BREAKING THE BANKS
Greens leader Richard Di Natale will today propose a plan for a publicly owned “People’s Bank”, to provide “affordable” public banking services and inject “real competition” into the banking sector, and abandon the Greens’ push for a new carbon price in favour of other renewable policies.
The Conversation reports that Di Natale will today tell the National Press Club today how, in the face of “ongoing misconduct and price gouging”, Australia needs a publicly owned, Reserve-Bank-operated banking system, a similarly Corbyn-esque universal basic income, and otherwise greater government intervention in the banking, housing and financial services industries. He will also address the Greens’ recent loss in the Batman byelection.
POLICE BRUTALITY DAY TWO
Journalists have discovered 2016 footage of Victoria Police punching, kicking and stomping on a young, Sudanese-born Melbourne man, who had robbed a chemist after suffering a psychotic episode.
Following yesterday’s report of Victoria Police assaulting a disabled pensioner, The Age and 7.30 have released CCTV of the incident as well as news that the police internal affairs unit deemed it not serious enough to sanction. The Age is also reporting on a local lawyer’s suggestion that, in the face of this failing complaints system, African-Australian victims of police brutality should seek out and share CCTV and smartphone footage.
STOP PRESS! ABBOTT WRONG ON IMMIGRATION!
The world’s foremost expert on the economics of cities has shot down former prime minister Tony Abbott’s call to halve Australia’s immigration intake, arguing that the country has an “extraordinary capacity to grow” and that “if there’s one country in the world that doesn’t need to worry about adding more people, it’s got to be Australia.”
The Australian ($) reports that Harvard professor and author of 2011 book The Triumph of the City Edward Glaeser has expressed bewilderment at Abbott’s anti-immigration stance, arguing that cities like Sydney and Melbourne could benefit economically from denser populations without compromising quality of life.
THEY REALLY SAID THAT?
“The means were absolutely justified and I stand by it and I would do the same tomorrow.”
— Victorian Opposition Leader Matthew Guy admits to ordering two MPs to break their word in order to defeat the government’s fire services reform legislation. The MPs had requested parliamentary pairs to observe Good Friday, only to return later for the vote, thus winning the vote for the opposition in the upper house.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Active shooter at YouTube’s headquarters: reports
Defence Department scientist had separate role with China-linked firm
Malcolm Turnbull’s secret plan to save Liddell coal station ($)
Peter Dutton: details related to au pair decisions suppressed on privacy grounds
Aged care cuts to qualified staff putting lives at risk, family of woman in ‘premature death’ say
Former chief justice slams Australian Government as Nauru abolishes highest legal appeal process
Bomb-maker names Aman Abdurrahman as ISIS leader in Indonesia ($)
Donald Trump says he will use military to protect US border with Mexico
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Canberra: Greens leader Senator Richard Di Natale will address the National Press Club.
Gold Coast: Commonwealth Games 2018 Opening Ceremony, with performances from Yothu Yindi and The Treaty Project, Cat Empire, and Amy Shark headlining Festival 2018.
Gold Coast/Queensland/Northern Territory/Vanuatu: Prince Charles and Camilla the Duchess of Cornwall arrive in Australia and, after Charles opens the Commonwealth Games, will tour Brisbane, the Gold Coast, and areas across Queensland, the Northern Territory and Vanuatu until April 10.
Melbourne: Legal groups will speak outside Parliament House on the need to reform the police complaints system, in response to news stories from people who have experienced excessive force, racist policing or other misconduct. Speakers will include Victoria Police assault victim Jessie Scarlett-Rhodes and lawyer Jeremy King, as well as local human rights lawyers.
Sydney: Former NSW premier Mike Baird will give evidence at an upper house committee inquiry into museums and galleries, after he announced plans in 2015 to move Ultimo’s Powerhouse Museum to Parramatta.
Perth: The WA Crime and Corruption Commission will report on police handling of Gene Gibson’s wrongful conviction case. Gibson, a cognitively impaired Indigenous man, was jailed over the Broome 2010 bashing death of 21-year-old Josh Warneke, but won an appeal against the conviction and walked free last year.
Melbourne: Opening of ACMI’s Alice in Wonderland exhibition “Wonderland”, which traces Alice’s journey from page to screen to pop culture icon.
