Squiz Today – Friday, 21 June

SQUIZ SAYINGS

“No one died.”

Said the Reserve Bank’s manager of banknote production Luke Porter in internal emails on the misspelling of the word ‘responsibility’ on the $50 note. The technical term for that is ‘perspective’.

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NEW CHARGES AGAINST TEACHER’S PET DAWSON

THE SQUIZ
Hours after he fronted court yesterday to plead not guilty to his wife’s murder in 1982, Chris Dawson was slapped with a separate charge: carnal knowledge of a girl. To recap: Dawson became internationally famous last year thanks to journalist Hedley Thomas and The Australian’s podcast ‘The Teacher’s Pet’ - a piece of investigative journalism that led to Dawson being charged with the murder of his wife.

WHAT’S THAT ABOUT?
• Police said the carnal knowledge charge is related to “a 16-year-old girl, who in 1980 was 16.” That was during Dawson’s time as a teacher at Cromer High School on Sydney’s Northern Beaches.

• The old legal term refers to a sex offence between an adult and a minor. It's been applied here because it relates to the period the crime is alleged to have happened.

• Police set up an investigation into accusations of assaults on female students and inappropriate student-teacher relationships at schools in the area as a result of ‘The Teacher’s Pet’ podcast series.

• It capped off a dramatic day for the one-time football professional with his lawyer throwing shade on the case against his client, saying it relied too heavily on a clairvoyant as a source.

• A committal hearing for the murder charge has been set down for February next year, to which eight witnesses will be called, including Thomas and a 100yo woman who claims she saw Lynette after her reported disappearance.

ANYTHING ELSE?
Yes. In other podcast-justice news, Hamish McLaren – the conman who was the subject of another podcast produced by The Australian - ‘Who The Hell Is Hamish?' - was jailed yesterday for at least 12 years for defrauding 15 innocent people of more than $7 million. McLaren targeted girlfriends and friends, including fashion designer Lisa Ho, through a Ponzi scheme.

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SQUIZ THE REST

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AND THEN THERE WERE TWO…

After almost two weeks of rounds of voting to whittle down the list of candidates for the UK Conservative Party’s leadership, and to walk straight into the prime ministership, there are two men left standing - Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt. The favourite Johnson is the former London Mayor and Foreign Secretary whose strong Brexit feelings saw him fall out with caretaker PM Theresa May almost a year ago. And Hunt replaced Johnson as Foreign Secretary, he's been described as a "modern liberal" and campaigned at referendum time for the UK to remain in the European Union. They will now be put to a vote of around 160,000 party members, and the winner will be announced in the week of 22 July. For the political tragics: this account of Johnson from BBC broadcaster Jeremy Vine is interesting background.

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NEW ZEALAND LAUNCHES GUN BUY-BACK SCHEME

While the scheme was agreed by the Kiwi Parliament soon after the Christchurch mosque attacks that saw 51 people killed, it’s taken a few weeks for the scheme to be put in place. And now NZD$208 million (A$198 million) has been set aside to compensate the owners of weapons which were banned following the attacks. We’re talking military-style semi-automatic weapons… The scheme will only apply to licensed guns and will remain open for six months.

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TAX DOBBING RATES UP

A new report from the Tax Office says 60,000 suspected tax evaders have been reported by the public this financial year. Which is a nice way of saying the dob-in line at the ATO has been ringing off the hook... The number of reported breaches has gone up by 42% in the last 12 months alone, and officials expect at least 70,000 tip-offs in the next financial year. The chief reason people are dumping others in it is suspected unreported income with the ATO reporting about $50 billion ‘lost’ in Australia each year through unreported taxable income.

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AND FOR EXTRA POINTS…

Gee, there was a lot of speculation this week about what Qantas was going to announce about revamping its Frequent Flyer scheme. And yesterday loyalty hounds were put out of their misery with the details of "the biggest overhaul to the airline's loyalty program in its 32-year history" released. The change that has drawn the most attention is the increase in the number of points it will take to redeem Business and First reward flights. And there's a bunch of other stuff. Note: Qantas' loyalty program isn't just a big thing for its 13 million members, it's financially important for the airline given it turned a $372 million profit last year - close to half what Qantas made from its entire domestic airline business. But you don’t have time to chat, you’ve got points to earn if you want to join their new uber club…

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IS IT A CAT? IS IT A FOX? IT’S A ‘CAT FOX’…

Or a ‘fox cat’, depending on which way you look at it. In appearance, the new species is not dissimilar to a large domestic cat, but it also has some pretty scary looking canine teeth and hunts nocturnally like a fox. They live on the island of Corsica in the Mediterranean, and with only 16 of them in the whole wide world (that we know of), scientists are excited.

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FRIDAY LITES - THREE THINGS WE LIKED THIS WEEK

This video of a Q&A with US Vogue Editor Anna Wintour is worth it just for the chilling line; “There was a member of our team that turned up at the Met Gala recently without a tie and wearing a hat, and I’m not sure that I approved.” Because you know she definitely did not approve and the staff member is probably in fear for his life…

We’ve been using this product to deal with skin dryness for a couple of winters, and it does the trick for us. It's affordable and available at a bunch of pharmacies, department stores and online retailers. And note: this isn't a paid promotion...

A lot is said about the great musical legends, but if you're not a rusted-on fan, it can be hard to get what all the fuss is about. So we enjoyed this look at soul legend Aretha Franklin and her legacy because it explains her life and work, and it pulls out the six songs to listen to with helpful links.

SQUIZ THE DAY