Crikey Worm

July 07, 2020

GIVE THE GIFT OF CRIKEY | TIP OFF | VIEW IN BROWSER

Good morning, early birds.

Pauline Hanson reportedly has no regrets about her tirade against housing commission residents and refugees, and an investigation has found that former Melbourne lord mayor Robert Doyle acted in a “sexually inappropriate way”, at a 2016 black-tie dinner.

It's the news you need to know.

Amber Schultz
Reporter

PAULINE HANSON DOUBLES DOWN

Pauline Hanson reportedly has no regrets about her tirade against housing commission residents and refugees, insisting calling residents “drug addicts” and “alcoholics” during a panel discussion on Nine’s The Today Show yesterday wasn’t divisive.

Hours after the segment aired, Nine announced they would no longer have Hanson appear as a regular guest on the show. Today entertainment reporter Brooke Boney — who grew up in public housing — said on ABC’s Q+A it was time for Hanson to go. “I’m so happy to see her gone,” she said.

Hanson, appearing on Sky News’ The Bolt Report wearing a lumpy sweater emblazoned with an Australian flag, said: “I’m up for reelection in two years’ time. If they don’t want me, good, don’t vote for me.”

We’ll hold you to that, Hanson.

RESULTS OF INVESTIGATION INTO ROBERT DOYLE RELEASED

An investigation by the City of Melbourne has found that former Melbourne lord mayor Robert Doyle acted in a “sexually inappropriate way”, at a 2016 black-tie dinner.

The supplementary report investigating allegations of harassment against Kharla Williams by was compiled by Ian Freckelton QC in 2018, though was only released yesterday after Victoria Police dropped their criminal investigation into allegations of sexual harassment by three women.

Williams alleged Doyle touched her leg and made suggestive comments at the Melbourne Health awards ceremony. An independent report previously upheld four other misconduct claims.

Doyle was not interviewed by police about the allegations due to ill health but has previously denied wrongdoing as The Guardian reports.

VICTORIAN COVID-19 CONCERNS CONTINUE

Concerns about Melbourne’s nine locked down public housing towers continue to grow, with The Age reporting that “boxes of donated food had been left in communal corridors”, and that many residents are still waiting on deliveries.

The Australian Financial Review($) writes that experts are pushing for those infected with COVID-19 to be removed from the towers.

Hospital admissions for COVID-19 have more than tripled in a week in Victoria as cases hit record highs.

The Northern Territory and ACT have joined NSW in banning Victorians from entering, with the Australian Defence Force called in to help limit the country’s worst transmission outbreak.

Two suspected COVID-19 cases had been identified near NSW border town, Albury. One person had recently travelled to Melbourne.

World Health Organisation adviser Mary-Louise McLaws is calling for a Melbourne-wide lockdown, The Age reports.

CHINA KEEPS CRACKING DOWN

It didn’t take long: A Hong Kong protestor has already been charged under the city’s new national security law for “inciting separatism and terrorism” after he carried a “Liberate Hong Kong” sign and drove his motorbike into police, the ABC reports.

Beijing police have also arrested former University of Melbourne academic Xu Zhangrun after he published an essay criticising the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) handling of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, Facebook and WhatsApp have stopped cooperating with Hong Kong law enforcement, pausing government data requests as the tech goliaths assess the impact of the new law.

Speaking of social media giants, Liberal Senator Jim Molan has called for a ban of video messaging app TikTok due to concerns around data surveillance by the CCP’s The Guardian reports.

Tik Tok has blocked posts about the detention of Uyghur people in China and has extended its censorship to Australia, removing posts about racism and the Black Lives Matter protests by prominent users.

THEY REALLY SAID THAT?

“	When you look across the Commonwealth, there is no way that we can move forward unless we acknowledge the past … There’s a hell of a lot that we together need to acknowledge. — Prince Harry

Speaking on a virtual panel with young leaders from the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle addressed the Commonwealth’s history of colonialism and slave trade.

CRIKEY RECAP

The sad political epitaph of Mathias Cormann: here lies the man who knifed his PM in the back
Amber Schultz

Australia’s longest-serving finance minister Mathias Cormann, the last member of the original Abbott cabinet still at his post, is resigning from politics.

From a rising star, savvy operator, widely respected across the aisle as a politician of integrity, Mathais Cormann’s political epitaph now reads: he knifed his prime minister in the back.

This is a new era of dealing with sexual harassment. Or is it?
Karen O'Connell

he Me Too era has seen high-profile, powerful men called to account for workplace behaviour — from sexual assaults to sleazy texts — that in the past were more likely to go unreported or hushed up through private settlements.

But these men are not the ones who bear the brunt of career and reputational harm. Instead, it’s the women who bring the harassment to light who are the major victims.

Like an unstoppable virus, neoliberal demands for 'reform' are spreading once again
Bernard Keane and Glenn Dyer

These ideas of austerity, deregulation and punishment of workers are resilient and aggressive. They defy all evidence that they don’t work and they continue to lurk out of sight, for years if need be, waiting for any moment of policymaker weakness to start spreading once again.

And now, here we are, facing another outbreak.

READ ALL ABOUT IT

	Gladys Berejiklian gives Damien Tudehope $17k pay rise ($)
	The councillor, the drug boss and the Liberal Party’s pot of gold
	Nine swaps Willoughby bunker for ‘creative campus’ ($)
	The Fullest Look Yet at the Racial Inequity of Coronavirus
	US interest in moving to New Zealand jumps amid Covid-19
	Prince Andrew cancels annual golf trip to Spain after Ghislaine Maxwell arrest
	Drink driving spike in Canberra as seven busted at more than double the limit in a week ($)
	Qantas worker sacked for watching porn loses unfair dismissal case
	Westmead hospital former liberal party member prosecuted for medical blunders

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.

THE COMMENTARIAT

The Black Lives Matter backlash is generating its own fake culture war — Chaminda Jayanetti (The Guardian): Shortly after Edward Colston’s statue was torn down in Bristol, Boris Johnson played up the threat to the Westminster statue of Winston Churchill. Hardly anyone was calling for its removal, but Johnson made it the centre of his response to the Black Lives Matter protests, and the Telegraph duly plastered it across the front page.

#metoo has all the credibility of a spaghetti western — Janet Albrechtsen (The Australian): In short, when something is deemed a #MeToo moment, we are meant to suspend our critical faculties. Complicating factors, grey areas that might arise between men and women, and any ulterior motives must be ignored.

Blame the Nationals for the coalition’s Eden-Monaro fail — Alan Jones(The Daily Telegraph): The Liberals were responsible for the greatest mistake of all in politics. They believed, with the Prime Minister’s approval at stratospheric levels, they were over the line … If Vladimir Putin had to provide proof of identification before the recent constitutional vote in Russia, why on earth can’t this happen here?

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

Review your subscription preferences