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Making news: Energy minister Chris Bowen Kanye's himself online as Lindsay Lohan resurfaces

All the news that's fit to mint.

Jenna ClarkeEditorial Director
11 min read
2:17PMOctober 09, 2022.
Updated 8:13PMOctober 10, 2022
The Oz
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All the news that's fit to mint.

What's happening in (The) Oz:

☔️ La Nina missed the memo about how we didn't want a franchise

💸 Politics is still focused on things happening in two years

🔙 We're all getting Lindsay Lohan for Christmas

💡 Maybe it's time to trial a raw diet for summer

🪳Novak Djokovic is now a beetle 

🙅🏻 Chris Bowen Kanye's himself with Twitter ban

🚊 The PM flew 3000km just to ride a train back to the airport

🏎 Dan Ricciardo is #megxiting F1

💊 We've been cut off being supplied a lifesaving cancer drug 

👮🏻‍♀️ Anna Sorokin is free, ready for her next era 

🫢 Mila Kunis fesses up to the biggest lie of her career

🇷🇺 An important bridge blown up on Putin's birthday

🏁 The "bath" has been put into Bathurst

🖼 Someone at the NGV went full Nanette on Picasso

Hello there!

Well, it was a huge weekend for liars and anniversaries.

Firstly, shout out to Janet Jackson's seminal album - The Velvet Rope - which turned 25. 

It was a vibe shift for Michael's sister, and years before another bloke (stares in Justin Timberlake) overshadowed her.

The Velvet Rope was her most liberating project where she explored heartache, past trauma and sexuality. It came out after years of her living with depression, an eating disorder and a relationship breakdown.

It also showed her shift sonically and sampled an array of genres, from hip hop to Joni Mitchell. 

RIP to my WalkMan. Here's a mixtape for your Monday.

Happy birthday to this moment in political history

Which occurred on the eve of the 2004 Federal election where Mark Latham was the Opposition Leader for the ALP. He lost. John Howard won and Latham went on to call Howard "handshake mongrel" before joining One Nation and cracking into NSW state politics.

And happy 10th to this soundtrack...

@minorfauna

After multiple requests, I bring you my take on the ICONIC ‘Misogyny’ speech by Julia Gillard with a #glambot twist. #bosschallenge #quarantine

♬ original sound - minorfauna

DEEP DIVE: Ten years on and Julia Gillard's 15-minutes of fury still slaps and stings

The 'S' in NSW now stands for 'soggy'

While Sydney has been spared from the majority of this latest tempest, defence rescue choppers have flown into New South Wales, while troops remain on stand by as the state’s deluge worsens.

Dubbo is now practically underwater and the Bureau of Meteorology said regional and remote NSW “will remain on edge” over the next 72 hours as it monitors the arrival of a new weather system later this week. (I know).

While no significant rainfall is forecast until later this week, the BOM said conditions will worsen from Wednesday, after a low pressure system brought flooding to Bathurst, Mudgee, Dubbo, Canowindra, Nyngan, Narromine and Warren.

NSW Emergency Services Minister Stephanie Cooke said on Sunday that authorities remained concerned by the “completely saturated landscape” as well as the capacity of the state’s major dams.

“We know that in our inland NSW regions, the flood waters will continue to be a problem for communities not just for the weeks ahead, but for months,” Cooke.

The news of more rain comes as the BoM reports September rainfall was 126% above the 1961–1990 average. It was the 5th-highest September rainfall on record and one of the coldest. 

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Sunday said thousands of Services Australia employees  are on standby to ensure NS's emergency agencies can respond quickly.

"I would say to people to listen to the authorities and follow the advice, which is there. We know for example that you shouldn't drive through floods, and time and time again we see people taking risks. This is not a time to take risks. So my heart goes out to those people who've suffered time and time again, particularly in the recent period," Albanese said.

'Tax cuts' still as annoying as rain for the Federal Government

Albanese says the government’s position on stage three tax cuts remains unchanged, as he argued fiscal and monetary policy needed to work "in concert" amid deteriorating global economic conditions.

Speaking on Sunday, the PM repeatedly re-iterated that Labor's position on tax breaks "had not changed", and that Labor would present a "responsible" budget in a few weeks.

“What Jim Chalmers is doing as Treasurer is shaping a budget, whereby he's made the obvious statement, that monetary policy, which we've seen the fastest, most consistent tightening of monetary policy across the global advanced economies by central banks in decades, that is what we have seen," Mr Albanese said.

These things are not legislated to kick in til 2024 but the the pollies continue to go off about them. Meanwhile inflation and interest rates are peaking nowish.

