Another $100 celebrity candle we might need in the 'energy crisis'
All the news that's fit to mint.
All the news that's fit to mint.
Happening in (The) Oz today:
🤴 Relatable Prince Louis
🇦🇺 Our “meh” Jubilee message
👮 Bill Shorten is the new NDIS cop
🦢 AFL says sorry to Buddy
✊🏿 Mabo’s inspirational grandkids
😷 SA’s sick health sector gets $2.4bn
🕯️ Another R-rated celeb gimmick
But really we're all Prince George today.
The third in line to the throne has a big weekend ahead of him celebrating his great grandmother's Platinum Jubilee. While the rest of the UK have got a four day holiday to mark Queen Elizabeth being on the throne for 70-years, the working royals will press the flesh on behalf of the 96-year-old monarch, who rocked a lilac coat and cane at Trooping of the Colour overnight.
The messages of thanks and congrats have begun.
French president, Emmanuel Macron dropped this online:
"You are the golden thread that binds our two countries," says Emmanuel Macron in a Jubilee tribute to the Queen https://t.co/NCVaZDk1rF #PlatinumJubilee pic.twitter.com/HIfylAY0ih
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 2, 2022
Prime Minister Albanese was less enthused with the occasion. The new Labor PM marked the Queen's big moment lighting a beacon in Canberra last night and reflected on the British monarchy as a story of female service and achievement.
He said Australians continued to hold Queen Elizabeth “in respect and affection” but he said the relationship between Australia and Britain had changed over the past 70 years.
Albanese said the bond between the colonial power and the former colony “is no longer what it was at the dawn of [Queen Elizabeth’s] reign... No longer parent and young upstart, we stand as equals. More importantly, we stand as friends.”
His nonchalance - especially compared to prime ministers passed who've been serious royal stans (good morning to you Tony Abbott) - follows his decision to install an "assistant minister for the republic" in his outer ministry.
NSW MP Matt Thistlethwaite got the gig and said his role over the next three years would be to educate the Australian people about the current constitutional arrangements and the English monarch as the head of state.
He said as Queen Elizabeth came “the twilight of her reign, it’s a good opportunity for a serious discussion about what comes next for Australia”.
“Literally hundreds of Australians could perform the role, so why wouldn’t we appoint an Australian as our pinnacle position under the constitution? It will take time, but if you want to do it properly, we should begin the discussion now, so we’re ready to go in a second term of an Albanese government.”
His use of "hundreds of Australians" as another option to QEII is doing A Lot of work there. It's not like Canberra has inspired anything other than derision lately.
Sorry Bud
One bloke would could step up is Lance 'Buddy' Franklin.
The 1000-goal superstar (and husband of Jesinta Franklin) has been in the headlines this week for failing to have a striking charge overturned in the AFL tribunal (the code's version of Judge Judy), however while his appeal failed it was Franklin who copped an apology from the league.
Buddy's team, the Sydney Swans, were annoyed the AFL's lawyer argued Franklin was "cowardly" in striking Richmond's three-time premiership captain Trent Cotchin last weekend.
It got pretty heated in the hearing. The Swans legal representative said Cotchin was acting and that he “might get an invite to the Logies instead of the Brownlow”.
But in a strongly worded statement issued yesterday, the AFL defended Franklin and urged lawyers to tone down their "rhetorical flourishes" in future tribunal meetings.
"There are no cowardly players in the AFL, let alone Lance Franklin," a spokesperson said.
Gassed
It's still cold and there's still gas issues. The political narrative is now, slowly, pivoting from "climate crisis" to "energy crisis".
Yesterday new resources minister Madeleine King got on the phone with the heads of Shell and Origin to thrash out how they could all work together so our nipples can stop cutting glass.
A "scheme" to stockpile gas for use by east coast consumers or "direct intervention" to force more supply from operators and exporters are options "on the table".
So too is the filthy c-word.
The government has not ruled out increasing coal-fired power output to deal with the looming shortages.
New energy and climate change minister Chris Bowen said he was not ruling any options "in or out" as the government seeks to deal with the "very serious" gas shortfall which is sending power prices higher than Miley Cyrus during her Wrecking Ball phase.
It's a position which has made the Greens see red. Especially since the minor party just experienced record-breaking election wins in Queensland, where it won three seats in Brisbane off the back of a strong climate change campaign.
Planning to open 114 new coal & gas mines, including Beetaloo & Scarborough, doesn’t “end the climate warsâ€.
