Saturday 04-04-2026 5:44am

The four astronauts woke up after sleeping in two separate shifts, and their first challenge was hygiene without gravity, followed by a workout.

Astronauts chatting via Oz

The Artemis II crewmembers has been chatting with NASA mission control back on Earth as they navigate key milestones in their journey, thanks to a network of giant satellites. The satellites, known as the Deep Space Network, support space missions and provide radar and radio observations. The instruments are positioned equidistant from each other in the United States, Spain and Australia, according to NASA. This allows the satellites to be in constant contact with spacecraft, even as Earth rotates, the space agency said. These aren’t your typical TV satellites that give you the latest cable channels. Each DSN antenna is about 230 feet wide — taking up about two-thirds of a football field. DSN satellites also have a tracking capacity, providing measurement to the ground crew to allow them to determine the spacecraft’s precise location and velocity. Tomorrow, on day three of the Artemis II mission, the crew will carry out a communications test through the DSN. But, there will still be various parts of the 10-day mission where the Artemis II astronauts will lose all contact with the team of mission controllers, as they attempt to go farther than any human has ever gone before. One of those blackouts will occur during the 45-minute period that the crew is traveling closest to the moon’s surface as they venture to the lunar far side, blocking data from transmitting to or from Earth. — CNN


 SPORT:

Slaughter night down under and NFL

A night of slaughter as Manly (Sea Eagles) sent the banana benders(Dolphins) packing 52-18 and in that other sport, AFL, Brisbane sent Collingwood to the 'burbs 119-65. [click to continue reading]

Dean Ritchie in the Oz tells us he’s the $90m man heading to Australia on a mission to sell us on flag football.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell ∼ one of the world’s most powerful sporting administrators ∼ will arrive in the next few days for a range of top-level meetings with Australian Olympic officials and Australian tourism.

Goodell’s primary reason for travelling to Australia is to nail down a place for flag football ∼ a tackle-free version of American football ∼ at the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane.

Goodell ∼ who earns an incentive-based annual salary reported to be around $A90m ∼ is also expected to be briefed on how the NFL’s history-making competition game between the LA Rams and San Francisco 49ers at the MCG on September 11 is tracking.

The NFL, through Goodell, has identified Australia as a potential growth market for America’s most popular sport. Goodell oversees a business where the average franchise is worth $7.1 billion.

It is understood Goodell’s main meeting around the Olympics will be held next Thursday in Queensland.

Flag football events are scheduled at Robina on the Gold Coast this Friday, and the following Friday, with suggestions Goodell could arrive from America on Saturday.

The inaugural American football Australian Flag League competition starts in April with men’s and women’s flag football to debut as an Olympic sport at Los Angeles in 2028.

Flag football is one of many sports fighting for inclusion at the 2032 Olympics.

Rugby league nines, Aussie rules, netball, touch football, cricket, lawn bowls and surf life saving are also making a pitch to make the cut for Brisbane.

However, Goodell’s power and influence is almost certain to convince Olympics officials that flag footy be included for 2032.


 STOCKMARKET:

Markets weak waiting for oil flows

Oil prices surged on Thursday and global equity markets retreated after remarks by U.S. President Donald Trump dashed hopes of a swift resolution to the Iran war, Reuters updated on today's website. [click to continue reading]

Still, European shares trimmed losses and U.S. bond prices clawed back gains on renewed hopes of a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran was drafting a protocol with Oman to monitor traffic in the narrow waterway through which a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas is shipped, its foreign ministry said.

Brent crude surged more than 7% a barrel after Trump said in a prime-time address on Wednesday that the United States would hit Iran "extremely hard" in the coming weeks and bring them back to the Stone Ages where they belong.

On Wall Street, stocks were lower on the last trading day of the week, with markets closed for the Good Friday holiday.

Gold prices fell as the U.S. dollar gained.

Government bond yields jumped on expectations that an inflation spike would force central banks to raise interest rates, or at least keep them on hold.

The dollar index , which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, climbed 0.48%.

Over the past 48 hours, Tehran and Washington have exchanged a cacophony of statements, some suggesting rising odds of de-escalation, BCA Research’s Felix-Antoine Vezina-Poirier said. Our GeoMacro strategists offer simple guidance for weighing volatile headlines: Stick to the facts. First, shipping through Hormuz has picked up over the past few days. Second, Iran is deliberately shifting away from GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) targets toward Israeli ones.

MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe fell 0.59% to 990.80.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.39% to 46,383.81, the S&P 500 declined 0.23% to 6,560.04 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.28% to 21,780.32.

In a closely watched address on Wednesday, Trump said U.S. attacks on Iran would be intensified over the next two to three weeks. That came just a day after he told Reuters the United States would be out of Iran pretty quickly.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index and Europe’s broad FTSEurofirst 300 index both lost 0.2%.

South Korea’s Kospi index (.KS11), opens new tab slid 4.7%.

The only thing that really matters is whether the Strait of Hormuz will open soon, said Prashant Newnaha, senior rates strategist at TD Securities.

Trump earlier said on Wednesday the United States did not need the key oil gateway.

Spot gold dropped 2.15% to $4,654.89 an ounce and U.S. gold futures settled down 2.8% at $4,679.70.

India’s central bank moved to ban trading of so-called non-deliverable forwards in an effort to halt the rupee’s run of record lows. The move sent the currency up 2% , although analysts questioned how long the rebound would last.

Brent futures rallied 7.59% to $108.84 a barrel, as U.S. West Texas Intermediate settled up 11.41% to $111.54.

The fact that we can expect 2-3 more weeks of action, boots on the ground were not ruled out (during Trump’s TV address) and that threats to hit infrastructure were reiterated, will put the market back on the defensive, Pictet Asset Management’s Jon Withaar said.

In a closely watched address on Wednesday, Trump said U.S. attacks on Iran would be intensified over the next two to three weeks. That came just a day after he told Reuters the United States would be out of Iran pretty quickly.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index and Europe’s broad FTSEurofirst 300 index both lost 0.2%.

South Korea’s Kospi index slid 4.7%.

The only thing that really matters is whether the Strait of Hormuz will open soon, said Prashant Newnaha, senior rates strategist at TD Securities.

Trump earlier said on Wednesday the United States did not need the key oil gateway.

Spot gold dropped 2.15% to $4,654.89 an ounce and U.S. gold futures settled down 2.8% at $4,679.70.

India’s central bank moved to ban trading of so-called non-deliverable forwards in an effort to halt the rupee’s run of record lows. The move sent the currency up 2% , although analysts questioned how long the rebound would last.

Brent futures rallied 7.59% to $108.84 a barrel, as U.S. West Texas Intermediate settled up 11.41% to $111.54.

The fact that we can expect 2-3 more weeks of action, boots on the ground were not ruled out (during Trump’s TV address) and that threats to hit infrastructure were reiterated, will put the market back on the defensive, Pictet Asset Management’s Jon Withaar said.


[click the intro to return to front page]


 NEWS:

🚚 Costs test
pricing
pressure

The nation’s food and grocery suppliers have started to request price rises from supermarket giants Woolworths and Coles as soaring fuel prices eats away at their finances, Eli Greenblat writes on The Australian today's website.

The fuel impost is ratcheting up the pressure on food prices as supermarkets consider the option of passing this on to consumers.

Woolworths and Coles on Thursday confirmed to The Australian that some suppliers have asked for a price increase.

The Australian has been told by a number of suppliers that they will need to ask the country’s largest supermarket chains for a better price for their goods to cope with the leap in fuel charges which is impacting all parts of their business and shaving tens of millions of dollars from their bottom line.

While the number of food and grocery suppliers asking for higher prices for their goods so far only numbers a few dozens across both Woolworths and Coles, that is expected to quickly accelerate as the rising fuel price shows no signs of moderating and other input costs ∼ such as plastic and packaging ∼ also balloons in response to the war in the Middle East.

Under the food and grocery code of conduct ∼ a federal government deal brokered between the nation’s largest supermarket chains and food and grocery suppliers ∼ the supermarket chains have 30 days to respond to a supplier’s request for a price rise. That doesn't mean prices will immediately rise at the checkout, as Woolworths and Coles are able to absorb some of that higher price rather than pass it on to the shopper.

But with cost pressures increasing for the supermarket chains as well their ability to absorb and withstand those price rises, industry analysts believe shelf prices eventually will need to rise.

Woolworths has confirmed that some suppliers have approached it since the war in the Middle East broke out to request higher prices for their goods to cope with the inflated costs associated with transport and logistics to packaging.

