‘Julian Leeser said I shouldn’t nominate’: Why Philip Ruddock got rolled by the Libs

Exclusive: Why did Liberal Party elder Philip Ruddock lose preselection as Hornsby mayor? The man himself says Julian Leeser was behind it.

Why did Philip Ruddock, a Liberal Party elder and former Howard government minister with 43 years of experience in federal Parliament, get rolled by his party over his position as Hornsby mayor in Sydney? 

Crikey can reveal that, according to the mayor himself, the area’s federal Liberal MP Julian Leeser took an active part in undermining Ruddock.

According to some local Liberals, Ruddock’s preselection loss was the culmination of an intraparty “game of thrones” with links to both a local debate over land development and Leeser’s campaigning for the Yes side in the Voice to Parliament referendum campaign. 

Other Liberals said it was simply time for Ruddock, 81, to make way for a new generation — even going so far as to pull the “Joe Biden” card, hinting Ruddock is too old. 

Ruddock told Crikey that Leeser declared to him in the lead-up to the NSW local election campaign that it was time for “generational change”, and that the Berowra MP had called around to other local party members to say the same thing.

“I had a conversation with him — I rang on a totally different matter — and he then proffered the view that he supported what he called ‘generational change’,” Ruddock said. 

“He was of the view I should not nominate again. When I determined I should nominate, I was approached by many [local members] who said Julian had proffered the same view to them and put that to selectors. Of course I’m disappointed.” 

Crikey tried texting and calling Leeser to ask for a comment. We also emailed his office, which confirmed it had received the questions but did not supply a response by deadline.

A local Liberal member who requested anonymity to discuss internal party matters said Leeser had “stabbed Philip in the back, in the exact same spot he knifed him the last time”, referring to Leeser’s 2016 takeover of Ruddock’s federal seat.

Ruddock and Leeser go way back. Ruddock hired Leeser as a special adviser, in 2004, when Ruddock was attorney-general, and the two were next-door neighbours for years. When Leeser decided to run for preselection in Ruddock’s federal seat of Berowra, ahead of the 2016 election, both men denied Ruddock was “rolled”. 

As The Sydney Morning Herald put it at the time: “Both men deny a political ‘rolling’ but Ruddock will admit to a conversation between the men in his library on a Sunday morning, in which Leeser let the older man know he would be a preselection candidate for the seat.”

Or as the Australian Financial Review wrote, after Ruddock had been offered a role as Australia’s special envoy for human rights: “The blue ribbon seat of Berowra is finally set to be [Leeser’s] — and all without committing patricide”.

A local Liberal source told Crikey that Ruddock’s decision not to recontest the federal seat was a matter of “jumping before he got pushed”. 

“But he refused to do it this time. He wanted them [his opponents inside the Liberal Party] to have to do it,” the person said. 

After Ruddock lost his mayoral preselection on August 5, with 104 votes to 164, he said in a statement the loss was due to the influence of “property developer interests, supported by some senior party members”.

He has since thrown his support behind another sitting councillor, Nathan Tilbury, who resigned from the Liberal Party earlier this month. 

In Tilbury’s resignation letter, which was addressed to former Liberal state director Richard Shields and leaked to Crikey, he alleged “senior federal party members wielded a disproportionate influence and skewed the result” and “in return, the federal seats are now free of preselection challenges”. 

Two local Liberal sources said Leeser’s involvement in the preselection campaign had been unusually heavy for a federal MP. 

“There was a significant amount of influence from Julian in this preselection — all he did for the last six months was to whip and whip on this issue,” one of them said. 

The sources speculated that Leeser was “exposed” by his campaigning for the Yes side in the Voice to Parliament referendum, which did not play well to a right-wing base.

The other said: “It’s an interesting little game of thrones going on in Berowra that no-one is focusing on.” 

Despite Ruddock’s complaint that developer interests decided the preselection outcome, there is no evidence the vote was conducted unfairly or that Waddell is a developer. Waddell, who did not respond to messages and phone calls from Crikey, declared on his NSW Electoral Commission form he had no close associations with property developers. 

But there is certainly a vocal debate going on about plans to develop rural and sparsely populated areas of Hornsby Shire. In March, recently departed state MP for Hornsby Matt Kean told The Sunday Telegraph the NSW Labor government was working with the council on potential new rezonings, which Kean likened to a plan to “throw up a mini-Manhattan” in the area.

On the council’s website, Ruddock describes “[getting] the balance right between development and the preservation of our precious bushland and open spaces” as one of his top priorities. 

Waddell says on the same website his top priorities include “delivery of public domain and development strategies designed to enhance our towns, villages” and to “advance sustainable economic activity in both rural and urban areas”. 

The council election will be held on September 14. Just over a month later, on October 19, locals will vote in a byelection to decide who should succeed Kean. 

Take your pick on Bandt’s super-profits tax: Revenue now, or retirement savings later

The Greens' proposal for a super-profits tax will end up costing every Australian via their superannuation balances. Which might be worth it — but let's not pretend it won't happen.

Adam Bandt’s proposal for what he bluntly calls a “Big Corporation Tax” on profits above “a reasonable rate of return” for companies with turnovers above $100 million would, he insists, “not take a cent from the pockets of Australians who rely upon returns from their investments, like pensioners or the 17 million Australians with superannuation balances.”

How he’ll achieve that without a magic pudding has yet to be explained. Companies that are earning “super profits”, however defined, normally pay those profits back to investors — a list that now includes every Australian worker via the superannuation system. Reduce those profits by increasing tax, and the dividends paid back to investors, including our big super funds, fall. The government gets more tax revenue, but everyone with a super account misses out on those extra dividends and the compound interest on them between now and retirement.

