This week saw state and territory leaders have a COAG meeting in which it was readily agreed to implement some form of facial recognition program in time for the Commonwealth Games next year. It’s unclear how it works, because Malcolm Turnbull and Annastacia Palaszczuk say one thing, and Justice Minister Michael Keenan says another. Either way, they’re going to use people’s drivers licence pictures for the program. They also said the system wouldn’t be as cool as the ones you see on crime shows, which is a bit disappointing if you ask me.
The COAG meeting also resulted in a commitment from state and territory leaders to make uniform legislation to allow them to hold terror suspects for 14 days without charge. However, concerns have sprung up that this might involve holding kids as young as 10 (the age of criminal responsibility in Australia) for that period. Domestic air passengers will also have to show a form of ID, which you would have thought Australia would have been doing for years already.
We’re at the halfway point of the same-sex marriage postal survey and we’ve sort of stopped hearing about the yes and no campaigns every single night on the news. I do know that there was a rally in Sydney this weekend, and I did get a robo-survey call which didn’t get very far because the first question asked if I had already voted – which my household has – and then it hung up on me. The major concern is that the no campaign may win due to grassroots level campaigning with ethnic and religious groups working within their communities. Why aren’t they hanging out with the big public no campaigners? Well, as the muslim cleric interviewed in the ABC news story pointed out – those people also tend to be a bit Islamophobic too.
The car industry in Australia is essentially no more, with the Toyota factories in Victoria closing on Tuesday. The main concern has been that the workforce, which is primarily older men, will not be able to retrain or get another job ever, which will only be alleviated if the federal and the Victorian state government work together to invest – and only the Victorians have been serious about it from what I’ve seen and heard since Toyota announced they were leaving three years ago.
This week also saw some refugees from Manus Island head to the United States to start their new lives. The ABC interviewed two of them, and it appears for the moment they’re pretty happy, although they’re only going to get help from a US charity for a little while, so they will soon need to get a job an fend for themselves.
Also this week, Nick Xenophon shocked many when he announced he was goung to leave federal parliament to start a new group in South Australia called SA Best and run for the South Australian Lower House next year. This is all depending on how the whole section 44 thing goes for Xenophon though. For those of you trying to place the guy – he’s the one that does stunts and makes terrible puns about the issues he draws attention to. He’s actually a really smart politician, and pretty good at negotiating for what he wants. His SA Best group has hand a setback though, with a candidate being caught on social media groping two wax statues (think Madame Tussauds) of Australian celebrities, and also making tasteless jokes about Rihanna’s domestic violence issues with rapper Chris Brown, by pretending to punch Rihanna’s wax statue.
Finally this week, there were protests against the proposed Adani coal mine; Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has praised President Trump for getting China to reconsider imposing stricter sanctions on North Korea; there are calls to have a wool processing industry after an incident where bags of merino wool were switched with less expensive wool and people were ripped off; and Australia is taking a fresher look at gun control laws (that may have become more lax) after the mass shooting in Las Vegas.
Tweet of the Week
Actor Josh Thomas posted his survey this week
https://twitter.com/JoshThomas87/status/915839756302348288
Things I’ve Been Looking at Online
Eddie Aryes on how teaching in Kabul changed his life – ABC Online
Australian universities, self censorship and China – ABC Online
Kara L 