In an environment where Aussie families are facing rapidly increasing cost-of-living pressures, retailers and suppliers have a careful job to sustainably manage growing cost pressures, while also trying to reduce the full impact on shoppers, a Woolworths spokesman said yesterday.

We need to strike the right balance of supporting the viability of our suppliers and transport partners while advocating for our mutual customers to help buffer the impact on them at the checkout.

Woolworths is working through requests to increase prices on a case-by-case basis.

Coles has confirmed suppliers have also approached it to request price rises.

We know there is upward pressure across several key agricultural input costs, particularly fuel and fertiliser, which are critical for farming, food production and transport, a Coles spokesman said.

Coles' long-term, direct relationships with suppliers, including Australian farmers, mean we are able to work with them to manage their own cost pressures, support continuity of supply, and smooth the impact on consumers.

We are committed to providing value to our customers. Our first priority will always be to mitigate any change from flowing through to the shelf.


 CHATTER:

Now you see it … the dismantling of an integral part of Murra's history. Its theatre. The museum has saved the sign.

The good news is Dooleys and the Royal Hotel are open all through Easter but Dooleys will not be selling any bottles of alcohol today — Gary is worried about that man up there will come down through the hatch and give him Hell. Nobody knows what the White Hart or the Mayne Street café are doing but we do know the Railway Hotel is closed all over Easter. The Gelato shop is OPEN today till Sunday. Take-a-break is open this morning from 9-00 to 1pm and then closed until Monday and back to normal hours. The Bowling Club is closed today but open Saturday and Sunday.
♦♦♦♦
Double demerit points until next Tuesday and daylight saving ends on Sunday night (clocks go back one hour). No newspapers today (Good Friday).
♦♦♦♦



🗞 Harry
behaving
badly

Prince Harry sent a string of flirty Facebook messages to a journalist about their movie snuggles, according to court documents, Chris Bradford - The NY Post writes on the news.com.au website today. [click to read more]

33480 could become the strangest postcode in America: Home to Donald Trump, Donald Trump’s favourite omelette bar, Rod Stewart, and Princess Beatrice.

37-year-old Beatrice could become the latest transplant to end up in the Sunshine State, after the Daily Mailreported that she and her husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi are considering a drastic move to kick start their marriage — leaving perfidious Albion behind to start afresh in America.

In good news for matrimonial fans and future SPF sales, the couple are considering a fresh start Stateside in the hope it would get their marriage back on track, with Florida touted as a possible destination.

The claims first emerged last week that things have not exactly been bueno for the couple and for a while. A source told the Mail that she wants to stay together and is desperate to hold things together, while he seems more and more distracted by work and travel. Just when she needs him most, he’s been pulling away.

It’s been a shocker of a year for the gone-to-ground princess; meanwhile her husband has been racking up frequent flyer points and getting his recommended daily dose of rosè.

In February, while Beatrice’s world was falling apart and her dear Daddy, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, was about to be introduced to the back of a police car, property developer and designer Edo was in Palm Beach, Florida topping up his vitamin D levels for what has been called an extended business trip. Just over two weeks later, he returned to Florida to visit another one of his projects.

During both trips, Edo took the opportunity to Instagram merrily away like an influencer worth their spon-conned veneers, including shots of him at the Art Deco Colony Hotel and holding a glass of wine on the rooftop of the Mr C Miami hotel. (His teeth still appear reliably British.)

Many have jumped on this and argued it is less evidence of him being a dedicated CEO and more a ding-a-ling alarm bell that things might not be peachy on the homefront.

While her sister Princess Eugenie and her husband Jack Brooksbank staged a very couple-y paparazzi moment in February, complete with matching lattes and activewear, Beatrice and Edo have not been photographed together in public since December.

Of Bea and Edo, tensions in their relationship took root over the past year, a separate Mail story has claimed.

And what a year’s it’s been: Andrew’s decade-plus friendship with pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein has erupted like a Krakatoa set on top of a nuclear waste dump, the toxic deluge tainting every member of the House of York. We are still a very long way from the end, with Andrew having been arrested for misconduct in public office and with police set to investigate Andrew over other potential corruption offences, along with a scoping inquiry into alleged sex trafficking, per The Times. (Andrew has previously denied all wrongdoing; there is no suggestion of wrongdoing on the parts of Sarah Ferguson, Beatrice or Princess Eugenie.)

