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Making news: Kate Winslet could have saved Neighbours but not smoking in New Zealand

All the news that's fit to mint.

Jenna ClarkeEditorial Director
7 min read
2:45PMJuly 27, 2022.
Updated 5:36PMJuly 28, 2022
The Oz
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All the news that's fit to mint.

What's happening in (The) Oz today:

🤑 Inflation has PMS

📺 Previously on "The Senate"

🚬 New Zealand is close to cancelling smoking

🚌 Cranbrook is going co-ed

🏳️‍🌈 Manly players now a safety risk

🇺🇸 Trump is back

🎥 Kate Winslet could have saved Neighbours

🥇 The greatest political commercial ever made

Good morning!

Well. Hands up who feels poor.

👋🏻

You're not imaging it. Belts are being tightened, basic coffees - even long blacks - are now hitting $5.

It's all thanks to inflation - the financial version of menses. 

It's up, it's down, it's stable for a bit. Then it's bloated and lacklustre before it's up and at 'em, soaring sky high again.

On Wednesday the inflation rate was lifted to 6.1% from 5.1%.

It’s the fastest hike in 30-years and the highest it's been since 2001.

The new stats, released by the ABS, also showed things got more expensive by 1.8%.

If you’re building a house, drive a petrol car, like to occasionally eat vegetables or have a weakness for the odd IKEA and Adairs haul, you would have experienced the largest prices rises during the last three months.

In the June quarter home building costs rose by 5.6%, petrol jumped by 4.2% and furniture prices became 7% more expensive.

The Treasurer Jim Chalmers didn't have a lot of good news and it's tipped his first ministerial statement today will be as disappointing as Dakota Johnson's Netflix version of Persuasion.

Chalmers will address the parliament to release forecasts predicting that the cost of stuff, things and services will exceed the Reserve Bank’s predicted peak of 7% inflation by the end of the year. 

He will, according to The Australian - the Daria to our Quinn, warn the worst inflation figures in two decades, combined with stalling global growth and climbing interest rates, will slash $30bn from the economy over the next three years in a parliamentary update that warns Australians to brace for “confronting’’ times.

Can't afford a streaming service?

Tune into Parliament instead. 

It's proving to be just as entertaining as Love Island UK, minus the flesh and blatant misogyny.

The first Question Time premiered on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who's sat through about 26 years of #qt sessions, had big main character energy.

Meanwhile the Senate was just as dramatic.

Senator Pauline Hanson got offended when new President - Labor's Sue Lines - was conducting the acknowledgment to country so stormed out of the chamber because she considers the (newish) tradition “divisive and disenfranchising”.

Acknowledgement of country has been apart of the Senate opening every sitting day in Parliament House since 2010. Hanson was elected (again) in 2016. 

Shortly after she left in a strop, she was canvassing for her supporters opinions.

"I have expressed concerns with so called "welcome to country" ceremonies as I believe they spread racial division in Australia... I also want to know what you think so please take the time to answer this short survey," a One Nation newsletter said before asking for donations.

The acknowledgment, which is read out typically after the Lord's Prayer, paid respects to Ngunnawal and Ngambri people.

Lines, who would like to see the prayer "gone" from the sitting day program, and the rest of the Senators ignored Hanson's hijinks.

The day ended with more first speeches some by our new Aboriginal ­female MPs were blistering in their assessments of the state of the nation, the state of politics and society at large.

They have vowed to unite to ­demand the we tackle domestic violence and alcoholism ravaging Indigenous communities, with Labor’s Marion Scrymgour ­likening the recent removal of grog bans to “pulling forces out of Afghanistan”.

Ms Scrymgour, Coalition senator Jacinta Price and ALP Victorian senator Jana Stewart all spoke for the first time on a parliamentary day dominated by the ­Albanese government’s push to abolish the cashless debit card and a furore over the Aboriginal flag.

Price, who was accompanied by her great-aunt Tess Napaljarri Ross, dedicated her maiden speech to the murder-suicide last week of a Territory woman and her baby allegedly by the woman's male partner.

Senator Jana Stewart is the youngest Indigenous woman to serve in parliament, said she was committed to making changes on issues that ­affected First Nations people even if it made others “uncomfortable”.

“I don’t care about your discomfort,” Stewart, who is 35-weeks pregnant, said.

“It’s uncomfortable to read child death reports … One woman dies every nine days in this country, that’s uncomfortable. I and other parents of colour have to teach children the alphabet at the same time as how to deal with ­racism.”

The Victorian senator, whose predecessor was the late Kimberley Kitching, said she used words like “genocide” in her speech when referring to the Stolen Generations not to “inflict feelings of guilt” but rather to tell the “hard truth about the history of this country”.