This is the flip side of the price gouging debate that we discussed back in March: ultimately, excessive profits of Australian-based companies flow back to investors, including super funds. They own nearly 40% of the Australian sharemarket, most of which is concentrated in the top end of the ASX 200 — and would include a heavy weighting of the companies the Greens single out for their proposed super-profits tax: the big banks, the big retailers, Telstra, Ampol. Bandt’s figures show he expects such a tax to generate around $27 billion a year once it’s up and running; for comparison, the entire company tax take this year is forecast to be $139 billion. We’re talking nearly 20% of current company tax.

If these companies pay higher taxes, they pay lower dividends. It’s pretty simple. The Greens can certainly argue that the revenues from such a tax could be put to a better use by a government than being left in super accounts (and thereby reinvested in the economy). They propose adding dental to Medicare, but one could think of a dozen better ideas than that. But they can’t argue that it won’t be at the long-term expense of not merely people living off dividends — they can fend for themselves — but every single worker in the country.

This is the nature of the Australian economy in the age of superannuation: virtually everyone has stake in Australia’s big corporations through their super accounts. There are no longer any pain-free options in areas like tax — in our circular economy, tax taken from one place will have impacts for everyone (it’s also one of the reasons why the Liberals’ continued hatred of the superannuation system is utterly eccentric — it’s a key mechanism for locking all workers into the fortunes of capitalism).

Bandt’s proposal will also affect investment. We know, particularly after the experience of Donald Trump’s company tax cut in the US, that cutting company tax has few of the near-magical benefits claimed for it. But, perversely, increasing company taxes does have negative impacts, especially on foreign investment. As one ANU paper put it, “the effect of high corporate tax rates in deterring investment is larger than the effect of low corporate tax rates in encouraging investment.”

According to the ANU team, “the literature consistently finds large and negative effects on investment of both statutory and effective corporate tax rates. A one percentage point increase in the corporate tax rate leads to a 3.3% decrease in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).” But other economists have argued the size of that negative effect has shrunk since the global financial crisis. So Bandt’s proposal wouldn’t cause the same fall in investment as it would have 15 years ago — but there’ll be one nonetheless.

There’s another consequence: higher taxes will reduce cash flows and earnings and companies will be forced to write down the value of their assets. At least once year, companies have to conduct an impairment test against the cash generating ability of assets. That looks at the ability of the assets to produce revenue and earnings over a period from the next six months to five years. Assets are grouped into what are called Cash Generating Units (or CGUs) by accounting rules. Their valuation is influenced by interest rates, GDP estimates — and tax levels.

Impairment of an asset is the writing down of its balance sheet value — which becomes a tax loss that reduces the tax companies pay in future years. The Greens will need to change accounting and tax rules, otherwise the new tax will be offset by writedowns.

Then there’s the impact on dividend imputation. On the face of it, more tax paid could allow companies to lift tax free dividends — or it could cause them to sell or close assets that generate too many tax liabilities that the company and its investors can’t use. Either way, tax lawyers and accountants will be delighted.

That’s not to say that all of the Greens’ tax ideas are bad. Unlike Labor and the Coalition, they actually want a decent taxation regime for the fossil fuel giants — both local and foreign — selling our offshore gas, sometimes for little or no tax. Labor refuses to fix our offshore gas taxation regime because it might upset the punters in Western Australia, but the Greens are right to push for much higher taxation of Woodside, Santos, Shell, Chevron and other climate culprits for the use of finite resources owned by all Australians.

But on company tax, there are no magic puddings. Not anymore.

Do you back the Greens’ corporate tax plans, or are you worried about the unintended consequences? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.

Why is Labor lavishing so much money on a shonky outfit like Austal?

Shipbuilder Austal has featured in a succession of scandals. So why is the federal government so keen to lavish taxpayer funding on a company that misleads its investors and delivers dud boats?

The Albanese government is not having much luck with its defence partners. The relationship between the Department of Defence and arms company Thales remains the subject of a National Anti-Corruption Commission investigation, while the company itself remains under multiple investigations in Europe. Nonetheless, Labor Defence Minister Richard Marles says Thales is “a very important company in terms of the contribution that they provide to the Australian Defence Force”.

Labor refuses to come clean about the relationship between the Department of Defence and Elbit Systems, the Israeli company that made the drone used by the Israeli Defense Forces to murder Zomi Frankcom (and we know there’s an extensive relationship — our freedom of information request about dealings with the company was refused on the basis that there was too much material for the department to put together).

Now there’s Austal, the ailing Perth shipbuilder to which Labor threw a lifeline in November by committing to make Austal its monopoly shipbuilder at the Henderson shipyard in the west.

Marles handed Austal this commitment despite knowing the company was mired in a serious scandal in the United States over years of deliberate under-reporting of massive cost blowouts at its US shipbuilding arm in Mobile, Alabama.

Overnight, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced it had settled the case with Austal with a fine of US$24 million, while three executives will be prosecuted. According to the SEC, Austal

…engaged in a scheme to artificially reduce by tens of millions of dollars the estimated cost to complete certain shipbuilding projects for the US Navy. The complaint alleges that Austal USA knew that its shipbuilding costs were rising and higher than planned, but arbitrarily lowered the cost estimates to meet Austal USA’s revenue budget and projections.

The SEC is the most serious of global markets regulators; when it’s on a company’s case, they usually settle rather than face the humiliation of a “perp walk” if the case becomes a criminal one. It’s obvious Austal settled to avoid what might have been further embarrassment — and further disclosures about the conduct of its executives.

It’s not the only example of Austal’s misleading conduct. In 2022, after action by ASIC, the company was ordered to pay a $650,000 fine (the contrast between a US$24 million fine and a $650,000 fine speaks volumes for how unserious Australia’s corporate laws are) for failing to disclose a US$90 million profit writeback.

Just the kind of outfit you’d want to give an unconditional commitment of work to.