So, Beatrice in all of this? Struggling.

The mother-of-two has been so stressed she can't eat or sleep, according to The Royalist’s Tom Sykes recently.

A royal source has told the Mail that Beatrice not come to terms with her parents' (and the House of York’s) downfall and that She was brought up to believe in dynasty and blue blood.

The princess keeps bursting into tears, which [Edo] finds concerning. (Husband of the year alert!)

Compounding the situation is that Beatrice is lacking much of a support network. She was hyper-dependent on her mother and sister, although they aren't in easy contact just now. She is quite isolated, especially with Edo away just now.'

Edo, however, is said to fear the contagion of the Epstein association.

According to the report, he is said to be sick and tired of the York drama and is determined to distance himself from his toxic in-laws to protect his reputation and business.

Because his business, ever since becoming engaged to his princess wife in 2019, has enjoyed quite the boom. When they first got together, Edo wasn't nearly so successful, a former associate told the Mail. Being adjacent to royalty was transformative.

The media interest that came with his marriage, It was the kind of publicity money can't buy, the associate has said. Would he have got it if he wasn't her [Beatrice’s] husband? Of course not.

Figures reported by the Mail say that Edoardo’s Banda Designs branch went from being $471,000 in the red in 2019 to turning over $2.4 million in 2024.

(Banda and Edo have also got projects in Sydney and the Gold Coast.)

According to the Mail, Beatrice and her husband are at odds over how best to navigate this familial crisis.

While Edo, per the Mail’s source, has been working hard on keeping Bea distant from her parents, the last time she was photographed taking her four-year-old daughter Sienna for a ride at Windsor Castle with Andrew in what looked like an outrageously blatant attempt to buck up the former Duke of York’s decimated image. (As far as repair operations went, it was like using a single Bandaid to try and patch up the Titanic.)

Even since then, Bea is in regular touch with her father, per the Mail, making a a top-secret visit to see him after being banished to the wilds of Norfolk. Said a royal source: Whether or not Edo knew about it is not clear.

There is possibly even more bad news coming down the pike for Beatrice and sister Eugenie.

Beatrice and Eugenie could lose their royal pied-a-terres.

They both still enjoy homes in royal properties ∼ St James’s Palace and Kensington Palace ∼ for which they are believed to face far below market rates. Soon the UK parliament is set to launch an investigation into the peppercorn rents and leasing arrangements of Crown Estate properties. Given the political climate and public feeling about the monarchy, I wouldn't be that certain they will necessarily have these much longer.

Ditto being able to call themselves HRHs and princesses.

There is talk in the Royal Household of what happens next, even down to titles, a source told the Mail. Nothing is guaranteed any more.

So with all of this going in the UK, jumping British ship and heading to some tony bit of Florida sounds like a decent idea. Palm Beach is reportedly a hot new go-to for wealthy Brits — wealthy Brits who probably have the seven and eight figure-budgets for building the marble-laden mega mansions that Edo oversees.

[click the intro to return to front page]




🚑 Heartfelt
plea to
drivers

A seasoned officer and mother of four has recalled the heartbreaking Sydney crash that left a mum and two children dead, as she makes an emotional plea to motorists over Easter, Danielle Gusmaroli reports in the Daily Telegraph newspaper today. [click to read more]

Amid flashing lights and the acrid smell of burning petrol, Highway Patrol officer Kim White noticed the still form of a small child covered with a white blanket on the ground at a crash scene.

Assessing the scene, she was caught off guard and found herself seeing her own three-year-old son in the fragile form lying on the Sydney roadside, while paramedics fought to save the toddler’s baby sibling in the ambulance helicopter.

Their mother was found deceased, trapped inside the family car.

It’s not the most confronting job I've been on but that one incident several years ago resonated with me, said the mother of four, 41, who is trained in crashes and trauma with eight years' experience with the Traffic and Highway Patrol Command.

When I arrived, the ambulance helicopter was there, with the aero medical team, working on the surviving child, a baby, from the collision.

Due to the medical procedure being conducted in the ambulance helicopter on the surviving child, the scene needed to be still, we couldn't move, or talk, or start processing the scene because medical assistance must come first … she said.

I spoke to a witness and looked over to my right and saw a small child underneath a white blanket, it was a really eerie feeling, she recalled.