We'll know more, according to Albanese and Chalmers, on Budget Night - October 25.

Summer by candlelight?

And maybe consider camping?

That is if you don't live in NSW where it's expected to rain (again) for months (again). 

Data out on Monday suggested power bills are set to be hiked by about 35%  as big energy users - aka mines and other big business operators - have been told to "brace for impact" when their electricity bills arrive.

"They are also powerless to avoid increases in network charges and other pass-through costs – such as the cost of state and federal programs and AEMO intervention.

"Regardless of contract status, these cost increases will begin to hit in the coming 12 or so months. There doesn’t appear to be a viable escape route." Energy Users Association of Australia chief executive Andrew Richards told the Diptyque to our Dusk  candles - The Australian.

"We may end up reducing emissions through demand destruction."

Yikes. 

How the energy minister conserves energy

Chris Bowen - the artist more commonly known these days as the federal Climate Change and Energy Minister - has gone full Kanye when it comes to his online presence. 

Bowen hasn't gone down the the offensive content path, he's just imposed a ban - on himself.

Speaking at that aforementioned energy conference in Sydney on Monday, Bowen said he avoids reading his Twitter feed and notifications due to the heated debate and hot air expelled online about climate change.

"I don't read my Twitter feed. I don't recommend it because it's not good for my mental health,"Bowen said.

"Fifty per cent of it is saying there's no climate emergency and it's all a fraud and a hoax and the other 50 per cent says you're a sellout because you're not going fast enough.

"And that's just the world we live in. That's okay. We are just getting on with it."

Labor has set a target to cut 2030 emissions by 43%.

TO RECAP: The climate change bill is just the government renewing its vows

Planes, trains and... that's it, that's the event

The PM was up and about on Sunday chartering his VIP jet to Perth to ride on a train.

Not just any train. A train that connects Perth to its airport which cost about $1.86 billion and was a joint state and federal government project that was two years late, apparently due to Covid and a bunch of safety dramas, including the death of a worker.

The train line has been so long in the making it was the brain child of a former Liberal Premier in Colin Barnett and Albanese originally allocated cash to it back in 2013 when he was Federal Infrastructure Minister.

WA's Transport (and now Trainspotting) Minister Rita Safiotti reckons it's the best train in "the world". It's the first new train in the city in 15-years.

It probably won't help you if you're on a Qantas flight - that terminal was left off the route. The Premier Mark McGowan now wants the Flying Kangaroo to move its gates to be closer to the "central station".

People got cranky as there were queues to try out the train for the first time on Sunday so the Public Transport Authority had to put on extra services on Sunday to cater for the demand.

Who said Perth doesn't have culture...

Australia's latest drug crisis

The supply of a critical lifesaving nuclear medicine to Australia has been cut off, prompting urgent calls for government action.

The US-based supplier of gallium-67 informed its Australian distributor on Thursday night that it would no longer manufacture the material.

The medicine is used to identify sources of infection, allowing for earlier intervention and is also used in the management of non-Hodgkin‘s lymphoma.

Anna is back

Anna Sorokin or Anna Delvey (who can keep up tbh) is free..ish.

The fake German socialite and legitimately convicted con artist, has been released from jail in the US.

Sorokin posted a $10,000 bond at the weekend as a condition of her release.

Despite never having time for much or people before she was caught (according to the Netflix serialisation mind you), she's now on home confinement, must wear an ankle bracelet and stay off social media, her lawyer said.

Not that she's ever been off the grid. 

She's written op-eds and appeared in interviews with 60 Minutes Australia since being locked up.

She's also flirted with NFTs.

DIVE DEEPER: The audacity of Anna Sorokin continues

Her next legal fight over her deportation from the US. She is originally from Russia and later became a German citizen.

According to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, she'll probably be sent packing to Germany.

So is LiLo

The Lindsay Lohan Renaissance is almost here.

The (underrated) star of The Parent Trap will star in a Christmas movie to rival both Love Actually and The Holiday.

It's her first film in more than a decade for Netflix called Falling for Christmas.

Mila Kunis is not sorry she lied to Hollywood

Jackie Burkhart - the iconic (and underrated) 1990s character - was actually played by a 14-year-old.

Mila Kunis confirmed she lied about her age to land her breakout role in 1998. 

"There’s a rumour going around that I may or may not have lied about my age,” Kunis told Vanity Fair at the weekend.

“I’d like to make it very clear now that I did lie. I did.”

“However, by the time I went to what was then a producer’s network call…you have to sign a contract before you get the job and in my contract I had to put an asterisk for ‘studio teacher,'” she continued.

