Raising Hell: Issue 24: The "Cost-Effective Loitering Munition" Edition

It’s honestly been hard to keep up. On top of the Attorney General being accused of rape by a dead woman, news broke that Queensland MP Dr Andrew Laming is alleged to have taken up-skirt photos of a young woman (among other things). Confronted with these allegations, Dr Laming defended himself by describing the photos as “dignified”, a phrase which apparently overlooks an act that also happens to be a crime in the state of Queensland. In lieu of criminal prosecution and an immediate resignation that would inevitably destabilise the government, Laming is now attending empathy coaching — a move which even empathy coaches find hilarious.

But then it gets better (read: worse) when you consider all the other little stories that have been drip-feeding in over the last fortnight. In one instalment, it turns out the government has been quietly planning changes to the law in order to throw people off the National Disability Insurance Scheme as a cost-cutting measure — a story one Raising Hell subscriber to this newsletter had also discovered and began to investigate independently. Then there’s Stuart Robert — a former housemate of the Prime Minister — who has quite literally failed upward by being promoted in the ministerial reshuffle despite a long list of blunders. You had the federal court this fortnight demand Peter Dutton — now Defence Minister — explain his movements on 28 May 2020 when he pulled a man’s visa for the second time without bothering to read any of the materials he was handed. Perhaps the whole situation is best summed up by Liberal Senator Hollie Hughes who, devoid of all irony, defended the illegal robodebt scheme as “not unlawful”, just “legally insufficient”. In doing so Senator Hughes gave the best description yet of the current Australian government’s apparent true attitude to the rule of law.

The vast array of human cultures have words for this sort of thing. There is, for instance, the old yiddish word “shemozzle”. The Scots have the all-purpose noun “bollocks”. Then there are the more direct alternatives preferred by our American cousins, usually those with military experience. These are words such a “shitshow” and “FUBAR”. Whichever word takes your particular fancy, the point remains that it is hard to take a government seriously when it barely takes itself seriously. Perhaps this is why it has become so difficult not to scan the headlines without thinking of the title card from Always Sunny In Philadelphia — which is even better when set to music.

So the country is a mess but you can be sure the ratings are great — which is something of the issue as the Coalition does everything it can to bail water ahead of a 2022 election. And judging by the ministerial reshuffle, boy are they bailing hard. According to one poll the Prime Minister’s approval rating has fallen from 62 percent to 57 percent in the past fortnight, though that only surveyed 1100 people, so take it as words in the air. What really matters is whatever the party’s internal polling is saying — and if recent events are anything to go by, they are nothing good.

What is worse news for the government is that Jobkeeper is about to drop off just as Brisbane goes into lockdown. If the government is in trouble now, the real test will be what happens when the money runs out. Australia may not run a presidential system of government but Australians kinda want to. Within a few months, will the Prime Minister be thought of as the scruffy dad of two girls? Or will people increasingly look at Morrison as the weird religious guy who was given the job because there was no one else?

Whatever happens, it’ll make for one hell of a season finale.

Reporting In

Where I recap what I’ve been doing this last fortnight so you know I’m not just using your money to stimulate the local economy …

• ‘Borrower beware: how responsible lending changes could put more vulnerable Australians in debt' (The Guardian, 11 March 2021).

Cracking COVIDSafe

Over the course of November, Raising Hell ran its first serialised investigation, CrackingCOVIDSafe, in association with Electronic Frontiers Australia. The series looked at the creation of the government’s automated contact tracing app COVIDSafe and stepped out how I used Freedom of Information to learn more so that others may learn to do their own. Along the way, we tracked how a constellation of government agencies and a clutch of for-profit companies made a hash of a new public service. So far we have managed to reveal how the government prioritised reputational risk over service quality and how security issues were not addressed by government for weeks after release, even though they put the app in breach of the government’s own privacy policy.