“Leaving, going back to my office and in the work car, I completely broke down.

“At that time, my son was the same age as the deceased child, who was between two and three.

“You can't help but put your child’s face on that child’s body. You can't help it. And then you sympathise with the feelings of a parent that has just lost their entire family.

It’s difficult to keep your emotions in check so you can complete the job you have to do.

Pausing, she went on: “Any parent, losing a child, is just something that you can't imagine.

For a long time I couldn't talk about it but I learned to deal with it — yet families have to live with it for the rest of their lives, she said.

As a first responder the acting sergeant White’s message to the travelling public over the Easter holiday is slow down, drive safely — not just to avoid fines but to prevent moments like this.

State-wide there were 31 fatalities in February alone, eight more (35%) than in February the previous year, according to Transport for NSW crash data.

[click the intro to return to front page]



👠 Fashion
trade show
expands

Australian fashion week: designer Toni Maticevski to show for first time in 10 years. The Melbourne designer is set to stage a runway show at the tentpole national fashion showcase, which will be held at a new location this year, reports Alyx Gorman on today's Guardian website. [click to read more].

Maticevski was one of more than 20 designers announced at the trade show’s schedule launch yesterday.

The designer, whose works are worn by A-list celebrities and are held in the collections of major museums, told Guardian Australia that seeing the new crew of designers, and what they were doing last year inspired his return to the event.

It was so innovative and exciting in terms of design and concepts, and I thought, 'you know what, that’s the kind of industry that I want to be a part of.'

Maticevski is known for his elaborate pattern-making and drapery which lends a science-fiction edge to his feminine, 1950s-style silhouettes. He said he was planning on an intimate presentation. I just want to keep it discreet and not scream or anything.

At AFW’s schedule launch, the event’s fashion director, Kellie Hush, said: It’s really important that we have those established names on the schedule.

Other major brands showing include Carla Zampatti and Aje; as well as long-running labels Bianca Spender, Mariam Seddiq and Gary Bigeni.

They will be joined by newer names including Ngali, Esse, Nicol and Ford, Alix Higgins, Courtney Zheng and Iordanes Spyridon Gogos.

There will also be showcases of emerging talent, including First Nations designers. Tafe NSW’s longstanding student showcase, the Innovators, will also return after a year’s absence from the official program.

Speaking at the launch event, Hush said the event had more than 200 submissions from designers hoping to take part, which resulted in spirited discussions among the selection committee.

Australian fashion week will have a new harbour-front location, at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art, this year after 13 years at Carriageworks.

Australian fashion week is a trade event, where media and buyers from local and international boutiques and department stores come to preview and purchase collections. Hush said interest from international buyers had been strong. So Austrade, we're going to have to hit them up for more cash next year, Hush said. [click the intro to return to front page]


 COMMENT:

Murrurundi Times news site with items covering national news and Upper Hunter region including the township of Murrurundi
Bob Hawke famously challenged the federal Liberal Party in the 1980s: If you can't govern yourselves you can't govern the country. The Victorian Liberal Party is in much the same position. writes Peta Credlin, in The Australian today. [click to read more]

Its internal inadequacies mean the worst state Labor government in the country may be re-elected for a fourth term, not because it commands any real voter support but because the alternative has even less.

That the Liberal Party failed to win the last state election, in 2022, against a government that had turned Melbourne into the most locked-down city in the world showed almost epic ineptitude.

But intimidated by premier Daniel Andrews and plagued by factional wars, the Liberals thought their best plan was to out-Labor Labor with a leader, in Matthew Guy, whom voters had already comprehensively rejected in 2019.

Predictably, offered a choice between an oppressive and incompetent Labor government and a Liberal opposition aping it, voters stuck with the devil they knew.

If anything, since then it has got even worse. The Liberals have had a further three leaders in the past 12 months.

Plus almost no policy other than the no-brainers to repeal the emergency services levy, which taxes farmers for the volunteer firefighting they mostly do themselves, and to repeal the Victorian version of the voice — the federal version of which Victorian voters rejected 54-46 at the 2023 referendum (but which, earlier, state Liberals had supported).

Despite this, the Labor government’s travails - the latest being its complicity in CFMEU corruption claims that have added perhaps $15bn to the cost of its much-hyped Big Build - mean the Libs are now just marginally ahead in the polls.