Austal’s shares are down 46% in the past five years, well behind the 21% rise in the ASX. It still has a market value of more than $820 million — more than it should be — but it is now a takeover target, with South Korean giant Hanwha floating an offer earlier this year.

And the company remains at the centre of a major, and unresolved, scandal of the procurement of a fleet of what were named Cape Class patrol boats by the Australian Border Force (ABF).

In 2018, the auditor-general savaged the project, finding “the Cape Class patrol boats have not yet fully met the contracted performance and availability requirements”. Other findings included “the governance arrangements for the in-service support phase of the Cape Class patrol boat project have not provided effective oversight … The department has not established effective arrangements to manage the in-service support phase of the contract for the Cape Class patrol boats.”

The auditor-general was troubled by the fact that the ABF had paid Austal $39 million as a “milestone” payment for “final acceptance” of the boats despite the fact that “final acceptance issues have not been successfully resolved, and as at October 2018, the CCPB fleet has not been finally accepted, capability and support system deficiencies remain, and the project has not successfully transitioned to the [in service support] phase.”

Why Austal was handed $39 million by the ABF for boats that were obviously deficient remains a mystery. The then head of the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, Michael Griffin, ordered an investigation. However, Griffin’s replacement, Jaala Hinchcliffe, killed off the investigation — encouraging perceptions that there was no credible anti-corruption body operating at the Commonwealth level.

Plainly, neither Austal’s appalling record with the Cape Class patrol boats or its serial misleading of investors is enough to give Richard Marles pause — especially given Labor’s willingness to waste large volumes of taxpayer cash in an effort to retain the goodwill of West Australians.

‘Purplepingers’ wants a ‘cheeky revolution’. But does he have a real plan for the Senate?

Maybe the revolution will be televised after all (on TikTok).

Jordan van den Lamb, aka @purplepingers — the newly announced Senate candidate for the Victorian Socialists — wants to talk about alternatives to capitalism.  

“I don’t believe that we would know what that looks like until, you know, there’s a cheeky little revolution. And then, you know, the people decide.”

The Senate bid is not an altogether surprising move for the 28-year-old, who first garnered attention for his “shit rentals” website and videos, and whose public call for squatting in empty homes attracted the ire of property owners and panel show hosts. 

While he’s mostly known for housing, van den Lamb cites his other areas of concern as Indigenous deaths in custody, attacks on workers (“not a big fan of that”), cuts to the NDIS (“um, no thank you”), and Australia’s involvement in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza (“if we could just not do that, that’d be fantastic”), noting his policies will “largely be informed by Vic Socialists platforms”. 

When asked what he would say to followers concerned about voting for a group known to be fractious — the Victorian Socialists is one of multiple such parties in Victoria, with disagreements between the Socialist Alliance and the Socialist Alternative having led to a major split in 2020  — he says most people considering voting for him “would know who they’re voting for”.

“I feel like they’d be more people voting for me as a person than the Victorian Socialists as a party,” he says, deflecting somewhat. “And you’re going to get me.”

The Melbourne-based influencer is an interesting choice for the Victorian Socialists: a celebrity candidate for the party that is dominated by the more insular Socialist Alternative and doesn’t attract a lot of mainstream media. 

He does, however, identify as “a bit of a communist”, arguing that we are currently seeing the effects of late-stage capitalism.

“We’re treating [problems] as individual issues instead of symptoms of the cancer that is capitalism,” he says, confirming that he wishes to abolish the system rather than reform it.

Given that, I ask van den Lamb why he’s decided to channel his energy into winning a Senate seat — a fairly remote prospect given the 550,000-odd votes required. Many on the far left eschew electoral politics, preferring to organise and agitate; several followers commented that they support him, but still won’t vote.

“So many people suggested it in comments and stuff like that,” he tells me. “And I just slowly became more and more discontented with our politicians, who were just behaving like cowards.” He can see some value in being in Parliament, noting he’d like to use Senate estimates to point out “just how shit of a job that they’re doing”. 

“I haven’t changed any of the other methods of activism, because they’re honestly more important than engaging in politics,” he says. “But our politicians decide the methods by which we’re exploited. So if in the meantime, we can be exploited a bit less while we organise for better outcomes, I think that would be nice.”

With regards to people who are against engaging with the system, he adds, “I totally hear where they’re coming from, and to a large extent, I agree. But I’m of the personal opinion that we can absolutely do both.”

Some have pondered whether van den Lamb’s Senate bid is mostly an attempt to raise his profile and draw attention to his issues. Does he actually think he has a shot at winning?

“Yeah, it could absolutely happen,” he says. “But that’s not what matters here. It’s that we’re talking about alternatives to capitalism. It’s that we’re talking about socialism, and that the government understands that people are angry and can quantify just how angry people are by the amount of votes that we get.”

It’s certainly a febrile environment in which to have a crack. The major party primary vote continues to plummet to new lows, amid growing disenchantment with Labor. Meanwhile, the crossbench continues to increase in both size (welcome, Gerard Rennick) and influence. But there is little chance of the Vic Socialists winning a Senate spot, after claiming just 0.57% of Victorian first preferences in 2022 — 0.0398 of a quota.

Election analyst Ben Raue says van den Lamb is a good choice of candidate, appealing to voters who would not normally vote for the party. But he will be competing in the same “lane” as the Greens, who secured 13.85% of the Senate vote in Victoria in 2022. Most states only have space for one left-wing minor party (and one cooker, as Bernard Keane wrote on Monday). 

Van den Lamb would need to pick up “a huge vote that came from Labor” in order to be competitive, winning votes in the middle to outer suburbs that the Greens do not — though that certainly seems to be part of the Vic Socialists’ plan.