Laramba’s Water

The story of Laramba so far is straight forward. High concentrations of uranium were first found in Laramba’s water back in 2008. The situation in the remote Indigenous community of about 263 people hit the headlines in 2018 when NT Power and Water Corporation (PWC) published a report showing uranium concentrations there nearly three times higher than the national guidelines. That story made news again early this year when the community lost a legal fight to force the NT Government to do something to fix it.

Thanks to the support of my generous subscribers I’ve been able to pick up the issue to find out more. Here’s a running list of published stories that will be updated as I do more over time.

• ‘High levels of uranium in drinking water of NT community’ (NITV, 31 July 2020).
• ‘Company remains shtum on plans to filter Laramba's contaminated water supply’ (NITV, 21 October 2020).

Just Money (2020)

As someone whose written a couple of books and only had a handful of lit reviews between them, I’ve certainly felt the lack of cultural criticism. Now I am very proud to have learned that Just Money has been discussed within the pages of one Australia’s oldest running journals, Meanjin in a review by Max Easton. The thrust of the review is simple: next time, go harder. On balance, this is a good message to get from a critic, though I did chuckle at being called a neoliberal. I can see how Easton might come to that conclusion given how I don’t feel any need to perform my politics for anyone, and my work is less Éric Toussaint or even Hyman Minksy and more Charlie LeDuff.

But then what do I know, really? I’m just your humble reporter.

Assorted Events

I’ll be talking to Stan Grant over Zoom about his latest book at Matilda’s bookshop Wednesday, 21 April. Click the button below for details about the event and to book in.

You Hate To See It

A dyspeptic, snark-ridden and highly ironic round-up of the news from our shared hellscape…

• FuckSAFE

  Forever in thrall to the dream of a technological utopia and confronted with widespread public anger at the consequence-free existence of the nation’s political leadership, New South Wales police commissioner Mick Fuller has helpfully offered up an innovative solution. If women are so worried about rape and sexual violence, Fuller mused, why not create an app that records the consent of both parties in order to, quote, “keep matters out of the justice system”? You know, because CovidSAFE worked out so damn well.

• Speaking Of Police…

  In a story you expect to read about Russia or the US, the New South Wales Law Enforcement Conduct Commission has found members of the elite police unit “Strike Force Raptor” engaged in “deliberate, deceitful and malicious harassment” of a solicitor. After growing annoyed that the lawyer refused the officers request to appear via video link, the officers made it their mission to stalk the lawyer over the course of his work day, fining him for small-scale infractions like failing to indicate or defecting his car for an oil leak that did not exist. At one point the lawyer tried to catch a taxi, the officers pulled over the tax and fined the driver for failing to indicate. The saga ended when the lawyer removed himself from the case and escaped via a secret entrance at the magistrates court because the officers had stationed themselves outside his office and the courts.

• Nice Work If You Can Get It

  Weep not for Arvind Krishna and Ginny Rometty, two IBM executives who managed to halve the company’s operating profit and oversee a decline in revenue but were still handed a combined $38 million in compensation for their services. While Krishna was made CEO in April last year, as former executive chairman Rometty has been kept on at the company as a consultant. Rometty is paid $20,000 each day she performs a minimum of four hours work proving the dream of work-life balance isn’t just a dream for some.

• You Really Do Get What You Pay For

  Matthias Cormann barely had a chance to lean back in his executive chair at the top of the OECD pyramid before he began to water down any hope of meaningful action on climate change. The former finance minister and Coalition powerbroker who had promised during the interview phase, hand over heart, that he really did care about climate change used his first media appearance to urge “caution” over radical talk like the use of carbon tariffs to target nations like Australia who have deliberately dragged their feet on decarbonisation.

• Well, If Everyone’s Doing It

  Even the Minerals Council of Australia is going international. As the peak industry body for the mining industry in Australia and one of the most aggressive lobby groups in the country, the organisation has put in a submission to the European Commission complaining that plans for a European green deal unfairly favour solar, wind and biofuels over nuclear power and fossil fuels paired with carbon capture and storage. The submission goes urges the Europeans to take a “technology-neutral” approach to climate change — pretty much the exact line of reasoning that has left Australia a confused mess on the subject, even as the entire eastern seaboard periodically burns down or drowns in torrential rain.

