Morning mail: sports grants outrage, coronavirus lockdown, TV rituals
Good morning, this is Richard Parkin bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Friday 24 January.
Top stories
The scandal-ridden $100m community sport infrastructure program is facing further scrutiny, after a rugby union club in a marginal Coalition-held seat received $500,000 for new female change rooms, despite not fielding a women’s team since 2018. Concerned former members of the club have expressed anger at the lucrative grant despite an alleged culture of mistreatment and misogyny that prompted the entire female team to quit. Then sports minister Bridget McKenzie faces an internal investigation, with the prime minister vowing on Thursday to take “whatever action was necessary” once his department had assessed the concerns.
The Chinese government has cancelled several major public events and put five cities on lockdown, in an attempt to prevent the spread of the deadly coronavirus. Transport links from Wuhan were cancelled, with movie theatres and other entertainment venues forced to shut down, with similar restrictions in place for nearby Huanggang, Ezhou, Chibi and Zhijiang. The World Health Organisation has said it’s too early to declare an emergency, with isolated cases reported in neighbouring Asian nations as well as in the US and Northern Ireland. There have been 17 reported fatalities so far in China, from 575 documented cases.
The Australian Red Cross has been criticised for spending up to 10% of bushfire donations on administration, costs it has claimed are “essential”, despite previously committing 100% of monies raised towards causes. Liberal MP for Bega, Andrew Constance, had questioned delays in distributing $115m in donations the organisation has received since July. The Red Cross’ director, Noel Clement, told Guardian Australia donations had been directed to a standing fund for all-year-round support, and that the NGO will strive to keep administrative costs as low as possible.
Australia
Revenue authorities in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, the UK and US have launched coordinated raids against a multinational financial institution, the first overt “day of action” by a joint tax-enforcement body set up in 2018 to fight tax crime and money laundering.
Three US firefighters have been killed battling bushfires in southern New South Wales, after their waterbombing plane crashed on Thursday afternoon. There has been no indication, as yet, as to what caused the accident.
Biosecurity officials in Sydney have met passengers from one of the last flights out of epidemic-hit Wuhan, clearing those on board of illness, but warning the possibility of “people incubating the virus” had to be considered in coming weeks.
Prime minister Scott Morrison has paid tribute to his father, John, who died, aged 84. “Dad lived a life of love, faith, duty and service,” said Morrison via a Facebook post, honouring his service as a police officer, loving husband and church elder.
The world
Dozens of world leaders have travelled to Jerusalem to remember the Holocaust, with French president Emmanuel Macron warning the “dark shadow of antisemitism is being reborn” as Tel Aviv-based researchers suggested racially motivated attacks on Jews had increased in 2018. Dignitaries attending included Vladimir Putin, US vice president Mike Pence and Prince Charles.
Boris Johnson’s Brexit bill has officially become law, having cleared the various houses of parliament and received royal assent from the Queen. “At times it felt like we would never cross the Brexit finish line, but we’ve done it,” Johnson said. The UK is set to leave the EU on 31 January, providing European parliament approves the deal.
US treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, has belittled Greta Thunberg, dismissing the Swedish school student’s call for immediate fossil fuel divestment, joking to journalists at Davos that he didn’t know who she was and that she shouldn’t be listened to until she’s got a college decree in economics.
The Church of England has declared that sex belongs only within heterosexual marriage, calling on Christians in gay or straight civil partnerships to remain sexually abstinent.
Recommended reads
Sunday night family TV time – it’s a pastime that’s passed the next generation by. From cheering on a dishy John Waters in Rush to despising the hateful Captain in Seven Little Australians its not terrific Australian drama that’s disappeared – it’s the practice of watching it all, together, as a family, writes Lenore Taylor. “The box is skinny now, and rapidly becoming obsolete. The kids, mostly grown, usually watch their shows on their own devices, in their rooms.”
Guardian Australia is asking you, therefore, what are the moments of Australian TV you’ll never forget? Vote at our interactive poll until Wednesday 5 February.
“Sometimes you can see the end of the old world and the beginning of the new one as clearly as a seam.” As a billion animals are killed by flames and starvation and ash washes up on the beaches an understandably despondent Brigid Delaney welcomes in the first summer of the new decade. “It’s the summer of cancelled holidays, of anxious evacuations on jammed roads out of coastal hamlets. It’s fire raining on beaches, and skies that glow red at night and darken in the day.”
At a small nature reserve in Sydney’s eastern suburbs McIver’s ladies bath has become an institution. But hearing rumours of a coven of older women dabbling in nocturnal skinny dipping, Helen Sullivan felt compelled to find out. “I began visiting at full moon, needing – it was a form of madness, and a distraction from it – to know if it was true.”
Listen
It’s the 100 million dollar question – where has all the money from the sports grant program gone? As the prime minister’s department investigates former sports minister Bridget McKenzie following a scathing auditor general report and accusations of pork-barrelling, Laura Murphy-Oates speaks with Paul Karp about who will be held accountable for the scandal.
Sport
Nick Kyrgios has progressed to the third round of the Australian Open, courtesy a 6-2, 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 win over veteran Frenchman Gilles Simon. But as Russell Jackson writes, it was a battle between Good Nick and Bad Nick as the idiosyncratic Australian once again offered up his best and worst.
From telling Saddam Hussein’s troops to abandon their post, to trying to recruit Graham Arnold to coach Iraq, Ali Abbas has seen more in life than the usual A-League player. In an open and reflective interview with Emma Kemp, he talks about the setbacks he’s overcome to carve out a career as a professional footballer.
And, it wouldn’t be Friday without David Squires.. on the comings, and ultimately goings, of Markus Babbel.
Media roundup
Concern is growing for a miner trapped in Tasmania’s Henty Gold Mine, reports the Mercury, with local police expressing “grave fears” he will emerge alive. New Westpac chairman John McFarlane has identified four key priorities to rebuild faith in the bank, with a new chief executive near the top of his list, writes the Financial Review. And, the Australian Federal Police has dismissed a claim against prominent writer and historian Bruce Pascoe that he had benefitted financially from claiming to be Indigenous, the Australian has clarified.
Coming up
The funeral service for Patrick and Robert Salway, the father and son who perished battling a bushfire, will be held at Cobargo cemetery.
The Royal Australian Mint is launching its Lunar Year of the Rat coin collection during Chinese New Year celebrations.
And if you’ve read this far …
An Egyptian priest, mummified 3,000 years ago, has been heard for the first time. Nesyamun, who lived at the beginning of the 11th century BC under Rameses XI, has had his vocal tract 3D printed by researchers, which one Egyptologist said was “amazingly cool”.
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