— Adam Bandt (@AdamBandt) June 1, 2022
It’s just pouring more fuel on the fire.
No amount of spin changes the science.
Australia voted for climate action, not more coal and gas.
By the Short(en) and curlies
New NDIS minister Bill Shorten is leaning hard into his previous gig as a union heavy and has put his new department on notice.
Shorten is set to have "the talk" with a number of stakeholders involved in the poxed program which is meant to make Australians lives easier, not more unbearable by dealing with bureaucrats.
The NDIS is expected to grow from nearly 520,000 clients now to 670,000 in 2024-25 and nearly 860,000 by 2029-30.
Shorten has flagged a crackdown on policing the NDIS after raising concerns that organised crims were “fleecing” the government by falsely claiming they were providing services for disabled people.
He also slammed critics of the scheme who say the NDIS is unsustainable, as it is projected to cost about $60bn a year to run by 2030.
Shorten hinted there will be a massive overhaul into the sustainability of the sector, saying he would not ignore the expectation that taxpayer money needed to be spent "responsibly" He vowed to crack down on fraud, incompetence and service providers that deliberately overcharged disabled people knowing the bill would ultimately be paid by a government agency.
He also said the scheme was "not for everyone" and flagged the need to reduce the demand for the NDIS by working with state governments to give more support for people with mental illness and children with learning difficulties.
In my mind, those chats are going to go like this:
Bye
Former Hey Dad! star and convicted child sex offender Robert Hughes was granted parole yesterday.
He's been in jail since 2014 after being found guilty of 10 cases of sexual and indecent assault charges, including against the actor who played his on-screen daughter, Sarah Monahan.
He will now be deported to the UK after he denounced his Aussie citizenship in 2019 and will live under strict bail conditions.
"We took convicts from the UK for years, it is their turn to take one back," Monahan said yesterday.
Vale
Sir Gerard Brennan, the former chief justice of the High Court, died this week.
Breenan wasn't just any other silk, he remains as one of Australia's biggest human rights advocates and was one of the architects of reconciliation.
As judge of the High Court of Australia back in 1992, he wrote the lead judgment in the case of Mabo v Queensland, which abolished the notion of "terra nullius" and laid down forever the notion of prior Aboriginal occupation of Australian land.
Even back then he recognised the spiritual relationship of Indigenous people to their land, and the importance of Aboriginal protection of their heritage, which he said in itself "demonstrated prior Aboriginal occupation of the land".
In a judgement he quoted the anthropologist William Stanner: "No English words are good enough to give a sense of the links between an Aboriginal group and its homeland … The Aboriginal words would speak of 'earth' and use the word in a richly symbolic way to mean his 'shoulder' or his 'side"," Brennan wrote.
The work of both Brennan and the late Eddie Mabo now lives on in Mabo's grandkids. Especially Hannah Duncan, who is an up and coming lawyer determined to continue their work.
Duncan was born four years after the Mabo decision but it's a source of inspiration for her as she holds down two jobs. One at a community law centre helping pensioners and at the Queensland Human Rights Commission.
"I figure that if Ata [Mabo] - a man with a grade 5 education and a team of strong leaders behind him - was able to change the nation, how much more can we achieve with a higher education and positions of influence?" Duncan said.
Meanwhile in Adelaide
The South Australian state Budget was handed down yesterday. The new Treasurer Stephen Milligan dedicated $2.4bn to hospitals, doctors and the beleaguered ambulance service and introduced a low-deposit home-loan scheme.
It's a basic girl's dream come true
Gwyneth Paltrow and Kourtney Kardashian Barker have joined forces in the name of "wellness".
After months of wild speculation the women were enemies- because there's apparently only room for one, at most two, corporations that make you want to spend your super contribution on sex toys that resemble ornate Scandi homewares - these two freakishly healthy people are set to flog us a candle.
Light up your Pooshyhttps://t.co/pySFqSNrDF
— Kourtney Kardashian (@kourtneykardash) June 2, 2022
The Goop queen and Pooshie doyenne have launched a collection that smells like Kardashian's "pooshie" after she was inspired Paltrow's $100 "this smells like my vagina" candle.
Kardashian Barker's new husband is on board. The Blink 182 star has been involved in the R&D since last year when he had a scented candle made to commemorate her orgasm.
Meghan Markle’s favourite face gym is opening in Australia, Greta Thunberg publishes Andrew Tate’s contact details
All the news that's fit to mint.
Emily Ratajkowski joins the competitive world of online dating, Nick Kyrgios quits at the last minute
All the news that's fit to mint.