Netanyahu seeks war expansion as Australia’s rhetoric hardens
ISRAEL REVEALS WAR EXPANSION PLANS, ALBO SEEKS CALL
Israel’s war in Gaza and Australia’s reactions to it continue to dominate news bulletins.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters yesterday he planned to reiterate to his Israeli counterpart Australia’s support for a two-state solution.
“Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu has made some comments that are certainly not consistent with a two-state solution … we’ve been critical of some of the actions of Israel, in particular the decision that they made in March to breach what would be expected of a democratic nation and withholding the supply of aid into people who desperately need it,” Albanese said at a press conference, according to a transcript sent to reporters by his office.
“I have said to Prime Minister Netanyahu before, as I’ve said publicly for a long period of time, that I’m a supporter of a two-state solution, and that there can’t be peace and security in the Middle East without there being an advance on that two-state solution.”
Assistant Foreign Affairs Minister Matt Thistlethwaite told Sky News that Albanese was seeking a phone call with Netanyahu: “A phone call is being pursued,” he said.
The comments come after the past weekend’s massive march for Gaza in Sydney, which drew crowds of at least 100,000, according to official estimates.
Israel’s government is clearly paying attention — Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar posted to X after the rally: “The distorted alliance between the radical left and fundamentalist Islam is sadly dragging the West toward the sidelines of history.”
The post featured a picture of a protester holding a picture of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
“Radical protesters at Sydney Harbour Bridge today holding an image of Iran’s ‘Supreme Leader’ — the most dangerous leader of fundamentalist Islam, the world’s largest exporter of terror and a mass executioner,” Sa’ar wrote. “Australians, wake up!”
The Jerusalem Post reported overnight that Netanyahu had “reached a decision for the full occupation of the Gaza Strip, including operations in areas where hostages are held”.
The newspaper cited an anonymous source in the prime minister’s office. CNN reported an unnamed Israeli official as saying that Netanyahu was “pushing for the freeing of the hostages through military defeat [of Hamas]”.
The group, which has been in de facto control of the Gaza Strip since 2007 and is listed by Australia and other nations as a terrorist organisation, had earlier released videos of emaciated Israeli hostages, which prompted “tens of thousands of Israelis to take to the streets on Saturday night and demand a ceasefire deal, in one of the largest turnouts for the weekly protests in recent months”, according to the Associated Press.
Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has changed her tune regarding Gaza. The Liberal, who once was one of her party’s strongest supporters of Palestine, last week refused to answer directly a question of whether there was starvation in Gaza, saying instead it was a “complex situation”.
But according to ABC News, Ley took a stronger stance on Monday, telling reporters: “There is hunger and starvation in Gaza and it needs to be addressed and I’m pleased to see the Israeli government is doing exactly that.”
“But what also needs to happen is for Hamas, the terrorist organisation who is in control of the Gaza Strip, to surrender, release the hostages, and surrender,” she continued.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WARNING
An Australian lawyer and artificial intelligence expert has warned against telling chatbots personal information because of the lack of a reliable privacy and confidentiality framework in the emerging sector.
Ashurst law firm risk advisory partner Sonia Haque-Vatcher told The Australian Financial Review that chatbots like Chat GPT and others may encourage a false sense of safety, and that no legal privilege exists between AI companies and their users.
“When you’re speaking with a doctor, there’s obviously patient-doctor confidentiality and privilege around that. A lawyer or a therapist, that absolutely comes with confidentiality laws, and you’re protected by that,” Haque-Vatcher said.
“AI has no legal privilege. You’re not speaking to a person bound by confidentiality. You basically are interacting with a system that’s operated by a company, and I think people forget that and what that might mean.”
The AFR pointed out that Sam Altman, the chief executive of Chat GPT creator OpenAI, has also cautioned against using the service “for therapy and emotional support because nobody in the industry had figured out how to protect user privacy”.
“People talk about the most personal shit in their lives to ChatGPT,” Altman told a US podcast at the weekend. “People use it — young people, especially, use it — as a therapist, a life coach; having these relationship problems and [asking] ‘what should I do?’”
Australia’s federal Digital Transformation Agency last week launched a new resource dubbed the “AI technical standard”, aimed at helping other government agencies “embed transparency, accountability, and safety in their use of artificial intelligence across the public sector”.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Saturday wrote in an op-ed for Guardian Australia that “artificial intelligence will completely transform our economy”, affecting “every aspect of life”.
“I’m optimistic that AI will be a force for good, but realistic about the risks,” Chalmers wrote. “It is not beyond us to chart a responsible middle course on AI, which maximises the benefits and manages the risks. Not by letting it rip, and not by turning back the clock and pretending none of this is happening, but by turning algorithms into opportunities for more Australians to be beneficiaries, not victims of a rapid transformation that is gathering pace.”
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
Believe it or not, David Attenborough, at 99, is still working. The long-serving broadcaster, who began working for the BBC in the early 1950s, has narrated a new nature show which began airing on the British public broadcaster this past Sunday.
According to the BBC, the series Parenthood “documents how parents from across the animal kingdom sacrifice everything in order to raise their young”.
