News update for Fri 1 Mar 2024
Your trusted guide to the top independent news and views of the day...
Welcome to your TrueNorth news update where every weekday afternoon we fight disinformation by sharing selected articles from Australia’s independent news media sector.
Please share with friends, family, colleagues - as good journalism is always worth supporting.
Scroll down for today’s news and views…
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here
BREAKING: Meta to shut down Facebook news tab and end deals funding Australian journalism
Corporate cop probes biggest “Advance” funder - The Klaxon
The biggest funder of disinformation group “Advance” — which is bankrolled by a handful of the super-rich while falsely claiming to be a “grassroots” movement of “ordinary Australians” — funnelled it more than $1 million via an illegal company structure whose true ownership is hidden.It can further be exclusively revealed that corporate regulator the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is now investigating — after The Klaxon alerted it to the illegality earlier this month, amid a deep-dive investigation.
Read more from Anthony Klan at The Klaxon
Can Peter Dutton win the next election? – The Guardian Full Story podcast
Polling this week suggests that the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, is gaining voter approval despite the popularity of Labor’s changes to the stage-three tax cuts. So how much can we rely on polls as predictors of future governments at this stage in the election cycle? And is Dutton’s strategy of attacking the government on issues of trust finally paying off?
Listen to The Guardian podcast here
Goodbye, Mitch: You were the worst. But the Republicans might find someone even worse to replace you - Robert Reich
He will be remembered as one of the most dangerous politicians in living memory. He helped transform the Republican Party into a cult, worshiping at the altar of authoritarianism. He’s damaged our country in ways that may take a generation to undo.
Read more from US commentator Robert Reich on the retirement of Mitch McConnell
Traitors in our midst: Australia’s foreign interference laws are a political ruse - Pearls & Irritations
Leaving aside the issue of whether ASIO’s announcement that there is a ‘traitor in our midst’ is simply a ploy to get more funds in this year’s Federal Budget (something you can never rule out) why hasn’t ASIO and other security and law enforcement agencies in this country pursued the two greatest practitioners of so called foreign influence – the United States followed by Israel?
Read more from Greg Barns for Pearls & Irritations
Tasmanian premier Jeremy Rockliff pledges to open protected native forests to logging - The Guardian
The Tasmanian Liberal party has promised to open 40,000 hectares of protected native forests to logging if re-elected next month, prompting accusations it is playing politics with forestry workers’ jobs and planning to accelerate damage to the environment.
Cartoon by David Rowe for The Australian Financial Review
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here
“We Are Absolutely Complicit”: Senator David Shoebridge On Israel’s Gaza War - Junkee.
Since Hamas launched its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Israel has decimated Gaza in retaliation, killing more than 29,000 Palestinians. As a result, Gaza is in the middle of a humanitarian crisis, one that prompted the International Court of Justice to order Israel to take immediate steps to prevent genocide.
Read more as Junkee speaks with Greens Senator - David Shoebridge
Forget the cost-of-living crisis. It’s the cost of working crisis that’s hurting parents - Women's Agenda
This week one of Australia’s largest for-profit childcare providers G8 announced its fifth consecutive fee increase since January 2022. In a little over two years fees have increased by 23.8%. That’s not a typo.Back in 2022 parents were not raving about how affordable early childhood education and care is: this kind of fee increase is just not sustainable for household budgets to absorb.
Read more from Georgie Dent for Women's Agenda
This is what happens when an uncosted Coalition thought-bubble on nuclear power is presented as a concrete proposal - The Guardian
What happens when an uncosted Coalition thought-bubble to deploy an unavailable nuclear power technology across the country’s electricity grid is presented in an opinion poll as a concrete proposal?You get a page one story in The Australian under the headline: “Powerful majority supports nuclear option for energy security” backed with two pieces of commentary, an editorial and a narrative reliably echoed by Sky News Australia.
Read more from Paul Readfearn in The Guardian
Rachel Withers joins the SpinProof live podcast
This week Denise speaks with journalist Rachel Withers from The Politics. They discuss the Australian news media landscape and its impact on our democracy, the Dunkley by-election, the super election year both here in Australia and overseas, Scott Morrison leaving Parliament and wrap the issues and events of the #auspol week. Well worth a listen.
Listen to the SpinProof replay here
Advance Australia Fair - The Politics
For weeks now, the gormless cowards at Advance Australia have been trying to poison the electoral waters of Dunkley in the lead-up to tomorrow’s byelection. Buoyed and deluded by last year’s Voice referendum result, the shadowy group of rich, far-right extremists has thrown some of its money and a great deal of prejudice at the byelection in the hope that the Trumpian schtick will stick in Dunkley.
There are billions of people across the world that would love to have the democratic freedoms we take for granted in Australia. The biggest risk is that we take our democracy too much for granted, allowing it to be exploited by well-heeled groups pushing fringe viewpoints at the expense of society and democracy itself. Whatever happens in Dunkley tomorrow, it doesn’t have to be this way.
Read more from Daniel James for The Politics
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Quick Links…
Explainer: what is sabotage and why is the ASIO chief worried about it? - The Conversation
WestInvest scheme under former NSW government 'lacked integrity', audit report finds - ABC
Queensland ruling doesn’t mean all COVID vaccine mandates were flawed. Here’s why - The Conversation
Work from home, as a dinky-di Chinese spy! - John Birmingham’s Alien Sideboob
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here
Share your views on Australia’s media landscape through TrueNorth’s short survey
You’re up to date for Friday 1st March. See you on Monday!
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here