Lidia Thorpe accuses Liberal senator of sex assault, then withdraws

LIDIA THORPE’S BOMBSHELL

Unbiased Senator Lidia Thorpe says she’ll reveal extra at the moment after her accusation Liberal Senator David Van harassed and sexually assaulted her. She withdrew the declare yesterday as a result of she was advised to adjust to “parliamentary standing orders” however that didn’t cease The Australian ($) from calling it an “extraordinary backdown”. Van vehemently denied the allegation and received the legal professionals in instantly. It got here when he was chastising Labor for its dealing with of Brittany Higgins’ sexual assault allegation. Of this line of Liberal considering, the SMH ($) studies Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was like, so, “Labor is accountable for what’s a severe sexual assault allegation by a Liberal staffer, about one other Liberal staffer, and a Liberal minister’s workplace, metres away from the Liberal prime minister’s workplace” — that’s your argument? It comes as The Australian ($) reveals Higgins claimed as much as 40 years’ value of financial loss amid the destruction of her political profession in receiving her $2.5 million in compensation.

If Van’s title is ringing a bell, it’s as a result of the Liberal was accused of barking and growling at Jacqui Lambie when she was talking to the Senate in 2021 — Van apologised for interrupting her however denied making animal noises, Guardian Australia studies, although each the Greens’ Sarah Hanson-Younger and Labor’s Penny Wong mentioned somebody did. Mockingly it was the identical day intercourse discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins launched her report calling for an overhaul of Parliament’s poisonous office tradition. In her allegation towards Van, Thorpe advised the Senate a chief minister “needed to take away him from his workplace”, however Scott Morrison’s spokesperson advised Guardian Australia he had “no recollection” of “any involvement” in that.

SPECTATOR SPORT

Media titan Rupert Murdoch could also be seeking to purchase Britain’s The Spectator, the world’s oldest weekly journal nonetheless in print (relationship again 195 years). Receivers have seized the holding firm Press Holdings that owns it and The Telegraph, The Age ($) says, eradicating the Barclay household’s administrators within the course of amid debt disputes. It’s rumoured Murdoch bid on The Spectator simply two years in the past for A$93 million, although he could also be going right into a bidding struggle with hedge fund co-founder and Brexit supporter Paul Marshall, who is seemingly eyeballing The Spectator too. So why the curiosity? It’s a conservative bible — certainly former Tory chief Boris Johnson edited it from 1999 to 2005, a fairly high-stakes print-to-web transitional time for media. It hasn’t had the identical affect in Oz, nonetheless — it had a median circulation per difficulty of 10,665 in 2022, knowledge confirmed.

However issues aren’t all unhealthy — one in 5 Australians pays for the information they learn on-line, Crikey studies, and belief in media corporations is up a bit even when consumption is down. The annual Digital Information Report discovered 18% of us, up from 13% the yr earlier than, now subscribe to information, making Australia third in an inventory of 46 nations (Norway is dwelling to the best variety of information subscribers). It’s not so cheery over at ABC, the place a workers bloodletting is rumoured — managing director David Anderson is predicted to announce as much as 100 jobs will likely be made redundant earlier than the restructure of the nationwide broadcaster begins on July 1, Guardian Australia says. And in a remaining morsel of media information, journalist Lisa Wilkinson has lodged an official criticism with Seven Community over the Bruce Lehrmann interview, alleging the printed breached business tv requirements, Guardian Australia studies.

PWC LEARNS THE EASY WAY

PwC invested in a university whereas it was consulting to the federal authorities’s regulator of tertiary faculties, the Tertiary Schooling High quality and Requirements Company (TEQSA), the ABC studies. The scandal-embroiled consultancy took a $5.5 million stake within the High Schooling Group again in 2016-17 simply hours after it started work on the contract — the regulator couldn’t discover a file of PwC disclosing any conflicts of curiosity. A TEQSA spokesman mentioned PwC didn’t work on regulatory selections, nonetheless. The broadcaster provides that eight senior companions of PwC personally invested one other $2.5 million within the firm a yr later, however: “The ABC will not be suggesting illegal conduct by PwC.” (One may marvel if that line would function a get-out-of-jail-free card in a defamation trial?) It comes because the NSW authorities will ban PwC from engaged on its tax tasks, Guardian Australia provides.