The Greens are, in some ways, the elephant in the room here, having spent recent years focusing on the same issues van den Lamb plans to campaign on. He says their policies do not go far enough. Nine’s CBD column recently drew direct comparisons between van den Lamb and Greens housing spokesperson Max Chandler-Mather; van den Lamb repeatedly makes the point that the Vic Socialists have a “no landlords pre-selection policy”, while the Greens do not.

I ask how his approach would differ from Chandler-Mather’s, who has previously promoted @purplepingers on his own socials.

“I feel like I’m angrier than Max,” he says. “Not that he’s not angry. I think he does a fantastic job. But like, for example, Max has landlord colleagues, which makes some of his talking points a lot more different to those that mine would be. Like Max wouldn’t be able to say we should abolish landlords, um, because he’d be referring to his colleagues. And that’s no fault of Max. That’s the fault of his landlord colleagues.”

“At the end of the day, they’re not a socialist party. And therefore their policies, you know, try and engage with the capitalist system. And that’s something I inherently disagree with.”

He may disagree with it. But it’s worth noting that van den Lamb, by his own admission, is also open to engaging with the system — at least until that “cheeky little revolution” arrives.

Will the issue of housing shape your vote in 2025? Would you consider voting for van den Lamb? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.

Telegram founder’s arrest is radical — if it’s a crime to build privacy tools, there will be no privacy

Pavel Durov's arrest suggests that the law enforcement dragnet is being widened from private financial transactions to private speech.

The arrest of the Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in France this week is extremely significant. It confirms that we are deep into the second crypto war, where governments are systematically seeking to prosecute developers of digital encryption tools because encryption frustrates state surveillance and control. While the first crypto war in the 1990s was led by the United States, this one is led jointly by the European Union — now its own regulatory superpower. 

What these governments are insisting on, one criminal case at a time, is no less than unfettered surveillance over our entire digital lives.

Durov, a former Russian, now French citizen, was arrested in Paris on Saturday, and has now been indicted. You can read the French accusations here. They include complicity in drug possession and sale, fraud, child pornography and money laundering. These are extremely serious crimes — but note that the charge is complicity, not participation. The meaning of that word “complicity” seems to be revealed by the last three charges: Telegram has been providing users a “cryptology tool” unauthorised by French regulators.

In other words, the French claim is that Durov developed a tool — a chat program that allowed users to turn on some privacy features — used by millions of people, and some small fraction of those millions used the tool for evil purposes. Durov is therefore complicit in that evil, not just morally but legally. This is an incredibly radical position. It is a charge we could lay at almost every piece of digital infrastructure that has been developed over the past half century, from Cloudflare to Microsoft Word to TCP/IP. 

There have been suggestions (for example by the “disinformation analysts” cited by The New York Times this week) that Telegram’s lack of “content moderation” is the issue. There are enormous practical difficulties with having humans or even AI effectively moderate millions of private and small group chats. But the implication here seems to be that we ought to accept — even expect — that our devices and software are built for surveillance and control from the ground up: both the “responsible technology” crowd and law enforcement believe there ought to be a cop in every conversation. 

It is true that Telegram has not always been a good actor in the privacy space, denigrating genuinely secure-by-design platforms like Signal while granting its own users only limited privacy protection. Telegram chats are not fully or always encrypted, which leaves users exposed to both state surveillance and non-state criminals. Wired magazine has documented how the Russian government has been able to track users down for their apparently private Telegram conversations. For that matter, it would not be surprising to learn that there are complex geopolitical games going on here between France and Russia.

But it would be easier to dismiss the claims made against Durov as particular to Telegram, or dependent on some specific action of Durov as an individual, if he was alone in being targeted as an accomplice for criminal acts simply because he developed privacy features for the digital economy.

The Netherlands have imprisoned the developer Alexey Pertsev for being responsible for the malicious use of a cryptocurrency privacy tool he developed, Tornado Cash. Again, Pertsev was not laundering money; he built a tool to protect every user’s privacy. The United States has arrested the developers of a Bitcoin privacy product, Samourai Wallet, also for facilitating money laundering.

The arrest of Durov suggests that the law enforcement dragnet is being widened from private financial transactions to private speech. If it is a crime to build privacy tools, there will be no privacy.

Should developers of platforms like Telegram be held responsible for how users use them? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.

The Oz’s unfortunate pic, Social Services (finally) asks what people think, and an old fashioned Fordham farrago

The Department of Social Services calls on an old friend, Grover joins the (inevitable) CPAC circuit, and plenty more in this weeks Tips and Murmurs.

Or just another country

The art of cropping can do more than fix the composition or energy of a picture. Take the following image from The Weekend Australian‘s coverage of the shellacking the Country Liberal Party handed out to Labor in the Northern Territory elections. A tipster sent it in, saying they’d “screenshotted [it] before the Oz inevitably takes it down. Check the shirt.” And yes, unless the party has renamed itself to better express its commitment to putting 10-year-olds in jail, that’s an unfortunate angle.

Sure enough, we checked back a day later and a slightly closer framing had replaced it.

Down in the Grove

Australia’s own ALDI-brand take on America’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) feels like it comes around earlier every year. Speakers for the event, which is set to take place in Brisbane in early October, have begun to be announced, and one of the earliest confirmations is Sall Grover. The announcement came on the same day that the Federal Court found Grover’s app, the “female only” Giggle, had illegally discriminated against transgender woman Roxanne Tickle, after Tickle was booted from the platform for not looking “sufficiently female”. Grover was forced to pay $10,000 in compensation and legal costs.

It’s proof that once you appeal to a certain crowd, pretty much anything makes you a figurehead. Lose a court case? You’re a brave truth-teller in a world gone mad. Lose your job after history-making levels of incompetence? You can reveal the deep state. Spread misinformation about vaccines to elderly people during a pandemic? Doesn’t mean you won’t be given a platform!

