Banks are closing, despite an assurance given to the Senate Inquiry by the Commonwealth Bank that it would not close regional branches until the Inquiry concludes at the end of the year. Dale Webster reports.

THE COMMONWEALTH BANK is at it again.

While to be congratulated on its decision to put a three-year moratorium on regional branch closures in place, the Commonwealth Bank has dragged its co-publisher of the quarterly Regional Movers Index report into an embarrassing situation again by refusing to count its top destinations for regional migration as regional.

The Regional Australia Institute (RAI) uses Commonwealth Bank data to compile the report, which has listed the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Geelong as some of its most popular destinations for people choosing to leave city life behind in preference for a regional location.

But the Commonwealth Bank confirmed that when it comes to branch closures, it is choosing to follow a Bureau of Statistics classification that conflicts with the classification it uses with the RAI in the Regional Movers Index.

The decision leaves Australias three biggest regional cities Geelong, Wollongong and Newcastle as well as the Gold and Sunshine coasts and places such as Bateau Bay, Gosford, Maitland, Murwillumbah, Raymond Terrace, Katoomba, Bacchus Marsh and Mandurah, still vulnerable to the loss of their Commonwealth banks until 2026.

They are among 490 branches the Commonwealth Bank could choose to close at any time (see map below)

 View Commonwealth Ba...

Four million people signed up to get Australia's half a million available Taylor Swift tickets. There was bound to be heartbreak... This and more from IA's music man David Kowalski.

BIG FUSS and unprecedented fervour surrounded the purchasing of tickets to Taylor Swifts "Eras tour" this week. So much so that we even saw respected Australian psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg giving advice on how to soothe children who missed out!

If not directly experienced, most of us have heard stories about hours of precious time sucked away while waiting on the Ticketmaster app to try and score concert tickets. 

That said, the number of people who have said to me, Whats so special about Taylor Swift, anyway? As though this hysteria is a new phenomenon.

Coles and Woolworths supermarkets have increased security technology in self-checkout areas, leaving many customers feeling undervalued and untrustworthy, writes Tom Tanuki.

THE SELF-SERVICE checkout at the local Coles was showing me a video of myself buying a lemon and a Lebanese cucumber. The video was a true and correct interpretation of events. I really did buy a lemon and a Lebanese cucumber. 

While observing this footage made me aware my purchasing decision was being viewed, I wasnt its intended audience. It was mostly being played for the Coles self-service machine attendant whose job it was to use it to assess my honesty.

Cameras at self-service checkouts were first introduced in 2019 to stop us Australians from stealing from our duopolistic supermarket giant overlords: Coles and Woolworths, the two-headed beast bleeding the life out of local competition, town by town, year by year. 

Were more broke than ever, with the consumer price index rising much faster than our wages. A lot of that increase comes in the form of food price bumps with food prices at the supermarket giants alone increasing by 9.6 per cent in the past year. That primarily seems to be so that the two-headed beast can deliver record profits, though, with Woolworth's banking over $900 million net profit in 2022-2023.

So if we're broke but want to eat the same amount as usual, we'll just have to steal more food. Right? The supermarket giants have realised this increased risk. And their solution is to start employing more workers to staff their stores again, reversing the self-service trend. Just joking! Their solution is...

Queenslands largest legal organised crime syndicate, the Liberal National Party, heads to the mattresses this Saturday to defend its territory in Fadden. Darren Crawford reports on the LNP's latest plans to further normalise political corruption.

Let's take a deep dive into what some of the candidates had to say and have a look at just what is really in play in what should be a soft win for the next man up.

The next man up

I arrive at the Paradise Point Community Centre just ahead of time and line up with the rest of the oldies.

A bloke in a wheelchair rolls up and starts telling the bloke in front of me that gubberment overreach is killin Straylia. He offers me a pamphlet, which I decline. Vis By-election will cost us $150,000, he says, they should refund that money. He doesnt say who they are nor does he say who the money should be given to. If this cooker reflects what is happening inside, I decide, this is going to get interesting.

Once inside, I hide up the back and I can see that the crowd of about 100 people is mostly Liberal National Party of Queensland (LNP) blue, with a smattering of Australian Labor Party (ALP) fans, Pauline Hanson's One Nation supporters (PHON) and a handful of cookers, like old mate outside. There are plenty of franking credits to be found in here, and regardless of colour, LNP candidate, and current local City of Gold Coast Councillor for this area (Division 4), Cameron Caldwell is their man.