Sydney: NSW Environment Minister Gabrielle Upton will launch the world’s first e-waste microfactory, which uses patented technology to transform discarded smart phones, printers and laptops into valuable materials, to be followed by a overview from Director of UNSW’s Sustainable Materials Research and Technology (SMaRT) Centre, Professor Veena Sahajwalla.
Melbourne: Opening of new play ‘The 78-Storey Treehouse’, with an early media preview complete with co-author Andy Griffiths and a performance by the cast.
Melbourne: Assistant Minister to the Treasurer Michael Sukkar will unveil coins commemorating Sir John Monash at Monash University.
Wellington: The 2018-19 living wage rate will be announced at Rogue and Vagabond pub.
Auckland: Outlining solutions to skills shortages in the city’s retail sector, the ‘Auckland Retail Roadmap and Action Plan’ will be launched by Retail Management Professor Jonathon Elms and Service IQ chief executive Dean Minchington. (Psst, Aussie jobseekers: by 2021, Auckland’s retail sector is expected to have over 57,000 job openings i.e. one third of their current workforce. Get in on it!).
THE COMMENTARIAT
Abbott-Joyce Monash Forum undermines Turnbull — Paul Kelly (The Australian $): “The idea that drives the latest core conservative revolt — a new coal-fired power station run by the government, if needed — is delusional and flawed at every point. It fails on policy, politics and consumer grounds. The conservatives are becoming coal power socialists. They are losing the plot.”
Celebrated by the tabloids, the welfare bill punishes those already doing it tough — Emma Dawson (The Guardian): “So much for ‘Christian values’. On Easter Sunday, the Daily Telegraph assaulted readers with a remarkably vicious attack on some of Australia’s most disadvantaged citizens. ‘Centrelink welfare cheats to lose payments if they fail to look for work under new laws’, screamed the headline of a report that used every pejorative term in the conservative book to describe people living on Newstart while they look for work.”
CRIKEY QUICKIE: THE BEST OF YESTERDAY
Meet the publishers ripping up the Australian media playbook — Emily Watkins: “When The Daily Telegraph splashed a photo of Barnaby Joyce’s pregnant partner on its front page with an ‘exclusive’ tag, there were some journalists who raised their eyebrows. According to the Tele and the reporter Sharri Markson, the story was just a ‘rumour’ until they confirmed it. But it wasn’t just a story floating around the press gallery and on social media. Some news websites outside the mainstream had published the story dismissed as rumour months earlier.”
Banks’ share price slump has been years in the making — Glenn Dyer and Bernard Keane: “In Australia, however, investors have had something else to contend with. And by investors, we mean all of us — since everyone with a superannuation account is affected. At the end of the March quarter last Thursday the ASX 200 finished at a level lower than it was at the end of the March quarters in 2017 and 2016.”
Razer: ‘toxic masculinity’ debate is self-defeating and toxic itself — Helen Razer: “‘Toxic masculinity’ is, we learn, the topic of novelist Tim Winton’s latest work. The guy hasn’t only written a book about it, but embarked on a national tour that promises some sort of audio-visual antidote to this much-feared poison. Didn’t see it myself, as I (a) had something on that night and (b) sincerely doubt that Winton meaningfully explores a popular concept that few have bothered to define.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
3 thoughts on “Crikey Worm: Greens push for a publicly owned bank”
Arky
April 4, 2018 at 10:41 amI hate this trend of using “the People’s” in front of something for cheap popularity.
Abbott and then Turnbull used it to push the marriage equality not-a-plebiscite as “the People’s vote not a politicians’ vote”, which should be enough to speak to how shonky the tactic is.
You can call a bank “the People’s bank” and have it publicly owned, we’ve had state-owned banks before. Managing that bank so that it is profitable (not using taxpayer dollars to subsidise operations), competitive and able to provide useful competition to the commercial banks, well…. the trouble is almost everyone hired for such a venture would have to come from existing banking culture. It will be tricky and expensive.
I’d much rather whip the existing banks into line.
Martin
April 4, 2018 at 12:01 pmAnother shonky tactic of recent times is, in order to make changes to superannuation for example, is to label something a “loophole” which makes law-abiding tax payers feel guilty like they’ve been doing something wrong. If something was really a loophole then surely it would be shut down immediately.
John Lep
October 17, 2019 at 9:24 pmIs it possible to have one sane and original idea come out of Canberra?