Harry and Meghan's quitting award and kids to vote in NZ
All the news that's fit to mint.
All the news that's fit to mint.
What's happening in (The) Oz:
🗣 Parliament is back and everyone is yelling about industrial relations, coal and power bills
✊🏾 Details about The Voice may drop this week
💸 Gird your AfterPay, the regulators may be coming for it
🏆 Harry and Meghan are getting participation awards
⚗️ Bunsen burners are the devil, prove me and the 11 kids injured at school wrong
💔 As if the Victorian election campaign couldn't get any worse, there's been a massive tragedy
😇 Kate Winslet officially redeemed for letting Jack drown
🗳 Kids may soon be able to vote in New Zealand
🎤 The American Music Awards featured a lot of flesh and an epic Olivia Newton-John tribute
Hello and welcome to Tuesday,
The American Music Awards happened. And Latto's ensemble perfectly encapsulates Tuesday - trapped in an invisible cage, without pants and a dwindling will to participate in public events.
Anyway, enough about me.
Pink performed an absolutely glorious tribute to our Olivia Newton-John.
And Taylor Swift won pretty much everything, from Artist of the Year to a slew of trophies for Red (Taylor's Version). Her do over album cleaned up the best pop album and video categories. She was also named Favourite Female Country Artist.
Beyonce finally had a win. Renaissance and Break My Soul were crowned Favourite R&B Album and Single respectively and Bey was named Favourite R&B Female Artist.
This band - Måneskin - won for Best Bikini Line (and Favourite Rock Song for that ear worm called Beggin').
From the red carpet to Canberra
Federal parliament is back. It's the final sitting weeks for the year and our MPs are set to get busy.
During the next fortnight, the priorities for the government include making laws regarding:
- The national anti-corruption commission
- Cheaper childcare
- The disaster fund to help those impacted by floods in NSW this year
- Those IR changes
Team Albanese also said on Monday it plans to mitigate the energy crisis before Christmas so we'll hopefully not be getting coal from Santa and instead cheaper power bills.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers insists Labor will find a way to relieve soaring energy prices before the end of the year (which is about six weeks away).
"We are looking for ways to take some of the sting out of these high energy prices which are punishing Australians and Australian industry and employers as well," the Treasurer said.
"We will have more to say on our plans for the energy market by the end of the year. There’s a lot of complexity here, there are a lot of considerations to weigh up, we have made it very clear that we are interested in a temporary, meaningful, responsible, sensible intervention in the energy market."
The changes would likely be regulatory rather than legislative, Chalmers said (meaning they may not need to keep the Senate and House of Representatives classes back in Canberra to pass new laws).
"We’ve made it clear that we are acting with some urgency here but there are a lot of considerations and complexities to weigh up. Our intention is to announce our approach here before Christmas, as we’ve said. We will deal with any of the legislative or regulatory issues as they arise."
The Voice, try and understand it
Uluru Statement co-chair Megan Davis has flagged the logistics that'll allow Australians to head to the polls to vote for or against an Indigenous Voice to parliament may be revealed later this week.
According to Professor Davis there are two major issues on the table:
- The wording of the referendum question
- The level of detail to be provided on what a Voice to parliament would look like
Earlier this year, the PM Anthony Albanese released the draft question:
"Do you support an alteration to the Constitution that establishes an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice?"
"Draft" being the key word here, as he also said it could change.
Watch this space and learn more here: We're one step closer to an Indigenous Voice in Parliament
Black Friday could get darker for some of us
As Buy Now, Pay Later businesses are about to get caught in the political crosshairs after a new Treasury discussion paper was released on Monday that shows lazy regulation and the huge uptake of BNPL apps "could hurt vulnerable Australians".
Media release @StephenJonesMP: Buy Now Pay Later consultations open https://t.co/MSnqFUmQ32 pic.twitter.com/W6rYynapn2
— Australian Treasury (@Treasury_AU) November 21, 2022
The government is planning on regulating things like AfterPay, according to Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones. Starting, he said on Monday, with credit checks.
"At a minimum, putting in place some sort of credit checks to make sure the product is affordable and suitable for the people it is being pitched at," Jones said when asked what reforms were being considered.
"We don’t want to see people in the same situation they were in the bad old days of the credit card and other parts of the credit market, where they might have had five, six, seven or eight credit cards, and no one company knew the other had one and this person was simply unable to pay off their debts and they were in a credit downward spiral.
"We want innovation, we want people to have access to these great products but we want to ensure that there’s proper guardrails in place."
He said the government would collect "evidence of misconduct" in the sector before cracking the whip.
"We’ve heard stories about people saying, 'This is a great innovation, it enables me to use my phone like a credit card.' But therein lies the trap. It is not a credit card. It’s operating outside the normal credit laws and a lot of people are getting into hot water.
