovations, homebuyers will be required to to match the funding by more than a dollar-for-dollar. Additionally, the AFR ($) reports that grants will be time-limited and means-tested to “include upper-middle-income singles and couples”, and that the government is, separately, finally considering an arts package. Amidst the construction push, the Australian ($) reports that Master Builders Australia, the Australian Industry Group and the Housing Industry Association have sought an array of award changes in a Fair Work submission, including scrapping Saturday penalty rates and cutting casual shifts to as few as two hours. HOW MANY OWNERS NEED $25K? As the Grattan Institute’s Brendan Coates argues at The Conversation, the homebuyers scheme will invariably mean billions spent on homes that were already going to be built next year; social housing, however, would both demonstrably support construction while tackling homelessness. | TOGETHER IN ELECTRIC DREAMS NSW Energy Minister Matt Kean has released a plan to ensure 30% of all new government vehicles are electric or hybrid by 2023, according to The Daily Telegraph ($) — which, hilariously, positions the state’s 2050 net-zero emissions policy as “hard line” despite every single state and territory, and 70+ other countries (minus ‘Australia’), adopting it. PARAMEDIC PROTEST: In yet more proof that NSW is dominated by pinko-lefty-Marxist-antifas, The Sydney Morning Herald reports that state paramedics have begun refusing to bill patients in protest over the Berejiklian government’s public sector wage freeze. | WHERE THE BLAZES...? Finally, in some moderately good news (remember that?), The Age reports that a “secret location in Melbourne’s south-east” is set to house a $50 million medicinal cannabis extraction and contract manufacturing plant. WATCH OUT, COOL DUDES: The plant’s location cannot be disclosed due to licensing requirements but will have “double perimeter fences, 24 hour CCTV and a range of other security measures, including a vault where finished products will be stored”. | STATE WRAP: WA'S 'WANDER OUT YONDER' CAMPAIGN After the majority of Western Australia’s regional travel restrictions were lifted on Friday, May 29, the state government has launched the ‘Wander out Yonder’ tourism campaign. The government has also written to the federal government to permit travel into the Kimberley region from Friday, June 5. Yesterday, Victoria announced that the National Gallery of Victoria, the Melbourne Museum, Scienceworks, State Library Victoria and parts of Arts Centre Melbourne will re-open to the public on Saturday, June 27. The Northern Territory government has deferred the Alice Springs Masters Games and Arafura Games until 2022 and 2023 respectively. Finally, Tasmania has announced a Treasury review into increasing the state’s ‘buy local’ policy, currently set at a goal to award 90% of all government contracts to state businesses by 2022. | | Our journalism usually sits behind a paywall, but we believe this is the time to make more of our content freely available to as many readers as possible. That’s why we’ve launched a new, free newsletter: COVID-19 Watch. |
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| THEY REALLY SAID THAT? | “ | The inequitable and brutal treatment of Black people in our country must stop. Together we stand in solidarity with the Black community — our employees, customers, and partners — in the fight against systemic racism and injustice. — Amazon |
The company that sells sells facial recognition software to an indeterminate number of police departments, supplies cloud services to ICE, and attempted to smear a black warehouse worker they fired for industrial action, has joined the resistance. | | Know an early bird who doesn’t get the worm?
Show them what they’re missing and share this email with a friend and let them know they can get a free trial here. |
| | | CRIKEY RECAP | | | | “Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has said the US is weaker under President Donald Trump, with his response to unrest over the weekend giving ‘a penetrating glimpse of the obvious’. “Trump ‘seeks to exploit divisions for political gain’, and has made the United States weaker, Turnbull said in a wide-ranging conversation with Crikey editor-in-chief Peter Fray on Monday.” |
| | | | “It’s been a while since Australian politics saw an act as gutless as Scott Morrison’s on Friday. “Mere minutes after the prime minister finished another of his interminable post-national cabinet monologues and walked away from journalists, Government Services Minister Stuart Robert issued a media release revealing one of the most expensive backflips in Commonwealth history. The government would repay at least $720 million in fake debts it had ‘raised’ against welfare recipients under the now discredited robodebt scheme.” |
| | | | “Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says his decision to sign on to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) will help Victoria attract foreign direct investment (FDI) and promote business links with China. Is this actually so?” |
| | | | | | READ ALL ABOUT IT | THE COMMENTARIAT How to make this moment the turning point for real change — Barack Obama (Medium): “First, the waves of protests across the country represent a genuine and legitimate frustration over a decades-long failure to reform police practices and the broader criminal justice system in the United States. The overwhelming majority of participants have been peaceful, courageous, responsible, and inspiring. They deserve our respect and support, not condemnation — something that police in cities like Camden and Flint have commendably understood.” It’s lift-off soon, but can we handle the baggage? ($) — Judith Sloan (The Australian): “Promoters of a Big Australia never give up, irrespective of the circumstances. Strong economic growth? We need more migrants. Weak economic growth? We need more migrants. The answer is always the same. What’s worse than the constant, self-serving urgings is that these interest groups clearly have the ear of most politicians at all three tiers of government.” No pokies, no Ho and no Chinese VIPs: Packer’s Barangaroo challenge — Elizabeth Knight (The Sydney Morning Herald): “The NSW government cemented the near term financial fate of James Packer’s Crown casino at Sydney’s Barangaroo with the stroke of a pen on Friday when it inked a deal with rival The Star confirming its exclusive casino rights to operate poker machines for 21 years. Crown’s lobbying efforts to alter the terms of its existing agreement that would have banned pokies from Barangaroo had been secretive but determined and abiding.” | HOLD THE FRONT PAGE | WHAT’S ON TODAY Canberra The Senate Committee on COVID-19 will hear from the Department of Health, Social Services, National Indigenous Australians Agency, and Outback Stores CEO Michael Borg. Melbourne The Wheeler Centre will host the Emerging Writers’ Festival’s online program launch for their 2020 festival, ‘Digital Nostalgia’, to run from June 16–23. Sydney The Federal Court will hand down a judgment in the class action led by the Brett Cattle Company against the Commonwealth and Senator Joe Ludwig from the 2011 live export ban. |
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