Tender watch

Over on AusTender comes the announcement that the Department of Social Services is spending nearly $50,000 on “market research” from consulting firm ORIMA. Frankly, we think if the department wanted to know more about what people think, it might have invested more time in say, that “consultation” over the recent, very badly received NDIS reforms, but anyway.

Interestingly, this is not the first time Australia’s government has turned to ORIMA for help. Various iterations of the previous Liberal government relied heavily on a 2017 evaluation by ORIMA Research as evidence in favour of rolling out of the now abandoned Cashless Debit Card.

In 2018, the Australian National Audit Office found the methodology of ORIMA’s evaluation of the trial was flawed and thus did not provide any credible conclusions (although ANAO can’t have thought it was that terrible, given it has engaged the company since). Regardless, the government kept on using that trial to justify its policy. We’ll watch with interest what comes of this latest collaboration.

Nine’s regulatory faux-pas the latest in a long line

This week, broadcasting watchdog the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) found 2GB host Ben Fordham in breach of advertising disclosure regulations after the shock jock claimed on air he had taken up driving Ubers as a side hustle, without disclosing to the audience he was in fact being paid to promote the company.

Nine came out today with a long and grumbling statement describing the regulations as upholding a “heavily onerous [standard], relying on constant vigilance to determine news content from sport or entertainment content”. One would have thought it was somewhat common sense, but then again disclosures have been a bit of a prickly topic at Nine over the past year.

The statement also made a point of noting that the disclosure standard was introduced 24 years ago. What happened 24 years ago, we wondered? Oh yes, 2GB being embroiled in the cash-for-comment affair — Fordham’s predecessors John Laws and Alan Jones were paid to give favourable comment on the likes of Qantas, Foxtel and Optus without disclosure.

While the sordid affair clearly sticks in the memory of Nine’s spokespeople (even if Fordham might’ve forgotten it), there are other, more recent examples too. 3AW in Melbourne was found to have breached the rules last year, with presenter Jacqui Felgate failing to disclose her deal with luxury car manufacturer BMW. In 2021, 2GB failed to disclose a sponsorship by The Star Entertainment Group in a segment discussing one of The Star’s projects.

We asked Fordham whether he had any comment on the ACMA findings, or whether he was aware of his disclosure obligations before broadcast. He declined to comment, saying he wasn’t sure he would be able to discuss the matter without permission.

‘A potpourri of ideas’: Crikey readers weigh in on Guy Rundle’s pitch to reform the ABC

Plus, a novel idea to improve the behaviour of Australian parliamentarians.

On where to start rebuilding the ABC:

Peter Blackwell writes: I enjoy Guy Rundle’s columns and appreciate the challenges he frequently dispenses, but I can make neither head nor tail of his potpourri of ideas to “improve” Radio National.

I have been devoted to RN for longer than Phillip Adams ran Late Night Live. I have despaired of the pairing of “radical” content from Offspring and then Life Matters, to become a relatively insipid self-help and talk-fest program. Great programs like Asia Pacific have vanished, as RN was told by an increasingly conservative board to serve a lower common denominator audience and cease to challenge the nation.

Nevertheless, I have learned so much more from listening to RN than I ever did at university. My life is entirely designed around ensuring that I get to hear all my preferred RN programs when they go to air (i.e. on the radio) despite the fact that I work 50 hours a week! I share lots of the best bits by forwarding the website links with people unlikely to have otherwise heard them.

There is definitely room to improve RN, but it does not help to put more politicians on Breakfast and PM. We want to hear frank and constructive debate of the issues from people who know what they are talking about — happy to hear all sides, but keep a sense of proportion. Politicians are only worth hearing if seriously questioned. Patricia Karvelas often does a reasonably good job of interviewing politicians, certainly better than any interview I have ever heard on a commercial station.

I digress, but I would be appalled if Guy Rundle’s basket of ideas for RN were taken seriously. I presume he was having a lend of us.

Ray Armstrong writes: Funnily enough I listen to Radio National more so than “the other” ABC. I don’t want it changed… they might stuff it up like the ABC Listen App, which doesn’t work at all now on my device.

Kerry Grant writes: I have stopped listening to Radio National. The morning shows and segments were just a load of tripe. Nothing informative or interesting, just people with American accents talking rot about “cool TV programs” — I couldn’t even make it to the news headlines. Even stopped listening to my beloved Phillip Adams, and yet to hear David Marr.

We need some decent journalism, not opinion pieces!

Megan Stoyles writes: Christopher Warren hopes for “fewer car crashes clogging up the 7pm news”. But it’s not just the 7pm news, it starts when I wake up to it at 7am. There could be WWIII in the Middle East, but we get the carjacking in Cranbourne. Sometimes there are two or three items in a row from the police rounds media list before we get to the war. And then it’s repeated all day, usually with no update.

You can pick the items that will feature on the 7pm TV news, regardless of timeliness or relevance. And there’s the increasing cross-promo of 7.30 and Four Corners.

I could go on — happy to, Kim — but there’s a lot to fix.

On improving behavioural standards in Parliament:

Gayle Davies writes: Here’s an idea, how about forming a parliamentary choir? There’s nothing like a choir for teaching essential skills: paying attention and respecting the conductor; mutual respect between all voice parts, male and female; each part singing their line and coming in at the right time, rather than shouting and interrupting; quietly listening while the other parts practise their bits; and, finally, blending the parts to produce a thing of beauty.

On the original ‘teal’ independent:

Margaret Callinan writes: Rachel Withers might ponder if Zali Steggall or Kerryn Phelps should be called the original “teal”, but if you’re talking about this new wave of independent women politicians surely the honour of first must go to Cathy McGowan?

McGowan took the seat of a prominent, if not much loved, Liberal and held it at the subsequent election. Upon her retirement from Parliament, after serving two terms, she was followed in the seat of Indi by another independent, Helen Haines. 

