News update for Fri 12 April 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 share selected articles from Australia’s independent news media sector.
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The lobbying scourge - Pearls and Irritations
The major obstacle to lobbying reform is that for members of parliament, their staff and senior officials, lobbying provides a very lucrative income when they leave parliament, the military or the public service. So they refuse to act on the lobbying scourge.
Read more from John Menadue for Pearls and Irritations
Also read > Joe Hockey must be minting money - The Australian Financial Review
Penny Wong’s plan to recognise Palestine - 7am Podcast
When Penny Wong took the lectern for the keynote speech at a conference on foreign affairs this week, she could have done what politicians usually do at these events. She could have delivered a mundane speech about the same challenges we all know Australia faces in its region. Instead, she decided to float the idea that Australia should recognise an independent Palestinian state.
Listen to more from Paul Bongiorno for the 7am Podcast
Also listen to > Gaza: The Conflict Raging Beyond The Battlefield - Fourth Estate Podcast
Also read > The politics of recognition: Australia and the question of Palestinian statehood - The Conversation
Half a million more Australians on welfare? Not unless you double-count - The Conversation
The Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun carried an exclusive story on Sunday headed “Half a million extra on welfare”. It was subheaded: NDIS blowing the budget.The story said the number of Australians on welfare had leapt by 425,000 since 2018, with much of the increase coming from the National Disability Insurance Scheme.It quoted the Institute of Public Affairs, which published its data on Monday.Those data are incomplete.
Peter Dutton’s shock-and-schlock tactics are fear-mongering in search of a policy - The Guardian
The opposition leader Peter Dutton’s determination to convince Australian voters they are on a path to an ill-defined catastrophe is collapsing under the weight of its own absurdity.As with his apparent American role model, Dutton’s Trump-like insistence that voters are headed for disaster relies on cheap over-reach rather than rational analysis – shock them with schlock.
Read more from Malcolm Farr for The Guardian
Also read > On Peter Dutton, Sydney Opera House protest and Port Arthur - Cam Wilson for Webcam
Australia’s Border Farce. Stops a boat, ignores the planeloads, targets the 0.05% - Micheal West Media
Last week, Australian Border Force deployed one hundred officers to detain a dozen asylum seekers on the Kimberley Coast. Meanwhile, an estimated 2000 asylum seekers arrive in Australia by plane every month.
Duncan Graham reports from Indonesia for Michael West Media
Cartoon by Fiona Katauskas for The Guardian
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here
“Ambitious and visionary:” Praise and some skepticism greets green manufacturing Act - Renew Economy
It won’t please everyone, and the detail – as yet – is fairly thin, but there is plenty already being said about the Future Made in Australia Act unveiled by prime minister Anthony Albanese in Queensland on Thursday.In a speech to Queensland’s Media Club, Albanese laid out the foundations of federal Labor’s plan to use taxpayer-funded incentives to advance the manufacturing and clean energy industries, including hydrogen, green metals, solar power and emerging renewables.
Also read > Australia is playing catch-up with the Future Made in Australia Act. Will it be enough? - The Conversation
Hamas’s dark calculus - Inside Story
If he wasn’t already a hard man when he was jailed, Yahya Sinwar was a very hard man by the time he walked out of an Israeli prison in 2011. A beneficiary of a prisoner–hostage swap, he had closely observed his Israeli guards during his twenty years of imprisonment and had become fluent in Hebrew. This knowledge of his enemy underpinned his planning of 7 October’s shocking break-out from Gaza.
Read more from Hamish McDonald for Inside Story
Author and journalist, Lech Blaine joins SpinProof
This week Denise speaks with author and journalist - Lech Blaine. They discuss his latest Quarterly Essay - Bad Cop - about Opposition leader Peter Dutton. Lech tells us not to underestimate his purpose and drive - and makes the point that while 'governing from Opposition' would mean that Peter Dutton doesn't achieve his long held ambition of becoming PM he can still have great impact. They also speak about Peter Dutton's style and tactics suiting the times with the global rise of the populist politician and a media fuelled by conflict and clickbait. A good conversation which is well worth a listen.
Listen to the SpinProof podcast with Lech Blaine here
A review of 600 articles shows how conservative media fuels our nuclear ‘debate’ - Crikey
The nuclear debate, long dormant in the Australian discourse, has recently reinvented itself for a new era. This time, it is to fix climate change.
Spearheaded by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and the Coalition, current conversations rumbling around the country about nuclear power are a small victory for pro-nuclear advocacy.
Yet in recent years, as the renewable energy conversation evolved, conservative media outlets have kept the nuclear issue simmering in the collective consciousness, all the while the public debate remained effectively stifled of significant logical discussion in the mainstream.
Building expectations - The Politics
Long ago, we used to make things in this country. It was so long ago that the mere notion of the government intervening to ensure that we do once again seems like a radical act. The proposed Future Made in Australia Act might just be the largest policy agenda announced by the Albanese government so far, and it could be the one that resonates most with voters. Some of us remember when we used to make radios, ovens, televisions, cars, heaters – you name it, we made it en masse. But in recent memory, neoliberal policy has slowly but surely eradicated manufacturing from the Australian economy.
Read more from Daniel James for The Politics
Q. Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States are considering bringing which country into the AUKUS fold??
1. France
2. India
3. Japan
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Quick Links…
A tale of love and companionship that crossed the boundaries of nature - John Birmingham’s Alien Sideboob
For the future of US abortion rights under a second Trump presidency, look to Arizona - The Guardian
Jacqui Lambie and her underlings could do big things for Tasmania. Instead they’re acting like Liberal fanboys - Guy Rundle for Crikey
Bruce Lehrmann case sends Seven, Nine and Ten into internecine TV warfare - Amanda Meade for The Guardian
I'm Alive (as of April 2024) - Friendly Jordies
War Memorial scandal: Morrison pushed $500m project before business case was done - Shane Wright for the SMH/Age
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here
Share your views on Australia’s media landscape through TrueNorth’s short survey
You’re up to date for Friday the 12th of April. See you on Monday!
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here