"They were like, ‘What do you mean?’ And I was like, ‘Oh P.S., I’m 14.’ But at that point if you talk to the creators, they were like, ‘We loved you at that point so what did we care?'"

Novak's a creepy crawly 

Novak Djokovic has been honoured by Serbian scientists who've named a new species of beetle after the tennis legend as they shared "the same qualities".

The insect, discovered in the western part of Serbia a few years ago in an underground pit, has been named "Duvalius Dokovici" in honour of the 21-time Grand Slam champion.

According to Serbian media, it's been named after Djokovic because the beetle is particularly strong, fast, flexible, durable and has an ability to survive in a difficult environment (except, maybe for the 2021 Australian Open in Melbourne).

The seemingly indestructible 35-year-old showed just why he's the entomologists' favourite in Kazakhstan at the weekend.  The anti-vaxxed star who avoids gluten still managed to beat Karen Khachanov to reach the Astana Open semi-final then win the final while playing well below from his best. 

The bear has well and truly been poked

Just a few days after the US warned not to not take Russia's threats about nuclear war lightly, a massive bridge explosion - timed to happen on Putin's birthday, no less - has refreshed tensions in the war zone. 

A huge explosion at the weekend damaged the only bridge connecting the annexed Crimean peninsula with Russia and therefore paralysed a key supply route for Moscow's "war" in Ukraine. 

In a major blow for Russian President Vladimir Putin, a huge explosion has severely damaged the only bridge connecting the annexed Crimean peninsula with the Russian mainland, paralyzing a key supply route for Moscow’s faltering war in Ukraine.

The explosion on the bridge Putin himself opened in 2018 killed a number of people. 

"The exact cause of the blast at Europe’s longest bridge is unclear. Russian officials said a fuel truck exploded, but sections of the road part of the bridge crossing in the direction of Crimea appear to have collapsed. A subsequent fire engulfed a train of fuel trucks on a separate part of the bridge," CNN reported.

Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council Oleksiy Danilov taunted Putin - on his 70th birthday - with this savage social media post.

Bathurst went the way of Splendour

As it was practically underwater.

However if you have a Holden fan in your life, prepare for them to gloat for years to come as it was a good - and final - outing on Mount Panorama for the brand.

Reigning Supercars champion Shane van Gisbergen and Red Bull Ampol Racing co-driver Garth Tander won a second Bathurst 1000 in three years. It is van Gisbergen’s second crown after the duo’s 2020 victory, while Tander now boasts five Bathurst 1000 wins - all in Holdens - among his 100 career podiums.

It was the final Bathurst win for Holden.

Speaking of cars...

F1 was in Tokyo this weekend and was also like a slip'n'slide, however the big news wasn't just our man Daniel Ricciardo  qualified 11th, but that he's done with the sport. For a hot minute.

Ricciardo is one of the more popular drivers on the circuit but his form has been less that stellar for the past couple of months. Plus at 33, teams are now looking for younger drivers, but the Australian driver is still confident he can turn his slump around. 

"As far as my F1 career goes, the full intention is for 2024," he insisted.

He's still on contract for McLaren and they has offered assistance for a switch to IndyCar, but Ricciardo wants to remain with F1.

”Certainly the plan is still to be involved in F1," Ricciardo said. “It's kind of like just hitting pause for a little bit as I see it - and let's say as far as my F1 career goes the full intention is (to be driving) for '24.

"Sure it could open up opportunities to maybe do some of that stuff, but if I feel it's going to deviate away from my target then I will still say it's not really where I'm looking. “As fun or cool as it sounds to compete in something else, the truth is mentally I‘m not there yet.

“I‘m still so, so engaged in this, and I think a bit of time off out of a seat will probably do me good.

"I would probably use that as opposed to trying to jump in something else and stay busy in a different category."

His countrymen and women in Perth are pumped at his looming gap year.

Picasso got cancelled but not by Hannah Gadsby fans

Extinction Rebellion climate change activists glued themselves to a protective covering of a Picasso on Sunday at the National Gallery of Victoria.

The two protesters, dressed in black, glued themselves to the case covering the artist’s painting, Massacre in Korea.

The protesters placed a black banner at their feet, which declared that climate chaos equalled war and famine.

Massacre in Korea is an expressionistic painting that was his third anti-war artwork, depicting a massacre of a group of naked women and children by a firing squad.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/the-oz/news/making-news-huge-weekend-for-liars-like-mila-kunis-and-anna-sorokin/news-story/a19999e8a6fa05fe44300cf269e00b01