Not by enough to be confident of the 7%-plus two-party-preferred swing needed to win, yet by enough to know that if only they could avoid making themselves the issue they might finally fall over the line.

But that was then, this is now, and two things have hit them hard: the inexorable rise of One Nation and the Moira Deeming preselection debacle which, given the fight they have to win 16 seats, is an extraordinary act of self-harm.

Deeming is the upper house Liberal MP who helped to organise a women’s rights rally in 2023 that was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis; who was accused by her then leader, John Pesutto, of herself being a neo-Nazi sympathiser; who was subsequently expelled from the Liberal partyroom, only successfully to sue Pesutto for defamation; and who was then readmitted to the partyroom and promoted — only to be beaten last weekend for preselection by a serial candidate accused of ethnic branch-stacking.

Who was then dumped as the endorsed candidate himself for giving a convicted pedophile a glowing pre-sentence personal reference despite knowing what it was for and subsequently denying that he'd done so.

You cannot make this stuff up, can you?

There are recent precedents where head office has simply endorsed candidates, but instead of doing this with Deeming ∼beaten by someone who should never have been allowed to run ∼ the Victorian Liberal Party has now called for a fresh preselection with nominations to close at noon on Thursday.

Already, moderates are hitting the phones to marshal the ousted Dinesh Gourisetty’s bloc of votes against Deeming, so it is hard to see that she will face a fair fight. Gourisetty, it should be noted, donated to Pesutto’s legal defence, as disclosed in the latest parliamentary returns (as did Heath Williams and former MP Louise Staley, who both publicly abused Deeming online this week).

Right now, Deeming is considering her position, unsure whether to give the Libs one last chance to treat her fairly or to walk, perhaps to join One Nation, a party that would welcome her with open arms, as a conservative woman who has become a hero to everyone who thinks trans rights should not trump women’s rights.

But apart from the preselection, there’s another related but even more troubling issue arising from the whole Deeming saga; namely the Liberal Party’s decision to bankroll the legal costs awarded against Pesutto last year by the Federal Court, costs that he'd previously said would be covered by donors who are, as yet, anonymous but who are refusing to pony up for their mate.

It’s said by those senior Liberals challenging the party’s decision to lend Pesutto the $1.5m he owes Deeming (and thereby to stave off bankruptcy and expulsion from the parliament) that the state party president, Phil Davis, refused to provide state executive with details of the Pesutto loan agreement, any advice about its legality or the names of Pesutto’s supposed guarantors before ramming it through on factional numbers.

It’s thought that the discovery process in this case could expose more factional skulduggery, hence there’s an attempt to delay further hearings until after November’s state election.

Ponder this. The Liberal woman who won a court case over appalling treatment by a Liberal man is turfed out, whereas the Liberal man who lost is given millions out of party coffers to save his skin and gets preselected without a contest. And these clowns wonder why they have a problem with women?

It is no wonder there’s now a formal motion from state executive member Colleen Harkin calling on Davis and his state party vice-presidents to resign, as well as a Change.Org petition from rank-and-file Liberals demanding he go.

Add in the now serious demands for federal intervention and you can readily see that the Liberals have no chance of a November win unless this is resolved.

Under the Liberal Party’s federal constitution, the federal executive can intervene in the affairs of a state division if it is unable or unwilling to perform its functions or if its conduct is seriously detrimental to the interests of the party".

Although this threshold has surely been met, given factional divisions on the federal executive, talk that 80-year-old federal president John Olsen wants to retire and the relatively fragile positions of both the state and federal parliamentary leadership, the appetite for intervention is unclear.

What is clear, though, is that One Nation poll numbers in Victoria are surging and, as SA shows, that would mean a win for Labor.

If the Liberals don't remove the Allan government, on top of all their other recent failures, the party’s doom spiral would be cemented.

Without decisive action, what has been the most successful political party in Australian history, like its predecessors the Nationalist Party and the United Australia Party, could itself be passing into history.


Murrurundi Times news site with items covering national news and Upper Hunter region including the township of Murrurundi
It is not inherently wrong for governments to smooth shocks that consumers could not reasonably insure against. On the contrary, that has always been the governing principle in times of calamity — whether epidemics or war. Henry Ergas writes in the The Australian today. [click to read more]

There is no reason that principle should not apply to the current spike in oil prices. Unlike the shocks of 1973 and 1979, this surge is likely to prove temporary; if it does not, any measure the government adopts can be reversed, allowing price signals to reassert themselves.

