Sussan Ley boots Jacinta Nampijinpa Price from frontbench
PRICE DROPPED
Well that was all pretty predictable, wasn’t it?
As everyone will now no doubt be aware, last night Jacinta Nampijinpa Price was dumped from the Coalition frontbench after the Northern Territory senator continued to resist calls to apologise for her comments about Indian-Australians and then refused to support Sussan Ley’s leadership.
The whole messy saga lasted a week (it felt like a lifetime) and unsurprisingly topped every news publication overnight, with much hand-wringing from the usual suspects about the abject state of the opposition.
It’s probably worth starting off by recapping the statements that were sent out at close of play yesterday.
Ley, in her statement on Wednesday evening, said: “Serving in the shadow ministry is a privilege. Shadow ministers and shadow assistant ministers are expected to uphold the standards I have set as leader. Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has failed to do so and will no longer serve in my shadow ministry.
“Today, despite being given sufficient time and space to do so, Senator Nampijinpa Price failed to apologise for remarks which have caused Australians of Indian heritage significant hurt. She also refused to provide confidence in my leadership of the Liberal Party and sadly, that has made her position untenable in my shadow ministry. The Liberal Party I lead will respect, reflect and represent modern Australia.”
Meanwhile, Price said in her statement: “I have accepted the leader’s decision. And I reiterated my regret in not being clearer in my comments on the ABC last Wednesday.
“Nevertheless, I took the opportunity to express to the leader my disappointment that some colleagues disregarded the key point I was making about the damaging impacts of mass migration. And that some colleagues instead chose to indulge agenda-driven media commentary on this matter.
“To reiterate comments from my earlier statement: I never intended to be disparaging towards our Indian community. And I wish no ill-will whatsoever to the Indian community — or any other migrant group. My concern — as it is for millions of Australians — is Labor’s mass migration agenda and its ramifications. My concern is not migration itself — it’s the magnitude of migration.”
As a reminder, Price suggested in an interview with the ABC last Wednesday that the government was accepting “large numbers” of Indian migrants into Australia to bolster Labor’s vote.
The Australian Financial Review highlights Ley dropped Price hours after the senator said at a press conference her remarks last week were “certainly clumsy” but said she would not be “silenced on the issue of mass migration”. The newspaper says she then declined three times to express confidence in Ley as leader of the Coalition, saying: “Those matters are for our partyroom.”
The AFR adds that conservatives who recruited Price from the Nationals to the Liberals following the disastrous federal election in May have “claimed the rift was between her and Ley, and not part of a broader strategy to depose the opposition leader”. The piece also cites a party source cautioning that due to Price’s status among the Liberal base, her sacking could trigger a bigger conflagration.
The ABC highlights parts of Price’s statement yesterday where she said “although my time … has been cut short, it has been an honour to serve in the shadow defence portfolio”, adding it had been “a disappointing episode for the Liberal Party”.
She also said she would speak up from the backbench on issues which “are in the national interest” and “important to millions of Australians”, listing topics such as Indigenous issues, “the ramifications of mass migration”, and “the economically immiserating and freedom-eroding policy of net zero”.
Like the AFR, the national broadcaster quotes Liberals as claiming there was no mood to roll Ley, “agreeing that she needed time to prove herself despite a few early missteps”.
Meanwhile, over on Sky News, Peta Credlin was keen to tell everyone that she thinks this is the “beginning of the end”, while a certain Tony Abbott wasted little time posting on social media that Price would be “a big loss to the frontbench but I’m confident that she will continue to make a strong contribution to our public life”.
You’ll recall earlier this year that Abbott backed Angus Taylor and Price to be leader and deputy leader of the Liberal Party, respectively, after reportedly helping orchestrate Price’s defection from the Nationals.
Before posting about Ley’s demotion, Abbott was promoting his latest Substack post on “why I think mass immigration across the Anglosphere must cease”.
TRUMP ALLY CHARLIE KIRK SHOT DEAD
Conservative commentator Charlie Kirk has been shot dead during an event at Utah Valley University, The New York Times has reported.
Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA and influential ally of US President Donald Trump, was fatally shot while speaking at the university on Wednesday, his spokesman confirmed.
Trump took to Truth Social in the aftermath to write: “The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead.
“No-one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us. Melania and my Sympathies go out to his beautiful wife Erika, and family. Charlie, we love you!”
US Vice President JD Vance posted on social media: “Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord.”
FBI Director Kash Patel had earlier posted on X: “We are closely monitoring reports of the tragic shooting involving Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University. Our thoughts are with Charlie, his loved ones, and everyone affected.”
The BBC reports the attacker has not yet been arrested.
NATO SHOOTS DOWN RUSSIAN DRONES
Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk says his country is at its closest to open conflict since World War II after 19 Russian drones entered Polish airspace.
Polish and NATO aircraft shot down some of the drones, Tusk said, with NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte calling the incident “absolutely reckless”, the BBC reports.