It is McGowan’s playbook that most if not all “teals” have followed (seat-winners or not, with more in the pipeline), and others not wearing teal. McGowan’s kitchen table conversations have been held around the country generating not only an interest in politics that I’ve not seen before in my lifetime, but also a strong appetite to be actively involved. All ages, all genders, all ethnicities, those with religious persuasions or none.

Doing politics differently works. Its originator should not be forgotten simply because her colour did not become prominent.

Climate action is crucial to Australia’s standing in the Pacific

Long a regional laggard on climate action, Australia must convince Pacific leaders it's serious about moving away from fossil fuels.

In her first week as Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Penny Wong travelled to Fiji to give a speech at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. It was her first trip following the May 2022 election and a signal that good relations with Pacific countries matter deeply to Australia. 

In the lead-up to Australia’s 2022 election, China had signed a security deal with the Solomon Islands — a move which Wong described as Australia’s “worst foreign policy blunder in the Pacific since the end of World War II”. 

Defence officials worried the deal between Beijing and Honiara could see China establish a naval presence in Australia’s maritime approaches. 

Wong — who had previously been climate minister in the 2007-2010 Rudd government — understood that Pacific nations viewed climate change, not geopolitical competition, as their key threat. If Australia was to remain the region’s security partner of choice, Canberra would need to work with Pacific nations to tackle the climate crisis. 

In her speech, Wong acknowledged that Pacific countries have shaped global efforts to tackle climate change for decades, even as Australia dragged its feet on cutting emissions. She explained these differences had damaged Australia’s standing in the Pacific and promised her government would be different.

“We will stand shoulder to shoulder with our Pacific family in response to this crisis,” she said. 

This week, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is in Tonga for the annual Pacific Islands Forum. It’s a moment to take stock of his government’s efforts to tackle climate pollution and improve relations with Pacific Island countries. 

Albanese will have a positive story to tell: Australia is rapidly shifting from coal-fired power to renewables and is helping Pacific communities adapt to growing climate impacts. Australia also has its hand up to host the United Nations COP31 climate talks in partnership with Pacific nations in 2026. 

However, a key tension remains. 

Pacific Island countries are calling for a global phase-out of fossil fuel production and Australia is still one of the world’s largest exporters of coal and gas. 

To convince Pacific leaders Australia is serious about tackling their key security threat, Albanese will need to explain how Australia intends to move away from fossil fuel exports towards future-focused clean energy industries. 

Pacific leadership, Australian recalcitrance 

Pacific Island countries may be at the frontlines of climate change, but they are not simply victims of a warming planet. 

These nations have led the global response to climate change since a scientific consensus on the issue first emerged in the late 1980s. At UN climate talks, Pacific countries formed a diplomatic alliance with island nations in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean. 

The first draft of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol — which required wealthy nations to cut emissions — was put forward by Nauru on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States. 

Pacific diplomats were also crucial for securing the 2015 Paris Agreement, which now guides international collaboration to cut greenhouse gas emissions and shift to clean energy. 

They have succeeded in shaping global climate action despite the divergent position of Australia.

For much of the past three decades, Australia has sought to minimise obligations to cut emissions while expanding coal and gas exports to growing economies in Asia. 

The Pacific Islands Forum is the most important regional political body in the Pacific, but differences with Australia on climate have denied island countries the chance to use it to press hard for their shared climate goals. Australia has used its position as the most powerful member of the forum to weaken regional declarations put forward by Pacific nations at key milestones in the global negotiations. 

In the run-up to the 1997 UN Kyoto climate summit, prime minister John Howard refused to back Pacific calls for a protocol with binding targets to cut emissions. Similarly, prime minister Tony Abbott refused to support calls for a global treaty to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels ahead of the 2015 Paris climate summit. Then Kiribati president Anote Tong suggested Australia should leave the forum altogether if it wasn’t prepared to back the islands’ positions in global climate negotiations. 

Pacific Island states have consistently argued that this temperature threshold is key to survival for low-lying nations such as Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands. 

Climate change — not China — the region’s key threat 

In recent years, China has become a major provider of aid for Pacific countries, especially for much-needed infrastructure projects. This has changed the dynamic of a region that has long been aligned with the West. 

China is also seeking new security arrangements. In April 2022, for example, it signed a security deal with the Solomon Islands. The details were not made public but a leaked draft details provisions allowing for Chinese military presence and ship resupply. China has also sought regional security arrangements with other Pacific Island countries. 

Security analysts in Canberra are increasingly concerned China could use infrastructure loans as leverage to secure a naval base in the Pacific, or even to station missiles in the region. This would critically undermine Australia’s long-held strategic interest in denying access to the South Pacific for powers with interests different to Australia’s.

For their part, Pacific Island countries are adamant that climate change is the key threat to the region. 

At the 2018 Pacific Islands Forum, island leaders issued a regional security declaration reaffirming climate change is the “single greatest threat to livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific”. 

Compared to geostrategic competition between major powers, Pacific leaders regard climate change impacts — stronger cyclones, devastating floods, rising seas, dying reefs and ocean acidification — as more tangible and immediate threats. 

As Fiji’s then defence minister Inia Seruiratu told a regional security dialogue in 2022: “Machine guns, fighter jets, grey ships and green battalions are not our primary security concern. 

“Waves are crashing at our doorsteps, winds are battering our homes, we are being assaulted by this enemy from many angles.” 

Toward a fossil fuel-free Pacific 

Today, Pacific island countries are spearheading a diplomatic campaign for a global phase-out of fossil fuels. 

A bloc of Pacific nations — including Fiji, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu — have called for the negotiation of a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty that would help govern the end of fossil fuel expansion and facilitate an equitable phase-out of fossil fuels. 

Pacific states are not outliers on this. There is now a global consensus that we need to move away from coal, oil and gas and speed up the rollout of renewable energy. 

