Kate Middleton as Princess of Wales South African State Banquet Jenny Packham dress and Diana tiara, Sanna Marin Australia visit, NACC latest, Celeste Barber, Sarah Harris The Project
All the news that’s fit to mint.
What’s happening in (The) Oz:
🇫🇮 Put your punch bowls out, Sanna Marin is coming over
💪🏼 Nurses in NSW and WA are going on strike
✈️ We are shutting up and ‘mongrel’ Qantas is taking our money
⚽️ The French finally got payback for those cancelled submarines
❤️🩹 A Liberal MP opens up about her DV experience
👑 The Princess of Wales 2.0 has entered the chat
📺 The Project has a fabulous new host
🏀 Aussie NBA star Ben Simmons returns to his ex
😂 Celeste Barber tells us to, rightly, ‘piss off’
🗳 What’s being promised in the Victorian election today
It’s Thursday. Welcome.
It turns out revenge is a French dish best served cold.
And on the football pitch.
We copped karma from France at the World Cup after we broke up with them and ditched their subs before hooking up with AUKUS.
(A defence arrangement China labelled a “threat” to Australia’s relationship with China and a danger to “world peace” on Wednesday).
But back to the soccer where the Socceroos scored but lost. The game was the sporting equivalent of the Toolies at Schoolies – hopeful but pathetic.
READ MORE: Watching the Socceroos rattle a cocky France
House party?
Finnish PM Sanna Marin is coming to visit.
Unfortunately it’s for work, not play (or a house party).
It’s the first time a Finnish leader will visit Australia.
The 37-year-old, who is the youngest person to hold office in Finnish history, will head down with a bunch of suits that’ll form her business delegation.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed on Wednesday she’ll also deliver a speech at the Lowy Institute in Sydney.
#vicvotes is almost over
The Victorian election is on Saturday.
On Wednesday Premier Dan Andrews promised:
- A $51 million package to assist pharmacists and GPs in the delivery of primary healthcare.
- Including a $30,000 salary top-up to encourage more junior hospital doctors to become GPs.
- A re-elected Andrews government would also cover the cost of junior doctors’ exams.
- And allow pharmacists to treat some minor health conditions, such as urinary tract infections, weird skin things and reissue The Pill. In a similar trial that is happening now in Queensland and NSW.
The opposition’s Matthew Guy pledged:
- Plans to bring forward his $2 metro public transport fare promise.
- Regional travellers will pay half price V/Line fares from January 1. “In time for the Australian Open,” Guy said and the rest of the summer school holidays.
Don’t call the midwife
They won’t answer.
Especially those in NSW and WA on Friday as they are planning 24-hour walkouts across Sydney, Bega, Batemans Bay, Wagga and Griffith and Perth.
NSW nurses walked off the job from 7am on Wednesday. It is the fourth statewide action this year. Why? They are (still) citing slow progress from the NSW government on fixing staffing and workload issues.
“Since our first statewide strike on 15 February, nurses and midwives have gone above and beyond to put patient care ahead of their own basic needs,” NSW Nurses and Midwives Association General Secretary Shaye Candish said.
“Shift after shift they have continued, burdened by short staffing and constant requests for overtime… It is now mid-November and no real solutions have been offered to address the health staffing or workload crisis.”
Many NSW healthcare workers will miss out on thank you bonuses after Treasurer Jim Chalmers refused to make the $3000 payments tax-free.
WA nurses will go on strike on Friday as months (if not years) of negotiations stalled with the state government. They are demanding a 5% pay increase from the only government in the country that is sitting on a huge Budget surplus.
The decision to take unprotected industrial action came after they rejected the the McGowan government’s latest pay and conditions offer.
Shocked by not surprised
Qantas is set to make a lot of profit of us desperate to see our loved ones who dare to live interstate or internationally.
The airline upgraded its profit expectations for the first half of the 2023 financial year, citing “strong post-pandemic travel demand”.
The company, which only earlier this month was labelled Australia’s “most disappointing”, said on Wednesday it was expecting a net profit before tax of $1.35 to $1.45 billion next year.
That’s a a $150 million increase to what was forecast just a few weeks ago.
The growing profit expectations were made despite the extraordinary cost of fuel, which Qantas said was expected to hit $5 billion in the next financial year.
Look. I’m no maths whizz but it could also have something to do with the fact it costs more than $2000 to fly to Perth from Sydney right now.
However the good news for its shareholders was overshadowed when NSW Labor Senator Tony Sheldon unleashed on CEO Alan Joyce who was in Canberra meeting with the PM.
Sheldon – a former vice-president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and secretary of the Transport Workers’ Union of Australia – blasted Qantas for upgrading its profit expectations while reportedly planning to strip 1300 workers of their overtime payments.
“Alan Joyce’s push to turn around and get rid of wages and conditions from Australian workers and the fact that he is the ‘sharp part of the knife’ going into working people’s rights,” Sheldon said.