Moscow said it had carried out “a mass strike” on military-industrial targets in western Ukraine, including with attack drones, on Tuesday night and that “there had been no plans to target facilities on the territory of Poland”.
Russia said it was “ready to hold consultations with the Polish defence ministry on this subject”.
The condemnation from NATO nations has been as expected, with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer calling it an “extremely reckless move”, which “only serves to remind us of [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin’s blatant disregard for peace”. French President Emmanuel Macron said: “These incursions are intolerable and provide yet another demonstration of Russia’s escalatory posture.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared: “The Russians are testing the limits of what is possible. Testing reactions. Watching closely how NATO armed forces act – what they can do and what they cannot do yet.”
US President Donald Trump, on the other hand, had a rather different reaction, with CNN describing it as a “degree of bemusement”.
“What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!” he posted on his Truth Social platform.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
When an article is headlined “Kentucky nurse rescues raccoon reeking of booze, revives it with CPR”, you know you’re in for a ride. The piece in question comes from The Washington Post and tells the tale of nurse Misty Combs saving a raccoon that had fallen into a dumpster full of rainwater and fermented peaches from a nearby distillery.
Combs and her colleagues first saw a large raccoon pacing in a parking lot near their office and then discovered two smaller animals in the dumpster. They managed to get one out, which ran off to find the larger raccoon, but the other was “soaking wet, reeking of moonshine and barely breathing. Combs’s colleagues thought it was dead”, the paper reports.
And then came the life-saving bit, complete with incredible quotes. Combs told the newspaper she recalls thinking: “Not on my watch. I’m going to try to do whatever I can do to save it.”
She then carried out chest compressions on the raccoon while shouting: “Come on, baby! Come on.” Don’t believe me? There’s a video.
The raccoon went on to make a full recovery and, after being returned by a vet, it was Combs who released the animal back into the wild.
Say What?
Was it grace, or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness.
Kamala Harris
The former vice president and the Democrats’ eventual 2024 presidential candidate on the party’s decision to initially support Joe Biden’s bid for reelection last year. The first extract from her memoir, 107 Days, has been published in The Atlantic.
CRIKEY RECAP
Big Tech’s Invisible Hand, launching today, documents through a series of investigations how these lobbying operations work, shedding light on how the sector has attempted to shape legislation and regulations, litigated against governments in the courts, deployed its influence operations to avoid regulation, influenced the debate on public information, and played down the environmental impact of data centers, the huge pieces of infrastructure that house their thousands of servers.
For the secretive Murdochs, the succession drama has been a nightmare. It’s far from over
After the blockbuster $5 billion Murdoch family succession settlement, Rupert, 94, is now likely permanently estranged from three of his adult billionaire children — James, Elisabeth and Prudence. But at least he’s aligned and able to do deals with two of his three living ex-wives, Wendi Deng and Anna Torv.
For an obsessively secretive family — one that has long required its outlets to avoid seriously covering their affairs — the past two years have been a disaster of leaks, courtroom revelations and disclosure by its competitors, led by the hated New York Times.
Yes, Victoria is in the grip of a crime wave, and it’s much worse than anywhere else
The constant stories about crime in Victoria, and particularly theft, aren’t a moral panic or a tabloid media confection. Victoria has a serious crime problem — one other states don’t have.
The problem of retail theft, in particular, is so bad in Victoria that businesses are having to make difficult decisions about protecting staff and customers, including whether to shut stores.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
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Floods in Indonesia’s Bali kill at least nine, officials say (Reuters) ($)
Natural disasters forecast to cost Australia’s young people $100bn by 2060 (Guardian Australia)
Prince Harry meets King Charles for first time in more than a year (BBC)
From memes to job cuts: Corporate Australia cannot hide from Reddit (AFR)
How Lofi Girl became a chill beats empire (404 Media)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Sacking Jacinta Nampijinpa Price was Sussan Ley’s only option, and she took it — David Speers (ABC): Ley knows as well as anyone that Senator Nampijinpa Price holds strong support among the Liberal membership and with conservative commentators, who agree with her more hardline approach on immigration.
The senator will now have greater freedom to advocate alternative positions on this issue, along with climate change and Indigenous affairs, from the backbench.
While there’s no mood across the Liberal Party to revisit the leadership right now, this is a deeply divided party.
Mud-slinging may stick, but for now Sussan Ley is in charge — Geoff Chambers (The Australian): Sussan Ley has finally found the nerve to swing the axe and demote Jacinta Nampijinpa Price after days of ugly internal Coalition mud-slinging and damaging claims of weak leadership.
The messy saga — fuelled by Price’s clumsy mass migration comments suggesting Indians were being brought into the country to boost Labor’s vote — has exposed cracks in the Liberal Party and Ley’s long-term leadership aspirations.
Not for the first time since the disastrous May 3 election, the Coalition has lost a week talking about themselves and fighting over an issue (in migration) that they are generally united on.
Ley should have called Price earlier. Price should have apologised. And the Coalition should have spent the week picking apart Anthony Albanese’s climate change plans and Australia’s losing battle with China in the South Pacific.