At the COP28 UN climate talks held in Dubai in late 2023, governments from nearly 200 countries agreed to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels this decade. This is crucial if the world is to meet the Paris Agreement’s temperature goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. 

Australia’s Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen told COP28 delegates: “We must face this fact head-on: if we are to keep 1.5 degrees Celsius alive, fossil fuels have no ongoing role to play in our energy systems — and I speak as the climate and energy minister of one of the world’s largest fossil fuel exporters.” 

At the 2023 Pacific Islands Forum, all Pacific nations, including Australia, committed to transition away from coal, oil and gas in their energy systems and said they aspired to a just and equitable transition to a fossil fuel-free Pacific.

Australia’s own shift to clean energy is underway and accelerating. Already, 40% of the country’s national energy grid is powered by clean energy — a figure that has doubled in the past four years. By 2030, more than 80% of Australia’s electricity is expected to be provided by renewable sources like wind and solar. 

Australia is also supporting clean energy projects in Pacific island countries, including a grid-scale solar plant in Palau and transmission lines for a hydropower project in the Solomon Islands. 

Australia plans to host the COP31 UN climate talks in 2026 in partnership with Pacific countries. This will be the biggest diplomatic summit Australia has ever hosted. With Australia and the Pacific together in the global spotlight, COP31 is a chance to showcase the region-wide shift to a fossil fuel-free Pacific. 

It is also a chance to show the world Australia is shifting from its past as a fossil fuel heavyweight to its future as a renewable energy superpower. 

Doing so would help cement Australia’s place in the Pacific. 

Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.

Delivery of renewables vital for energy supply

The energy market operator says power shortages could occur if proposed renewable projects are delayed, and the FBI is trying to home in on a motive for Donald Trump's would-be assassin.

AEMO WARNS ABOUT SHORTAGES

The country’s energy supply has been leading the news overnight, with the ABC, Guardian Australia and The Australian picking up on the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO)’s latest forecast on supplies as the country attempts to shift away from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

The ABC says AEMO has scaled back its warnings about the risk of power shortages but also warned reliability across the eastern states could still be hit if there are delays in major generation and transmission projects as coal and gas-fired power stations close. Guardian Australia highlights AEMO’s chief executive, Daniel Westerman, saying it’s critical that investments in new solar, wind, batteries, pumped hydro and transmission links are all delivered as proposed. “We know the investment’s there. It’s just got to get delivered in generation, in transmission, in storage,” he said.

Meanwhile, The Australian reports a potential shortfall in reliable supply could hit power users from this summer once major coal stations close in NSW and Victoria, unless new energy supplies are developed. The paper quotes AEMO as saying in its annual report: “If only those projects already committed or anticipated proceed, and if risks of commissioning delays eventuate as they have in recent years, reliability gaps are forecast in Victoria, NSW, and South Australia.” That risk underscores the need for taxpayer-funded federal and state government schemes to deliver new renewable ­generation projects, AEMO said.

The Albanese government has set a target of Australia running on 82% renewable energy by 2030, while Opposition Leader Peter Dutton wants a pivot to nuclear.

Speaking of the Albanese government, the AAP reports this morning on the continuing fallout from the decision not to include gender and sexuality in the 2026 census. Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles told reporters yesterday: “We are doing that because we do not want to open up divisive debates in the community now.” In response, Equality Australia CEO Anna Brown declared: “How counting the queer community in the next census could possibly be responsible for a lack of social cohesion is preposterous at best and victim-blaming at worst.” LGBTQI+ Health Australia chief executive Nicky Bath told AAP: “We’re too often political footballs, rather than being seen as human beings who have health and wellbeing needs. We’re at a critical junction and a data crisis.”

Marles also finds himself prominent in the ABC’s coverage this morning following the broadcaster’s freedom of information request into the defence minister’s second office in Geelong. The ABC reports the space is just 240 metres from his existing office and came at a cost to the taxpayer of more than $600,000. A spokesperson for Marles said the dual offices were within the guidelines set by the Finance Department.

Elsewhere, the AAP flags Commonwealth Bank chief executive Matt Comyn and Westpac head Peter King will appear before the House of Representatives standing committee on economics today, with NAB and ANZ executives set to appear tomorrow. The big four banks control around 80% of the Australian banking sector and Labor MP Daniel Mulino, the committee’s chair, said interest rate decisions would be a key focus of the inquiry this week.

TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

In world news, the FBI revealed on Wednesday that the gunman in the assassination attempt on Donald Trump looked online for events for both the Republican presidential nominee and current Democrat President Joe Biden, the Associated Press reports. Special agent Kevin Rojek said Thomas Matthew Crooks also repeatedly searched for information about explosives and saw the campaign rally where he opened fire last month as a “target of opportunity”, AP said.

The FBI analysis of Crooks’ online search history revealed a “sustained, detailed effort to plan an attack on some event, meaning he [Crooks] looked at any number of events or targets”, Rojek said, adding the suspect became “hyper-focused on that specific event” once a Trump rally was announced in Butler, Pennsylvania.

In terms of a motive, the FBI official added: “We have a clear idea of mindset, but we are not ready to make any conclusive statements regarding motive at this time.”

The Washington Post highlights an interview Trump gave to Phil McGraw, the US talk show host known as Dr Phil, in which without evidence he suggested Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris had made it more difficult for the Secret Service to better protect him.

The paper says Trump declared during the interview: “When this happened, people would ask, ‘whose fault is it?’ I think to a certain extent it’s Biden’s fault and Harris’ fault. And I’m the opponent. Look, they were weaponising government against me, they brought in the whole DOJ to try and get me, they weren’t too interested in my health and safety. They were making it very difficult to have proper staffing in terms of Secret Service.”

In lighter world events, the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games has just taken place in Paris. The BBC reports over 4,000 athletes made their way along the Champs-Elysees to Place de la Concorde.