A reviewer for The Guardian gave the series three out of five stars and wrote of its “sappingly familiar narrative”: “It sets us up for a show that offers BBC One natural history in a cuter, less spectacular and groundbreaking mode than the channel’s classic shows — but the suspicion that it may not have anything fresh to impart is soon dispelled.”
It’s unclear when Australian audiences can begin watching the show, but Network 10 has picked up the rights to air it.
Say What?
Of course, we believe that everyone should be very, very careful with nuclear rhetoric.
Dmitry Peskov
The Kremlin spokesperson reacted to US President Donald Trump’s announcement that he had ordered two nuclear submarines closer to Russia, a move that followed some controversial comments by former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. Peskov’s comments were the first official lines from Putin’s government following Trump’s proclamation.
CRIKEY RECAP
Trump’s war on history has a long history
It’s now a commonplace observation that the politics of Donald Trump rely on a sustained attack on the idea of a shared reality. It’s a dual impulse: to lie suddenly and opportunistically on the one hand, and to rewrite history — often as it’s happening — on the other. During his second term, the real test will be how institutions like the Smithsonian respond. Because he’s coming for them.
Following an outcry, the Smithsonian Institution will restore information about Trump’s two impeachments to its exhibits, having removed it in July for a “content review”. The institution denied it had acted under pressure from the White House, telling The Washington Post, “We were not asked by any administration or other government official to remove content from the exhibit”. But the atmosphere in which this choice was made is unmistakable.
In March, Trump issued an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”, which explicitly included the Smithsonian, in what it claimed was “a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth”. Further, Trump has moved to remove the institution’s National Portrait Gallery director Kim Sajet.
The grim reaper of Australian politics is back. Finally
With pretty much every other participant at the forthcoming productivity summit avoiding the issue, it’s been left to the Productivity Commission (PC) to draw attention to one of Australia’s biggest, most obvious, and easily fixable productivity solutions: a carbon price.
With Labor too scared of the Coalition to embrace serious emissions abatement policies, business content to do as little as possible to reduce emissions, and the labour movement dominated by climate-denialist unions like the CFMEU and the AWU, there’s been a conspiracy of silence on climate ahead of the government’s productivity and tax summit this month.
Ross Garnaut broke the omertà last week by criticising the looming failure of the government to meet its renewable energy targets and calling for a carbon price — and was criticised by Energy Minister Chris Bowen for his troubles.
At a rally in Sydney’s Hyde Park, a man in a black t-shirt that proclaimed “punish the 28” stood just in front of another man whose t-shirt warned “Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some assembly required”.
The event, in September 2023, was ostensibly being held to oppose a Yes vote in the Voice to Parliament referendum. Yet another t-shirt read “yeah, nah”. The nation would soon vote on the Voice proposal, but the participants’ signs betrayed a broader range of interests.
Nearby, someone held a placard stating “expose the 28”. Later, as speakers took the stage to rally the crowd against a Yes vote, two other protesters appeared in front of the speakers, holding white cardboard signs with “punish the 28” in black marker.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
What does your lock screen photo say about you? More than you think (SMH) ($)
Israeli government votes to dismiss attorney general, escalating standoff with judiciary (AP)
Horrific exploitation of children in Kenya sex trade revealed (BBC)
Trump envoy to visit Moscow this week before deadline for ending Ukraine war (The Guardian)
Rescuers find body of last trapped Chile miner, bringing death toll to six (CNN)
Divisive debate has no place in Australia, Tony Burke says (SMH) ($)
Saudi Arabia executes 17 people in three days, approaching new record (France 24)
THE COMMENTARIAT
There’s a good reason why the social media ban won’t work, and the government knows it — Meg Kanofski (SMH): Cooped up in a school science lab about a decade ago, I tinkered away on a more important STEM project. I was altering the HTML on my Tumblr site to add a music player widget. Visitors would be greeted by an acoustic One Direction cover of Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” – followed by some Bon Iver, for credibility.
Trying to access Facebook or Instagram while on school grounds returned only an error message. But the grown-ups in charge hadn’t kept up with the meteoric rise of the blogging platform that peaked in popularity in 2014. It was open season.
The teachers couldn’t have known their selective ban would allow us to dedicate more time to our craft. One of my classmates quickly ascended to the status of “Tumblr-famous”, landing a modelling contract. Tens of thousands of unsuspecting followers relished nuggets of life and style advice dished out from the Year 8 homeroom.
Anthony Albanese prefers small steps, not Jim Chalmers’ giant leaps — Geoff Chambers (The Australian): Anthony Albanese is offering no blank cheques or immediate announcements from his government’s economic reform roundtable vortex, as he seeks incremental change over big-bang reform.
Amid a flurry of demands and recommendations from unions, business and the Productivity Commission, the prime minister on Monday talked down the influence of Jim Chalmers’ hand-picked roundtable of chief executives, chairs, unionists, bureaucrats and investors. Channelling John Howard’s doctrine of underpromising and overdelivering, Albanese said: “(A) roundtable isn’t a substitute for government decision-making … it’s not a meeting of the cabinet. Government will make decisions as the government. We’re not contracting out our decision-making processes. We’re open for ideas. Our focus in government is on delivering what we said we would do.”
Despite speculation of splits between Albanese and his treasurer, they are in lock-step in not wanting to over-egg reform announcements following the roundtable hosted at Parliament House from August 19 to 21.
