Both NSW and Victoria have recorded new cases of the monkeypox virus, pushing the nation’s total up to five.
Labor is arguing the wages of Australia’s lowest-paid workers should rise in line with inflation in its highly anticipated submission to the industrial umpire. Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke spoke at a press conference in Sydney to differentiate Labor from the previous government, saying “the government policy of low wages as a deliberate design feature ended today”.
East Timor will sign agreements with Beijing covering air services, healthcare, economic and technical cooperation. This ends Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s tour of the region and increases concerns among countries offshore, including Australia.
Thirty years ago today, the High Court dismissed terra nullius – the legal fiction that Australian land belonged to no one before European settlement – after Eddie Mabo launched a legal challenge in 1992. Family members paid tributes to their father and grandfather, and held ceremonies at Mabo’s grave site on his traditional land at Las Village on Mer Island.

6.21pm on Jun 3, 2022

Test your royal knowledge with our jubilee quiz

As regular readers of this blog will know, the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee has well and truly begun. Corgis, Trooping the Colour, fly overs and countless British flags – these are just a few elements of the spectacular four-day celebration.

Fancy yourself a Royals whizz? Test your knowledge with Silas Aiton’s jubilee quiz.

6.09pm on Jun 3, 2022

Beijing targets East Timor, four deals set to be signed

By Eryk Bagshaw and Raimundos Oki

East Timor will sign agreements with Beijing covering air services, healthcare, economic and technical cooperation, ending Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s tour of the region with a swag of deals in Australia’s closest neighbour.

Landing in Dili on Friday afternoon, Wang was expected to sign off on the pacts driven by East Timorese Prime Minister Taur Matan Ruak who is looking to leverage infrastructure investment from Australia, Japan and China. Timorese government figures confirmed the deal would also include an agreement with Chinese state TV to digitise the country’s national radio and television services, expanding China’s reach just as the ABC prepares to step up its presence in the Pacific.

Wang left Papua New Guinea on Thursday after committing to buying more gas from PNG, and helping Port Moresby with green development, as well as COVID-19 and anti-narcotics programs.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who flew to Samoa and Tonga this week, urged Pacific Island nations to consider their independence, debt levels and regional security before signing any deal with Beijing.

China’s aggressive push into the Pacific has put some countries offside. On Friday, Tonga - which is heavily indebted to China’s infrastructure bank - became the latest country to raise concerns about attempts to shape the regional order. Samoa and New Zealand had criticised China’s approach on Thursday.

6.00pm on Jun 3, 2022

Forrest’s LNG venture hits out at Santos, Woodside gas plans

By Nick Toscano and Mike Foley

Billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest’s energy venture has warned against green-lighting new gas fields to tackle unfolding price shocks, arguing its plan to import liquefied-gas shipments will be a better short-term solution that won’t prolong the use of planet-heating fossil fuels.

The mining magnate’s privately owned Australian Industrial Energy, which is building the nation’s first import terminal for liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments at Port Kembla near Wollongong in NSW, is aiming to begin supplying gas into New South Wales and Victoria from as early as 2023.

As authorities issue alerts over dangerously low gas reserves across the nation’s southern states, Australian Industrial Energy chairman John Hartman said the Port Kembla floating import terminal offered the best solution for energy security and the climate.

“We strongly warn against the approval of new gas projects, such as those proposed by Santos and Woodside,” Hartman said.

“The Port Kembla Energy Terminal will help solve the short-term supply and transportation constraints of the east-coast market, but with infrastructure that can quickly be transitioned to green hydrogen and other green energy uses when the time is right.”

His comments come as Santos, one of the nation’s largest oil and gas producers, this week signalled it would seek to start gas flows from the controversial Narrabri coal-seam gas field in northern NSW up to a year earlier than its targeted production date in 2026.

5.53pm on Jun 3, 2022

Victoria reports its second case of monkeypox

By Nell Geraets

Victoria has recorded its second case of monkeypox in a returned overseas traveller who had visited Europe.

The 30-year-old man developed mild symptoms after recently returning to Melbourne. He sought medical attention, whereupon he tested positive for the virus, and is now isolating at home.

The Victorian Department of Health said they are now following up a small number of contacts who will be asked to monitor for symptoms.

As regular readers of this blog will know, this news comes soon after New South Wales reported a third case in Sydney this afternoon, bringing the nation’s total to five confirmed cases.

Monkeypox is a rare virus that starts with flu-like symptoms, such as fever, headaches and muscle aches and pains. It can also cause a distinctive rash and swollen lymph nodes.

The state’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said monkeypox is not spread easily between people and symptoms usually resolve on their own within two to three weeks.

“Monkeypox isn’t easily transmitted from person to person, as it requires direct skin to skin contact through broken skin, fluid or pus in lesions, or prolonged face-to-face contact via respiratory transmission,” Sutton said.

5.31pm on Jun 3, 2022

Wine not? Australia’s 52 top wineries of 2022

Looking for a fine wine to pair with your weekend meals? Wine writer Huon Hooke has you covered.

Wine website The Real Review has collaborated with Good Weekend to reveal the best wineries Down Under.

Despite prohibitive tariffs in China, pandemic-related labour shortages and lingering struggles following the 2019-20 bushfires, Australia’s wine scene remains strong, with relatively steady production and pricing.

Australia’s finest wines, including Penfolds in the Barossa Valley.

Juicy grenache, citrusy vermentino, floral fiano, tangy barbera and mysterious nebbiolo are just some of the wines tempting Australian palates today. But it’s the mainstays that elevate our greatest wineries to the pinnacle of achievement: chardonnay, cabernet, shiraz, riesling and luscious, sweet fortified wines.