The first medal of the games is set to be awarded on Thursday Paris time, with the games concluding on September 8.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE…

In every parent’s worst fear, a four-year-old boy knocked over and smashed a Bronze Age vase in a museum in Haifa, Israel, last week.

The boy’s father, Alex, told the BBC his son had pulled the ancient jar towards him as he was “curious about what was inside” but unfortunately the move resulted in the 3,500-year-old artifact tipping over and smashing into pieces. The jar had been displayed without glass protection because the Hecht Museum believes in a “special charm” of showing finds “without obstructions”, the BBC said.

Alex told The Guardian: “My initial reaction was denial. I couldn’t believe it was my son who did it.” After calming their upset child down Alex and his wife confessed to a security guard what had happened.

To their surprise, the museum invited them back for another visit. Director Inbal Rivlin said in a statement the family’s next trip would be an organised tour. “There are instances where display items are intentionally damaged, and such cases are treated with great severity, including involving the police. In this case, however, this was not the situation. The jar was accidentally damaged by a young child visiting the museum, and the response will be accordingly,” Rivlin said.

The BBC said a conservation specialist has been appointed to restore the jar, with the plan to return the item to its spot in the museum “in a short time”.

Say What?

This has been the meanest council ever. I am off. You are so mean, you are so mean, you are so mean.

Jilly Gibson

The former North Sydney mayor’s final council meeting ended in rather spectacular fashion on Monday night, The Sydney Morning Herald reported, with Gibson unhappy at councillors’ decision to vote against naming a plaza after her.

CRIKEY RECAP

‘Shameful’: Fox Sports executive’s secret abusive Twitter account revealed

CAM WILSON

A Fox Sports executive ran a secret social media account that attacked current and former colleagues, rivals, journalists, athletes and political figures, and posted crass, sexist and racist content.

Foxtel’s general manager of Fox Cricket Matthew Weiss used an X account, with the handle @RealRagingBull, to call Australian sports and media industry figures names including “toothless ice head”, “spastic” and “mediawhore”. The account also requested women start OnlyFans accounts and compared multiple Black women’s appearance to Chewbacca.

Crikey understands that it was an open secret among some Fox Sports staff that Weiss was behind the account. Weiss deleted the account in 2021, but remains in a high-profile position in spite of the companies’ policies around social media use.

Tourism Australia execs who ‘tried to hide’ they were in Cannes spent $66k on the trip

ANTON NILSSON

While Tourism Australia was cutting 10% of its workforce due to budget restraints last year, the agency sent the executive whose team was most affected by the redundancies on a trip to the French Riviera at a cost of more than $66,000, Crikey can reveal.

Crikey reported in June that chief marketing officer Susan Coghill and two colleagues tuned in to a Zoom meeting called to discuss the job cuts, using generic backgrounds on the video call, before managing director Phillipa Harrison let slip that “Susan is in Cannes”, to the frustration of team members back home who were about to be laid off. Most of the redundancies were in Coghill’s own marketing team.

At the time, Tourism Australia refused to answer questions about how much the trip cost and whether the trio flew there in business class or not.

Now, using documents obtained under Australia’s freedom of information law, Crikey can reveal they did indeed fly business class, at a total travel cost of $34,143.

Labor needs to succeed where the Coalition failed on CFMEU

BERNARD KEANE

But the risk for Labor is that the slew of allegations of corruption and criminal infiltration of the CFMEU end up going the same way as so many others have.

After all, the Abbott government launched an entire royal commission, led by Dyson Heydon at a cost of $46 million, directed at the trade union movement in an effort to damage both unions and then Labor leader Bill Shorten.

But over and over again, the prosecutions that flowed from the royal commission either fell in a heap, were abandoned, or led to not guilty verdicts. That includes the spectacular implosion at the committal hearing stage of the prosecution of John Setka and former colleague Shaun Reardon for blackmail, when it was discovered that a Boral executive’s claims of being threatened by the pair had been invented a year after the meeting.

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Photos of European influencers used to push pro-Trump propaganda on fake X accounts (CNN)

Israeli forces kill at least 10 Palestinians in West Bank raids and strikes (The Guardian)

Telegram founder Pavel Durov released from police custody to face questioning after arrest in France (New York Post)

Swiss court convicts two executives of embezzling $1.8bn from 1MDB (Al Jazeera)

Travis and Jason Kelce sign $100m podcast deal (BBC)

UK’s Starmer wants to ‘turn a corner on Brexit’. What does that mean? (The New York Times) ($)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Style-wise, Adam Bandt’s press club address was straight out of the Donald Trump playbook — Jacob Greber (ABC): From the opening sentence, Bandt’s speech was chock-a-block with Trump’s favourite rhetorical flourishes — led by catastrophism and conspiracy.

“People”, Bandt declared from the outset, “are drowning”.

“Millions of people are falling further and further behind.”

While Bandt may not have gone as far as Trump’s famous 2017 inauguration day “American carnage” address, the vibe is unmistakably similar.

“Millions of people are being robbed, fleeced and plundered by big corporations and billionaires in a heist facilitated and enabled by the politicians from Labor and the Liberals,” said Bandt.

Trump super-charged his populist appeal on the road to the White House in 2016 and his failed bid four years later by declaring the political system “rigged” against ordinary Americans. Bandt used the term repeatedly on Wednesday.

Labor losing ground on left and right — Jennifer Hewett (AFR): It’s the double threat from both the right and the left being triggered by the Greens at a time when Labor’s hold on the centre ground of Australian politics is faltering badly.

The Greens, of course, are almost a caricature of political bait and switch when it comes to focusing a sense of community grievance — including blaming big business price gouging for cost of living pressures and the Labor government for not caring.

Now they are in government, Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers can no longer rely on promising simplistic answers to problems without having to deliver results in practice.