Talking of alleged conflicts of curiosity — cops accused of home violence are investigated by colleagues and sometimes get to maintain their weapons, in response to a brand new report the SMH ($) FOI’d. About 100 NSW police of virtually each rank have been charged with lots of of home violence-related offences since 2015, together with “aggravated sexual assault, rape, stalking, breaching apprehended home violence orders, destroying property and recording intimate photographs with out consent”, the paper says, together with 9 this yr (to Might). The report additionally discovered police investigated solely 222 of the 470 complaints made about officers’ conduct in relation to home violence instances, the ABC provides.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

The 666 bus to Hell is not any extra. Effectively, Hel, to be exact — it’s a small city on the Baltic Coast in Poland, a very talked-about jaunt for wide-eyed vacationers carrying bumbags and seashore towels seeking to soak in the easiest that the reasonably chilly seaside presents. However the Christians had been not completely satisfied, not completely satisfied in any respect, as The Guardian tells it. A conservative Catholic web site, Fronda.pl, has been campaigning for the devilish bus route quantity to vary since 2018, arguing primly that it was hardly an “harmless joke” however reasonably clearly stemming from “malicious inspiration”. After all, the location assured its avid readers, the 666 to Hel will not be a public transport path to the luxurious seashore dwelling of Devil himself — an excessive amount of solar, sand and surf, one assumes, and never sufficient fireplace, screaming, and politicians.

However, the 666 bus clearly gave credence to the “horror of soul demise” as a result of it undermined the idea of an afterlife, or so the location mentioned. High-quality, administration on the bus firm conceded, a twinkle in its eye, and introduced through social media: “We’re turning the final 6 the wrong way up!” Sure, Worm reader, the brand new route is a reasonably saucy 669 (certainly no accident both) although the corporate added it might restore the 666 a while. (It’s not the primary time the Polish have had a way of humour about transport, in spite of everything. There’s a tram loop in Wrocław numbered the zero.) Pundits love the 666 bus to Hel — one Fb commenter speculated that many vacationers selected the bus over the faster prepare simply to say they took it. Certainly, The Guardian provides, Hel is so standard now that vacationers have complained it’s overcrowded. It appears hell really is different individuals.

Hoping you may spot the sunshine aspect of life at the moment.

For those who’re feeling chatty, be happy to drop into my inbox — inform me what you like or detest in regards to the Worm, or something — eelsworthy@crikey.com.au

SAY WHAT?

I received plenty of invites to plenty of issues, some I used to be in a position to go to and others I weren’t. I didn’t attend that one. The invitation was declined.

Katy Gallagher

The finance minister mentioned she didn’t attend Brittany Higgins’ fiance David Sharaz’s first wedding ceremony in 2018. Gallagher mentioned the connection was skilled, and that she was “not liable for how individuals describe their relationship with me” when requested why Sharaz described her as an “previous buddy”.

CRIKEY RECAP

Political video games and the exemplary punishment of Brittany Higgins

“Buried inside the newest assaults, primarily based on the leaking of texts to politicians and workers, is the insistence that there was one thing basically illegitimate about Higgins and Sharaz trying to generate political curiosity in her efforts to acquire justice and expose the poisonous tradition of Parliament Home. Actual rape victims, the suggestion seems to be, merely let the felony justice system do its job, reasonably than making an attempt to have interaction politicians, particularly opposition politicians.