"A lot of people have got not one, not two, but three or four buy-now-pay-later accounts and it appears that there is a small percentage of the market where people are getting into hot water. We want to ensure that this product is operating safely - safely, where it’s being marketed, where it’s being pitched at consumers, it is operating within the normal guardrails of other products."
Kate Winslet has the power
And she used it for good.
The Holiday star and Titanic door hogger has donated more than $30,000 to a mother in the UK who is facing enormous energy bills in order to keep her daughter's life support machine on.
Carolynne Hunter was warned by her local council that her power bill could hit about $30,000 next year as her daughter Freya, 12, has severe cerebral palsy and relies on receiving oxygen via a machine for chronic breathing problems.
Winslet heard her story on the BBC in Scotland she logged onto the GoFundMe page and chipped in.
Right now, due to the ongoing energy crisis in the, made worse by tensions with Russia over gas supplies, Hunter's energy bills are about $11,000. The family have taken to turning off heating in their house in order to keep Freya's life saving machine on.
This is the result of all of us getting participation awards at school
Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex are set to receive a prestigious human rights award for calling out "structural racism" within the royal household.
The power of an Oprah interview 'eh?
Or the power of (not so) quiet quitting.
They will be awarded a Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights award because of their "courage" to stand up to racism within the royal institution, according to Kerry Kennedy.
Kennedy, one of the former US Attorney-General's surviving children, is the president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, a non-profit organisation that gives out an array of awards to individuals "for their transformative work in the pursuit of a more just and peaceful world."
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will be bestowed the Ripple of Hope award on December 6. Alongside other recipients, including the guy almost single-handedly fighting off an Russian invasion- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The organisation has since specified Harry and Meghan's "moral courage" (for leading the UK?) is why they are among the 2022 recipients.
Their new silverware will coincide with newly minted Prince and Princess of Wales visiting the US on their first official overseas tour since the Queen died in September.
Grab the popcorn and an airbag as the PR machines of two warring houses of Windsor will be in overdrive.
Weird science
Emergency services were called to a school in the Sydney suburb of Manly on Monday when a science experiment in a year 5 class went awry.
A primary school student was airlifted to hospital and 11 others, aged between 10 and 11, were injured.
Paramedics rushed to Manly West Public School at about 1pm on Monday after receiving calls that multiple students had suffered serious burns, reportedly as a result of an exploded science experiment.
A total of 12 patients were transferred to hospitals in the area.
Two of the children suffered serious burns, and nine superficial burns.
One adult suffered superficial burns, and was also taken to hospital.
The children were treated by specialist medical teams after conducting a "carbon sugar snake experiment". Where baking soda and sugar are mixed together in a pile of sand and set alight to produce chemical reaction resembling a fiery black “snake”.
The experiment was conducted outside in an attempt to mitigate danger.
Doing it for the kids
New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will soon introduce legislation that will lower the voting age to 16 in the Land of the Long White Cloud.
Her move comes as NZ prepares to go to the polls in a general election sometime in 2023 and follows a landmark Supreme Court ruling that found the existing age of 18 was "discriminatory and breached the human rights of young people".
Ardern said she personally supported changing the age to 16, but would take the question to parliament.
“It is our view that this is an issue best placed to parliament for everyone to have their say,” she said on Monday.
The outcome is the conclusion of a two-year case brought by a group of young campaigners, Make It 16, who argued in court that younger people should be able to vote on issues such as the climate crisis, which will disproportionately affect them and their futures.
“This is history. The government and parliament cannot ignore such a clear legal and moral message. They must let us vote," Make It 16 campaign’s co-director Caeden Tipler said.
The Make It 16 campaign has had less traction in Australia.
However a court win was easy. Passing the legislation will be tough.
Changes to New Zealand's electoral law requires 75% support in parliament, so any change would require the votes of both Labour (Ardern's team) and the opposition National party, which said on Monday: “Many other countries have a voting age of 18, and National has seen no compelling case to lower the age.”
#vicvotes is getting heavy
The Victorian state election is set to take place on Saturday, however one electorate has been deemed a "failed election".
The Victorian Electoral Commission made the call to scratch and postpone a ballot for the West Gippsland seat of Narracan after the Nationals candidate Shaun Gilchrist suicided.
The 47-year-old father of two was due to face court next week on charges for rape and sexual assault and then potentially face trial next June.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said, while he had never met Gilchrist, he was "respected by so many across the community for his warmth, his humour and his hard work. I have no doubt he shared the same ambition so many of us do in wanting to get involved with politics to change society for the better, and make a positive contribution to the community around him,” Andrews said.
Nationals leader Peter Walsh said he was thinking of the Gilchrist family.
It is with great sadness I acknowledge the passing of Mr Shaun Gilchrist.
— Peter Walsh (@PeterWalshMP) November 21, 2022
The Gilchrist family are in our thoughts and have asked for privacy and respect during their time of grief.
If you need help, please reach out to Lifeline on 13 11 14.
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