In the meantime, shifting part of the immediate burden on to future taxpayers ∼ who may bear it in less turbulent conditions ∼ is defensible, just as it was during Covid.

But that does not let the government off the hook. While households could not have insured themselves against this shock, governments have no such excuse.

Governments repeatedly warned

The fragility of Australia’s fuel security is not a newly discovered risk. For decades, experts have warned ∼ repeatedly and in detail ∼ of the need to guard against supply disruptions: by building stockpiles, preserving access to refining capacity and supporting rather than strangling domestic production.

Against that background, the absence of preparation is not merely surprising; it is inexcusable. Nor is this a one-off failure.

Much the same was true of Covid, despite the efforts made during the Howard years ∼ notably by Tony Abbott ∼ to put epidemic preparedness on a surer footing. Faced with two such serious debacles in quick succession, one inevitably recalls Oscar Wilde: to fail once may be misfortune; to fail twice begins to look like carelessness.

Carelessness — and something worse. What, precisely, have Canberra’s energy experts been doing, other than producing glossy reports on the so-called energy transition — a transition that has now left us without energy? Having spent years denouncing fossil fuels, officials might now acquaint themselves with the elementary fact that they remain indispensable.

Intellectual failure

The failure here is not merely administrative; it is intellectual. As Dwight D. Eisenhower put it, plans are useless but planning is indispensable.

It forces one to confront how many things can go wrong and to identify those that matter most. Above all, it guards against a deeply ingrained error: the tendency to confuse the unfamiliar with the improbable, to assume that what has not yet happened will not happen at all.

Of course, no system of foresight is perfect. As Cicero wryly noted, soothsayers can scarcely cross each other in the forum without winking — a warning against taking their claims too seriously. But that is no defence of the scale of failure we have witnessed. When dangers lurk, it is impossible to foresee everything; it takes a special talent to foresee nothing.

Albos reckless governing

Nor is the problem confined to planning. It extends to learning — and here, too, the record is dismal. The Albanese government’s politically convenient refusal to conduct a serious, independent reckoning with Covid is not merely disappointing: it is reckless.

Everyone errs; only fools refuse to learn from their mistakes. Whether this episode triggers a genuinely independent and public review ∼ one Australians can actually trust ∼ will be the clearest test of whether the lesson has been grasped.

This much is certain: there will be more epidemics, more wars, more supply shocks. In the face of that reality, we are entitled to expect at least one quality from those who govern us: what Aristotle called prudence, which is not caution but judgment, seeing danger coming and acting before it is too late. At present, we see it when it punches us in the jaw.

A medieval sage once asked: Who owns the unexpected? The answer, he thought, was an omniscient, omnipotent God. Nowadays, it seems to be Canberra, a fractious committee of trumped-up demigods, who turn out to be horribly inept mortals. Little wonder we end up paying the price.



 OVERSEAS:

Getting a pink Fiat 500 for my 50th birthday changed my life but navigating south-west London is unbearable thanks to the oversized 4x4s ruining our streets, writes Jessica (*name changed). These giant wagons fearlessly hurtle towards us with bonnets higher than our roofs, pummeling roads into potholes and turning the school run into a gridlocked arms race. I am tired of driving with my heart in my mouth, scared that an SUV driver will crush me under their giant wheels. It is time to tax these selfish status symbols. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has demanded that other Western countries fight for themselves against Iran, telling Britain to "get your own oil" and learn "how to fight". Trump's criticism comes as the effects of the war in Britain are being felt even more acutely, with energy prices soaring and the chief executive of the NHS warning that medical supplies are within days of running out, reports The Telegraph editor Chris Evans. Latest headlines: ♦ Grooming inquiry to expose police who ignored abuse. ♦ King's US state visit to go ahead amid Iran tensions. ♦ Starmer critic has Labour whip suspended. ♦ Highland cows hidden away to protect them from TikTok tourists. ♦ Roberto De Zerbi appointed Tottenham manager. ♦ Billionaire's Knightsbridge home burgled twice in four days. ♦ Teenagers charged with murder of 16-year-old in Leeds.






The Murrurundi Times is owned, compiled and written by Des Dugan. Email