Crikey Worm: Has he totally stacked it? – Crikey

Good morning, early birds. Calls for Victorian cabinet minister Adem Somyurek to step down and potentially face criminal investigation over branch stacking allegations, and in the US Atlanta's police chief has resigned following another police shooting. It's the news you need to know, with Chris Woods.

Pressure is mounting for Victorian cabinet minister Adem Somyurek to step down and potentially face criminal investigation over allegations of industrial-scale branch stacking, after a joint Age-60 Minutes investigation released recordings of the Labor powerbroker handing Nick McLennan a political adviser to another minister Marlene Kairouz over $2000 and multiple fake membership forms.

While The Age reports that Somyurek has denied allegations of branch stacking, Victorian Liberals and Greens figures have called for him to be stood down and Labors Kevin Rudd and Doug Cameron have called for internal investigations. The paper has also called for Somyurek to be expelled from the party, while Premier Dan Andrews is expected to address the matter today.

BUT LNPSPILL JUST SOUNDS WRONG: After damaging internal polling was leaked to News Corp papers, The Australian ($) reports that Queensland LNP leaderDeb Frecklington has slammed backroom bully boys thought to include party president Dave Hutchinson, former premier Campbell Newman and former LNP president Bruce McIver allegedly agitating for a coup.

As US Black Lives Matter rallies enter their third week, CNN reports that Atlantas police chief has resigned and a Wendys has burnt to the ground after a white police officer shot and killed a 27-year-old black man, Rayshard Brooks, following an altercation on Friday.

In other updates from the now-global movement, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo pleaded with protesters to stop after announcing a new reform package, and far-right protesters have clashed with both police and BLM demonstrations in London in part, the BBC reports, to protect a boarded-up statue of Winston Churchill.

Back home, Australia saw a police officer appear to flash a white power OK signal at a Sydney rally; statues of Captain Cook, John Howard and Tony Abbott were either fenced up or, embarrassingly, guarded by police on horseback and volunteer statue protectors; and The Daily TelegraphsPeter Gleeson deployed some 60s-era racism against aboriginals and negroes (sic).

PS: In a strong flashback to the 2018 Victorian election, The Age has also named a NSW Greens staffer who helped deface Hyde Parks Captain Cook statue.

According to the ABC and The Australian ($), Scott Morrison will today announce 15 national priority projects to be fast-tracked under streamlined state and federal planning and assessment laws (red tape). The projects are set to include metro rail, dams and mines, and will likely ahead of a new report into the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act act as prelude for more cuts to environmental regulation (green tape).

Morrison will announce the plan along with $1.5 billion in infrastructure funding at a CEDA virtual State of the Nation event, while Anthony Albanese will also make the case for a post-COVID recovery centred on renewable energy, Indigenous constitutional reform, and, according to The Guardian, a new national skills body and progressive taxation system.

OTHER FEDERAL TIDBITS: Elsewhere, the Oz ($) reports that delayed rollouts mean those submarines will require $3.5 billion refits, The New Daily has received only incomplete evidence from Australia Post over their vaunted decline in letter volume, and The Guardian reports that Stuart Robert, Dan Tehan and Simon Birminghamcharged taxpayers more than $4500 for an overnight trip for a Nine-hosted Liberal party fundraiser.

We are going to have so much fucking fun with these people. Im going to take Cranbourne branch off them. Were gonna bring all our Young Labor people that weve just got real little fucking slimy little fuckers, right little passive aggressive fucking gay kids

Adem Somyurek

Even without all the alleged branch stacking, those recordings from the Victorian Local Government and Small Business Minister are a great reminder that homophobia and misogyny know no political affiliation.

Its becoming very hard to understand the tangled logic of the Morrison government, its media cheerleaders, and business, over remaining lockdown restrictions.

On the one hand, recalcitrant states mainly Labor states should end border closures and start opening up their tourism sectors. We need to get planes flying around Australia, Scott Morrison says. If you want to see planes flying around Australia, we need to open up these domestic borders.

For the last three months, Australians have been lab rats. Since the coronavirus hit our shores, weve become unwitting participants in a perverse social and scientific experiment that would probably never get ethics approval.

By closely monitoring these population-wide experiments, weve learned an awful lot. We know that social distancing, avoiding gatherings, spending months in dismal hibernation is probably the most effective way to keep the virus under control.

Australias history of slavery is as Prime Minister Scott Morrison made apparent yesterday poorly understood and often denied. (The PM has today apologisedand sought to clarify his statement.)

But the fact is, either through slavery, servitude, exploitation or stolen wages, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and men kidnapped from Melanesia played a massive role in developing Australia into the wealthy country it is today.

Australian sentenced to death in China for drug trafficking honest to a fault, friends say

All lies: how the US military covered up gunning down two journalists in Iraq

LAND 159/4108 deal: $2b defence contract war looms ($)

Australias first wage theft laws set to pass in Victoria

Attorney-General John Quigley targets misuse of charitable trusts ($)

NSW opens door to thousands of defect claims ($)

COVID-19 fines in NSW alone totalled more than $1 million

Queensland investigating travel bubble with NSW

Journalists at the Age express alarm over increasing politicisation and loss of independence

Majority of Australians say extending jobkeeper and jobseeker would help coronavirus recovery

Nations doctor is moving on ($)

Targeting police will do little to stop Aboriginal deaths in custody Don Weatherburn (The Sydney Morning Herald): Police treatment of Aboriginal people and Aboriginal over-representation in prison are two distinct issues requiring different responses. The former requires change in the behaviour of police. The latter requires an Aboriginal-led government-supported effort to improve Indigenous outcomes in child welfare, health, education and employment.

Why is Bernard Collaerys trial a secret? ($) Steve Bracks (The Australian): I suspect a primary motivation for the excessive secrecy surrounding Collaerys prosecution is to protect former prime minister John Howard and Alexander Downer, who could both be called to give evidence about why the spying was authorised. I can understand why they would be uncomfortable seeking to justify the bugging in open court.

Australias media industry had a chance to fix its race problem. It blew it. Osman Faruqi (Medium): The biggest issue when it comes to racism in Australia, and this applies across society as well as to the media, is denial that it actually exists. Very, very few senior managers, editors and journalists understand how structural racism operates on a societal level, across the media as a class, and in the organisations they run and work in.

Canberra

Both Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese will speak on day one of CEDAs two-day virtual State of the Nation forum, to be followed by a series of panel events with government, industry and unions representatives.

Melbourne

As part of Refugee Week 2020, South Australia-based Eritrean storyteller Manal Younus will host virtual Wheeler Centre event Words Without Borders: An Evening of Poetry and Spoken Word. The event will feature storytellers from Australias refugee communities including Lujayn Hourani, Hani Abdile, Flora Chol, Awale Ahmed and Marziya Mohammadi.

Sydney

Norfolk Island

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Crikey Worm: Has he totally stacked it? - Crikey