“As each lady in Australia is aware of, simply letting the felony justice system do its job with alleged rapists just about ensures the rapist will stroll free. Even with a larger willingness of ladies to report sexual assault, and a larger willingness of police forces and prosecutors to take the crime significantly, the conviction charge stays a supply of nationwide disgrace, with estimates various between 3% and 12% of instances. It appears the final place that sexual assault victims will get justice from is the justice system.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Qld breaks down gender boundaries as delivery certificates adjustments made simpler (Brisbane Occasions)

Belarus begins taking supply of Russian nuclear weapons (Reuters)

MEPs endorse blanket ban on dwell facial recognition in public areas (euronews)

US confirms prime diplomat Blinken’s long-anticipated China go to (Al Jazeera)

North Korea: residents inform BBC of neighbours ravenous to demise (BBC)

At the least 78 drown as refugee boat sinks off Greece (The Guardian)

Value of preventing BC [Canada] wildfires this yr tops $100m — effectively earlier than peak fireplace season (CBC)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Mystique, minimalism and cataclysm: Cormac McCarthy’s fiction was a darkish counter-narrative to American optimism — Paul Giles (The Dialog): “McCarthy was by no means a simple author, and his indirect, multi-dimensional novels have develop into much less trendy in a Fb period that prefers the points of interest of non-public tales and the attract of authenticity. McCarthy’s artwork, in contrast, was formed by the minimalism and stylistic impersonality of basic modernist writers reminiscent of Ernest Hemingway, together with the extra summary types of post-humanism that he mentioned along with his scientific pals on the interdisciplinary Santa Fe institute, the place he spent a lot of his later working years. He gave few interviews and was averse to the form of self-publicity that has now develop into the norm on this planet of literary advertising and marketing.

“He did nonetheless retain, albeit on a extra modest degree, among the mystique surrounding the charismatic or reclusive male writer that was a well-known trope in Twentieth-century American literature, from Hemingway by to JD Salinger and Thomas Pynchon. McCarthy was additionally generally critiqued for his extra restricted representations of feminine characters, and on this approach, together with many others, he may very well be seen as a standard American Western author. It could, although, be unsuitable to classify McCarthy’s achievement too narrowly. Although typically thought to be pessimistic, McCarthy’s texts additionally discover in intellectually progressive methods interconnections and tensions between white Protestant and Hispanic Catholic cultures in America. Additionally they hint crossovers between people and animals, social methods and the surroundings and, maybe most importantly, rationality and its failures or ontological limitations.”

It could be sizzling, however most British houses don’t want air-con. Swap it off — Hannah Fearn (The Guardian): “At what price? This week Nationwide Grid readied one other coal-fired energy station to deal with the additional demand positioned on the power networks by workplaces and houses switching on air-conditioning models. Greenpeace UK shared its outrage at this request: ‘We’re utilizing MORE coal to chill down the results of the coal we’re utilizing. It is not sensible.’ And I agree. Many climate-controlled buildings with synthetic air flow methods, reminiscent of hospitals or laboratories or massive workplace and retail complexes, depend on air-conditioning to maintain them at a steady temperature all yr spherical. That is important to make sure workers are shielded from excessive temperatures within the office, and for individuals who are weak in a heatwave, reminiscent of individuals with sure medical circumstances or disabilities.

“However given these are at all times operating, maintaining temperatures at a constant tempo by sizzling climate and — extra usually within the UK — chilly too, it’s unlikely they’re liable for this sudden spike in demand. The extra seemingly offender is rising numbers of small models inside houses which might be instantly cranked up in heat climate. In different phrases, the utterly pointless ones. Simply as wooden burners are being phased out by regulation as we begin to absolutely perceive the harm they do to local weather and likewise lung well being, we now want to contemplate a ban on some air-conditioning models — significantly when used on the mildest of heat temperatures. And till then it’s as much as us to not purchase them. When it’s 26C outdoors, the common British dwelling merely doesn’t want air-conditioning. It’d really feel nicer, however making you a little bit extra snug isn’t the federal government’s job.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Yuggera and Turrbal Nation (also called Brisbane)

• Creator Emily O’Grady will discuss her debut guide, Feast, at Avid Reader bookshop.

Eora Nation Nation (also called Sydney)

• Creator Jordana Silverstein will talk about her new guide, Merciless Care, at Glee Books.

• Poet Ali Whitelock will talk about her new assortment, A Transient Letter to the Sea A couple of Couple of Issues, at Higher Learn Than Lifeless bookshop.