Smoked

New Zealand’s world-first tobacco laws were introduced to its parliament on Tuesday, pushing the island nation closer towards its goal of creating a "smoke-free generation".  

The legislation would see the minimum legal age to buy cigs gradually increase so that teenagers will never be able to purchase them legally.

Associate Minister for Health, Ayesha Verrall, said the Bill would “make sure young people never start smoking”.

“Our priority in bringing this bill is protecting what is precious: our people, our whānau, our communities,” she said.

“There will be an estimated $5 billion in savings from future health expenditure. These changes will save lives and could increase Māori life expectancy, and we cannot put a price on that.”

Vaping will remain legal under the new rules, which are expected to come into effect next year as the proposed laws have near-universal cross-party support to pass into the next stage where experts and the public can weigh in on the debate.

Would love to see the look on the Old Boys faces

When they were told on Wednesday, Cranbrook is going co-ed.

The esteemed and exclusive Sydney private school, which has admitted only boys for more than a century and is the alma mater of billionaire James Packer, will enrol girls from years 7 to 12 in the next 10 years.

The plan for the gender combo was backed by some notable tuck shop volunteers, including billionaire Atlassian founder Scott Farquhar and his wife, Kim Jackson.

Principal Nicholas Sampson broke the news in a letter:

"There is broad community support for co-education at Cranbrook. Many see the transition as being a necessary and inevitable step forward in the context of a modern society.”

Pain during Pride continues

Police have told the seven Manly Sea Eagles who have pulled out of playing after refusing to wear a jersey with a rainbow strip marking Pride to stay home and away from the ground tonight when the game kicks off.

Senior cops told coach Des Hasler as they are worried about their "safety and welfare".

At least one of the players - who refused to participate on religious and ethical grounds -has been threatened online.

Read more: Simple, stupid error in the Manly Pride jersey debacle

Meanwhile, this take nails the entire PR cluster.

He's back

And most are now assuming, he's coming back for another run for the White House.

Donald Trump spoke at a conservative conference in Washington DC, in his first visit to the district since Joe Biden’s inauguration, on Wednesday.

Despite the ongoing Jan 6 insurrection hearings, where angry mobs of his supporters stormed the Capitol, Trump has given a number of recent speeches on the importance of “law and order”.
Despite the ongoing Jan 6 insurrection hearings, where angry mobs of his supporters stormed the Capitol, Trump has given a number of recent speeches on the importance of “law and order”.

Trump’s was running late for his address to the America First Agenda Summit. Once he made it to the podium he attacked the Democrats and inflation. 

“Inflation is the highest in 49 years... gas prices have reached the highest in our country,” he said. 

“We’ve become a beggar nation, grovelling to others for energy.

“Our country is now a cesspool of crime...because of the Democratic party’s efforts to destroy and dismantle law enforcement throughout America.”

Border control, windscreen wipers and trans athletes were issues the former leader of the free world canvassed.

He spoke of a female trans swimmer with “arms 30ft long”, who swam so fast she injured her cis-gender opponents with “windburn”. He also referenced weightlifters, offering an impersonation of an athlete straining and struggling while lifting weights. 

“I’d be the greatest women’s basketball coach in history, because I don’t like LeBron James, I like Michael Jordan much better, but I’d-I’d go up to LeBron James, it doesn’t matter, and I’d say, ‘LeBron, have you ever had any desire to be a woman? Because what I’d love you to do is star on my team that I’m building up’. I would have the greatest team in history.”

Warning

This is some bleak stuff. 

But a powerful new political ad calling out Texas Governor Greg Abbott for the state’s extremely restrictive anti-abortion laws since the overturning of the federal framework Roe v Wade has been released as the race to the election there heats up.

Here's what we know about abortion laws in the US.

Kate Winslet is a Neighbours stan

After more than 30-years Neighbours has wrapped and the finale will air on Friday night.

Expect to see some very famous faces return including, Jason Donovan.

The artists formerly known as Scott spoke to the The Times in London about his little trip down memory lane and it turns out Kate Winslet is a massive fan of the soap.

"I didn’t hear from Guy [Pearce] for a while, then I received this at the end of March: 'Hey, mate, I thought I should let you know that I’ve quietly been offered a few days back in Ramsay Street in June.' He then said in a message: 'I’ve just told Winslet [Kate, who was a massive fan] and she sent me a two-page fantasy summary on plots, characters and breakdowns for a 2022 finale'."

At least one better involve a door that can fit TWO people on it Rose...

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/the-oz/news/making-news-kate-winslet-could-have-saved-neighbours-but-not-smoking-in-new-zealand/news-story/e0265cd782b7b47938bd124df1fc1563