Top of this year’s list is Geelong’s Wine by Farr, a stellar producer of complex pinot noirs and beautiful chardonnays. Last year’s top winery, Yarra Yering, comes in at number four, while Penfolds continues to excel, its second successive year in second spot. But really, all the wines in the top 52 are top-notch; representing the peak 2 per cent of Australia’s 2156 wineries, they’re truly the crème de la crème.

Get the full rundown of Australia’s best wines here: Australia’s 52 top wineries of 2022.

5.09pm on Jun 3, 2022

Please Explain: The signs of change in parliament

This week the full government ministry was sworn in - totalling just over 40 cabinet ministers, outer ministers and assistant ministers who have already begun the work of running the country.

It’s still early days for the Labor government, but what we can expect is more diversity - with record numbers of women in the ministry and in parliament more generally, and more people from diverse backgrounds.

Katina Curtis is a political reporter in Canberra and has been keeping tabs on who got which jobs this week. She joins today’s host of the Please Explain podcast, Rachel Clun. Have a listen below.

4.47pm on Jun 3, 2022

The 30th anniversay of Mabo decision in photos

Thirty years ago today, the High Court dismissed terra nullius – the legal fiction that Australian land belonged to no one before European settlement.

Indigenous activist and education advocate Eddie Mabo, along with four other Meriam people, launched legal action, stating that their people had lived on the Torres Strait island of Mer before the arrival of Captain Cook and were therefore the traditional owners.

As written in The Age in 2002, “the Mabo judgment – a triumph of justice and common sense – exposed a flaw in the foundation of our nationhood, and the recognition of that flaw and its consequences has been reverberating throughout the country ever since.”

Thirty years on, the Meriam people of the Murray Islands celebrate the 30th anniversary of the 1992 Mabo decision. Photographer Justin McManus captured family members paying their tributes to their father and grandfather, as well as ceremonies held at Eddie Mabo’s grave site on his traditional land at Las Village on Mer Island.

Family members pay their respects at Mabo's grave.Justin McManus

The Age, News, 03/06/2022 photo by Justin McManus.
30th Anniversay of Mabo decision.
Elders of Murray Islands and basketballer Paddy Mills (representing youth) hand over the Mabo Statement to the Mayor of Torres Strait Island Regional Council Yen Loban. — The Age, News, 03/06/2022 photo by Justin McManus. 30th Anniversay of Mabo decision. Elders of Murray Islands and basketballer Paddy Mills (representing youth) hand over the Mabo Statement to the Mayor of Torres Strait Island Regional Council Yen Loban.Justin McManus

Community members lay reefs on Mabo’s grave.Justin McManus

See the rest of these magnificent photos here: 30th Anniversary of Mabo decision - Murray Islands

4.25pm on Jun 3, 2022

How your childhood photos could help stop child exploitation

By Wendy Tuohy

When setting out to develop world-first technology to identify child exploitation images, researchers faced an ethical dilemma.

How could they obtain source material to “teach” the sophisticated algorithm how to recognise children in dangerous situations without using imagery that could exploit children’s safety?

People connected with the project donated the first of 100,000 childhood images needed to help “teach” artificial intelligence programs to identify children in safe situations versus children being sexually exploited.

To make the technology work – and to help prevent psychological damage to police officers having to look at endless volumes of harmful material – 100,000 images of children in everyday “safe” situations are needed.

They will be used to train the computer program to discern children from adults, and safe situations from dangerous ones.

Although it would be for honourable reasons, taking random images of children from the internet without their consent is not ethical.

Monash University IT experts and the Australian Federal Police collaborating at the AiLECS lab were struggling with the problem when data ethics expert Dr Nina Lewis made a suggestion that Leading Senior Constable Janis Dalins described as “an absolute facepalm moment”.

Her idea to invite adults to share safe pictures from their childhood – with no identifying information – was a eureka moment.

3.47pm on Jun 3, 2022

Explainer: Why are gas prices so high, and what does it mean for your power bill?

By Josh Gordon

The spike in gas prices has been variously described as “apocalyptic” and “a perfect storm”.

But Australia’s energy troubles didn’t come from nowhere. A confluence of short-term and longer-term economic, geopolitical, political and even weather-related forces have sent prices soaring.

The consequences for households and businesses are now unavoidable.

Why have prices skyrocketed? And is there anything that can be done?

Why have gas prices risen so much, so quickly?

A big part of the story has been the war in Ukraine.

Energy prices were rising before the Russian invasion as the world economy accelerated out of a pandemic-induced slump. But the conflict triggered a sudden and dramatic global supply shock as businesses and governments around the world spurned Russia’s enormous oil and gas supplies.

As Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion ramped up, millions of barrels a day of Russian oil were withdrawn from global markets, and several massive energy infrastructure projects were abandoned.

The impact has not been dissimilar to the 1973 oil crisis, when members of the Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries imposed an oil embargo targeting countries that had supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War. The 1973 crisis eventually led to a dreaded combination of stagnant economic growth and high inflation. Economists called it “stagflation”.

There have also been domestic forces at work. Australia’s ageing fleet of coal-fired power plants has been plagued by unplanned outages. This has cut the supply of electricity to the energy grid, adding to the pressure placed on gas, which (unlike coal) can be cranked up at short notice as an alternative source of electricity generation.

About 85 to 90 per cent of Australia’s gas market is covered by long-term contracts between suppliers and businesses known as gas supply agreements, according to the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association’s acting chief executive, Damian Dwyer. That has limited the impact of the extraordinary price surge – for now.

Dwyer said the remainder of the market is covered by more volatile immediate “spot” prices, subject to the whims of global markets. One way or another, high spot prices tend to flow into higher costs eventually as new contracts are negotiated.

Australia News LIVE: Queen’s Jubilee celebrations; Wong continues Pacific visits; Government faces energy crisis

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