“He’s about to thrust it into the heart of 1300 other people that work for him right now (by putting them on salaries) and saying to the same people doing the negotiations, either abandon the 1300 people, throw them on the unpaid overtime scrapheap or turn around and don’t get a wage increase.
“That’s the sort of mongrel corporate gorillaship that we have in this country that needs to be said no to.”
“These are workers who, when somebody is stranded, they turn around and work the extra hours,” Sheldon said.
“They’ll do that whether they’re on overtime payments or on their salary payments.
“The difference is Alan Joyce doesn’t want to pay them and that’s part of his war on the middle class of this country.”
Sheldon reckons it’s an “orchestrated approach” by business.
“Pay the overtime, respect your workforce and respect the Australians working hard for your company,” he said.
A Qantas spokesperson said the Senator’s claims are “simply false”.
Horror of DV hits the House of Representatives
Shadow Home Affairs minister Karen Andrews cried during a speech to parliament outlining her personal connection to domestic violence.
Speaking ahead of Friday’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Andrews described her terror as she waited to hear whether loved ones were okay.
“In all likelihood, we all know many of these victims,” she said.
“Unfortunately I am one of those people who has had to wait for text messages to come in and phone calls to come in – and the phone calls are much worse – wondering if someone you love is still alive.”
Andrews said she would dedicate her time in parliament to fighting the issue.
“It is traumatic sitting on the sidelines,” she said.
“When you’re home at night and the phone rings and you’re wondering what you’re going to hear, it is a very traumatic experience.”
Andrews said domestic violence was difficult to understand for those who had not witnessed it.
She spoke on consent and the need to educate adults who avoided talking about the issue, commending advocates like Saxon Mullins, Chanel Contos and state governments for working to reform consent laws.
Introducing the new Princess of Wales
It’s not just King Charles who has a new job since the Queen died.
Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge is now the Princess of Wales – a title previously held by her late mother-in-law Princess Diana.
The artist also formerly known as Kate stole the show at a State Banquet held to honour visiting South African President Cyril Ramaphosa who is visiting London on official business.
For her first banquet after being bumped up the line of succession, Catherine wore a $7500 caped Jenny Packham dress.
But the devil was in the details.
She paid homage to all of the women who’ve gone before her with her jewels and other accoutrements.
Catherine pulled out her favourite tiara – Queen Mary’s Lover’s Knot Tiara – which was a wedding gift to Diana back in the 1980s.
She teamed it with Princess Diana’s Collingwood pearl earrings and Queen Alexandra of Denmark’s necklace, a wedding gift that was a favourite of the Queen Mother’s.
She was also wearing her Royal Victorian Order (that’s the blue, red and white sash) and Queen Elizabeth’s Royal Family Order (the yellow ribbon). She did that as King Charles is yet to release and hand out his Royal Family Order accessories yet.
Stay tuned for more royal visitors.
“Our” Crown Princess Mary of Denmark will be in UK next week.
The Tassie born princess will meet with Queen Consort Camilla at Clarence House before attending a reception at Buckingham Palace for UN’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
Sarah Harris to host The Project
Journalist Sarah Harris will start hosting Ten’s news and current affairs show from next year since nearly everyone quit.
READ MORE: Lisa Wilkinson quits
Harris hosts Studio 10 – the morning show – but is a veteran reporter who clapped back at critics in 2015 when she rushed to cover the South Australian bushfires. She did so without make-up on which troubled some arm chair critics who’s houses were not under threat.
Ben Simmons returns to the town that kind of hates him
The Australian NBA star endured a night of booing and nasty chants, including the original “F… Ben Simmons” on his return to Philadelphia.
Simmons used to play for the 76ers before he had an epic meltdown during the playoffs last year which saw him shoot hoops like me (without any accuracy) before he was traded to the Brooklyn Nets – where he now plays alongside another Australian in Patty Mills.
He was booed every time he went near the ball and when he missed a few baskets – especially free throws – the hostile crowd were given free chicken nuggets.
Savage.
However speaking after the game he wasn’t that worried.
“I thought it was going to be louder.”
Celeste Barber just murdered cancel culture
She’s just wrapped up a wildly successful stand up tour around the US and Europe.
Now the comedienne is on the promo trial for her next project – a movie about Dolly Parton called Seriously Red.
However the woman who’s made a name, career and massive fan base for taking the piss is telling people to piss off.
“I don’t understand when comedians became the moral compass of the world,” she muses. “We make money off dick jokes. I don’t remember the time or understand the reasoning behind now comedians, if you say something offensive – which we’ve always said and how we get successful is to push buttons – all of a sudden, you’ll lose your career over it. I don’t remember agreeing to that,” she told the Daily Telegraph.
“I also am now at a point where I still operate from a place of already been cancelled. I’m just going to act as though I am because I don’t know what else to do. People need to be held accountable but this whole thing of just going ‘no, I don’t like it therefore you are done’, I am like ‘no, piss off, go away’. Just don’t come to the show. I’m here to make you laugh.”
Amen.
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