The Fadden electorate takes in six different council divisions and four state electorates, all of which are represented by the LNP (except for the state seat of Gaven, which is headed by the ALPs Meaghan Scanlon, and indepe...

Stuart Robert MP's Robodebt legacy writs large on the ground of the Fadden By-election, such that glad-handing from Australia's "best retail politician", Barnaby Joyce, was required. Investigations editor Ross Jones reports.

BARNABY JOYCE seems a very sensitive man. Touchy even.

Not surprising  hes had a tough couple of years, with new mouths to feed and the rug so recently rudely pulled from the gravy train.

But hes a tough old nut and soldiering on is what you do.

A bit like Fermis Paradox  which asks, If there are aliens where the bloody hell are they?  the Fadden By-election has been very thin on the ground for Coalition MPs. Seems Opposition Leader Peter Dutton turned up once, but thats about it.

Stuart "Robodebt" Robert darent show his face because of the public derision that would ensue, so Barnaby stepped up to the mark, glad-handing in support of Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tates favourite, Gold Coast Councillor and LNP candidate for Fadden, Cameron Caldwell.

There are few places more desperate than polling booths when the date closes in. Volunteers, many as mad as cut snakes, mill in search of action, thrusting leaflets at passers-by and waving at cars.

Into this fray barged Barnaby.

He and Cameron embarked on a minder-organised walk especially for TV only to be photo-bombed by a volunteer wearing a very minor party-logo...

'Robodenial!' The new Coalition quiz show

Winner gets a trip to Hawaii and a busted ukulele.

Mark David is IA's resident cartoonist. You can see more cartoons from Mark on his website Mark David Cartoons, or follow him on Twitter @mdavidcartoons.

Independent Australia is delighted to announce the IA Writing Competition winners for June! 

A big CONGRATULATIONS to the following June entries:

Most Compelling Article

 

JUNE PRIZE WINNER: Charles Hunter  'Nightcap National Park: Celebrating the birth of environmental activism'
(Read this excellent article HERE.) 

 

Most Enthralling Fiction Work

JUNE PRIZE CO-WINNERS: John Longhurst  'Wheels of fortune'
(Read this winning entry HERE.)

 

AND Ann Meharg  'Leaving them in the lurch'
(Read this winning entry HERE.)

Our June category winners Charles Hunter, John Longhurst and Ann Meharg  each receive a $100 cash prize and a 12-month subscription to IA, plus their entries have been published on the Independent Australia website. 

They have also been shortlisted for the overall $500 prize and publication in the special printed edition of the Independent Australia Magazine, due in October. 

The competition concludes on 30 September 2023, so get those pens flowing and keyboards tapping.

Enter your non-fiction work  to be judged by internationally renowned and multi-award-winning Australian journalist, John Pilger  or yo...

Voting against the Voice to Parliament is a promotion of racism and a revival of the White Australia policy of the past, writes Henry Johnston.

IM NOT SURE what shocked me the most: the cockroaches scurrying out of my dead mothers spare room, or finding an unframed oil painting hidden amidst the musty clutter of a rickety old cupboard. 

There are nights when I wake at 3:00 A.M. in a funk, startled by the memories of that sad afternoon rummaging through bundles of frail and faded goods. But I slip back into a doze by thinking of the painting, which shimmers with light as effervescent as when delicate strokes first touched the small canvas, guided by the hand of an amateur artist, those decades ago.

The scene is sweet and simple. To the left of the frame, the fronds of three healthy coconut palms sway in the afternoon sea breeze. Dense foreshore scrub girdles the lower portion of their trunks, as cycad quatrefoils struggle through impenetrable undergrowth, seeking the sun. A sward edges toward a warm tropical white-capped blue, ruffled by the offshore wind. I can almost smell the rotting seaweed on the beach and recall a primal caution to look out for oyster shell clustered rocks underfoot.

I am drawn to four seabirds, hovering on the updraft, eyeing those rocks, scattered along a glimpse of sandy beach. The frigate birds, or man-o-war, soar above the bay in search of prey. Five smaller mates are suspended to the right of my sight and draw my gaze to a two-masted yacht, which completes the paintings foreground.