  

• The Magic Of Debt Is The Returns You Make Along The Way

  If the existential terror of a collapsing biosphere is too overwhelming to contemplate, you might consider a little self-improvement. Thanks to the indominable souls in the fintech sector, elective surgeries can now be had on a buy-now, pay-later basis. St John of God Health Care in Perth and St John of God Berwick Hospitals in Melbourne are now experimenting have partnered with lender Openpay — a company that describes itself to investors as “a highly differentiated Buy now, pay later player” — for a six-month trial program whereby those looking for cosmestic surgery can put it on credit. That said, these are not the only vultures to find new and creative ways to plunge the masses further into debt. See this fawning TechCrunch interview of Kate Hiscox, founder of fintech startup Sivo that is described as a “stripe for debt”. If there is any confusion who is the intended beneficiary of this new product, the interview quickly clears that up. The “real magic”, we are told, is that Sivo “doesn’t just parcel out debt; it helps its customers that don’t have their own risk management practices figure out who is worthy of a loan and how much.” Incredible!

• Technofeudalism, Here We Come!

  And in a sign of the times, Elon Musk has officially crowned himself the “Technoking” of Tesla and his CFO Zach Kirkhorn, “Master of Coin”. The announcement was made in an official filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Now the question is how long will it take for the man to also declare himself Star Emperor of humanity?

  

Failing Upward

Where we recognise and celebrate the true stupidity of the rich, powerful and influential…

• We here at the Raising Hell offices understand all too well that Australia doesn’t really see itself as part of “The World”. For the most part, the rest of the planet seems to only exist in the Australian imagination as an tacky themed bar for us to wander around in while on a gap year, half cut, before returning home to take a “serious” job probably in finance.

  So it was some surprise to us that on 17 March 2021, the world came to us — and in the middle of a global plague that has killed 2.78 million people — thanks, no less, to the efforts of noted author Christopher Pyne. Last Wednesday, the ex-Defence Minister, through his lobbying firm Pyne and Partners, hosted an exclusive function for one of the company’s largest clients in the Dame Enid Lyons Alcove, smack bang in parliament house, Canberra. The invite-only function for MPs began at 5pm and the stars of the show were company representatives from Elbit Systems, the largest privately-owned weapons manufacturer in Israel.

  Browse the Elbit Systems brochure and you will see the company manufacturers a fine array of death machines spanning from suicide drones to white phosphorous and cluster munitions. Elbit Systems, incidentally, were also the same people who recently supplied the Azerbaijani army with an array of military drones including the SkyStriker suicide drone — beautifully described in marketing copy as a “cost-effective loitering munition” — that was used extensively in the recent war with Armenia over Artsakh. Because, you know, there is no better commercial than supplying arms to the aggressor in a turf war against a people who have lived through a genocide.

Good Reads, Good Times

To share the love, here are some of the best or more interesting reads from the last fortnight…

• Having asked the question over the weekend: I wonder if any Nazi’s fled to Australia after WWII? I discovered Mark Aarons had the similar thought. Aarons names names in his book War Criminals Welcome as he reveals how Australia was a safe-haven soldiers who, at a minimum, engaged in ethnic cleansing.

Before You Go (Go)…

• Are you a public sector bureaucrat whose tyrannical boss is behaving badly? Have you recently come into possession of documents showing some rich guy is trying to move their ill-gotten-gains to Curacao? Did you take a low-paying job with an evil corporation registered in Delaware that is burying toxic waste under playgrounds? If your conscience is keeping you up at night, or you’d just plain like to see some wrong-doers cast into the sea, we here at Raising Hell can suggest a course of action: leak! You can securely make contact through Signal or through encrypted message Wickr Me on my account: rorok1990. Alternatively you can send us your hard copies to: PO Box 134, Welland SA 5007
• And if you’ve come this far, consider supporting me further by picking up one of my books, leaving a review or by just telling a friend about Raising Hell!