Four banks of whitish-grey clouds tower above the works dramatic locus,  a distant long island, offset by a curved rise that could be an extinct volcanic peak and dominating the low, distant horizon. And it is this faraway land that locates the artist on the mainland foreshore, painting his homeland.

Though small and almost unseen, the yacht is the artists conduit to the object of his longing  his country. If only he could be aboard, sailing toward the land almost hidden beneath pearly clouds. But his yearning is not to be fulfilled.

How do I know this? Because the painting was a gift to my mother for her kindness. And I remember the artists name, or nickname.

He was called Elvis. Young, good-looking, with longish bla...

Amounting to election interference, the mainstream media including the ABC have swanned in and out of the Fadden by-election pre-poll, ignoring all candidates except LNP and Labor. Independent Australia discusses the undemocratic details with some of the candidates in our exclusive pre-poll coverage.

Caused by the resignation of scandal-ridden LNP Member and Morrison confidante, Stuart Robert, the Fadden By-election should be newsworthy. Obvious biases aside, its expected that the Fourth Estate would nonetheless make a show of treating all 13 candidates equally. Certainly, the public broadcaster whose charter is to provide comprehensive coverage in the public interest should at least attempt to fulfil its duty.

But of course, we live in a country where media concentration is so blatant and the public broadcaster is so in step with the media moguls, no one even bothers to pretend otherwise.

When the media crew arrived at the pre-polling, a Legalise Cannabis Queensland booth volunteer asked whether they would be interviewing all the candidates:

 I approached the Channel 9 female reporter and asked if they were interviewing all the parties present. The reporter replied, No were only paid to interview the Labor and Liberal party. Weve been told not to interview anyone else. My other team member approached ABC and was told something similar Only the major parties today.

When questioned on this matter, Australian Citizens Party campaign manager Ian Oliver told IA:

It made me very angry because we are supposed to be a nation of equality where everyone gets a fair go, where everyone in politics gets to state their message and let the voters decide.

Independent candidate...

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has undermined its mission to foster stability, becoming a vessel of U.S. power. Where NATO goes, war is most likely Australia should take note, writes Dr Binoy Kampmark.

SINCE THE end of the Cold War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has distinctly strayed from its original purpose. It has become, almost shamelessly, the vessel and handmaiden of U.S. power, while its burgeoning expansion eastwards has done wonders to upend the applecart of stability. 

From that upending, the Alliance started bungling. It engaged, without the authorisation of the United Nations Security Council, in a 78-day bombing campaign of Yugoslavia at least what was left of it ostensibly to protect the lives of Kosovar Albanians. Far from dampening the tinderbox, the Kosovo affair continues to be an explosion in the making.

Members of the Alliance also expended material, money and personnel in Afghanistan over the course of two decades, propping up a deeply unpopular, corrupt regime in Kabul while failing to stifle the Taliban. As with previous imperial projects, the venture proved to be a catastrophic failure.

In 2011, NATO was again found wanting in its attack on the regime of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. While it was intended to be an exemplar of the Responsibility to Protect doctri...

Even when we consider Robodebt as dispassionate onlookers that is, people who did not have a loved one take their own life, or otherwise have their lives irreparably marred by this vicious campaign it is not possible to see it as anything but a crime against humanity.

And it was not a benign mistake.

And it was not a one-off thing.

We knew this back in 2017 when the first reports of the unfairness of the scheme emerged but were ignored.

We knew this when the Federal Court pronounced it unlawful a full two years later, in 2019.

And we knew it when the Morrison Government forged ahead, anyway, seemingly unperturbed by its illegality, let alone its devastating effects, even when these were detailed by legal professionals and publicly called out by the Australian Council of Social Services.

Approximately 443,000 people received these threatening notices demanding payment known as "robodebts". Victims were not even able to speak to anyone about their alleged debt and should someone actually manage to get a phone call through to the right department, all the relevant public servants were ordered to refer them back to the website. Never mind that they may not be able to navigate this process, or that their questions would likely still be ignored.

So the threats continued. And lets not beat around the bush, here. These were threats. Meant to be taken seriously. Designed to be menacing.

The harassment...