News update for Fri 23 Aug 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 curated articles from Australia’s independent news media sector.
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TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS UPDATES: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here
BREAKING NEWS: Gina Rinehart urges government to ‘drill, baby drill’ and build Israeli-style ‘iron dome’ in northern Australia - The Guardian
NACC boss breaks own integrity policy over Robodebt - The Klaxon
The head of the National Anti-Corruption Commission Paul Brereton did not adhere to the body’s own guidelines for managing conflicts of interest, documents released under freedom of information reveal.
It can also be revealed the NACC only issued its integrity policy on 18 July 2023 — which was over two weeks after it officially commenced operations.
The documents show Brereton disclosed his potential conflict in the Robodebt saga on Monday July 3, the first business day of the NACC’s operations — and 15 days before the “Integrity Policy” was issued.
The revelations follow former Victorian Court of Appeal judge Stephen Charles KC declaring that the NACC’s refusal to investigate Robodebt appeared to have been “infected by the bias” of Brereton and, if so, it “should now be disregarded”.
Jon Faine on why the ABC's boss just quit - 7am Podcast
The ABC’s Managing Director David Anderson announced his shock resignation yesterday afternoon, after being reappointed for his second term in the role late last year. Anderson said stepping down was “the right time for me and the right time for the ABC”. The decision comes just months after Kim Williams took up his new role as chair with big plans for renewal inside the ABC. Today, ABC veteran Jon Faine on what this means for the future of the national broadcaster and who might be next in the Managing Director’s seat.
David Anderson’s resignation as ABC managing director could be a watershed moment for the broadcaster - Denis Muller for The Conversation
The resignation of David Anderson as managing director of the ABC has the potential to be a watershed moment in the history of the national broadcaster.
It offers the opportunity to reset the organisation’s editorial culture by facing down the relentless attacks on its journalists from right-wing political interests, principally Liberal-National Party politicians and their mouthpieces at News Corporation.
Read more by Denis Muller for The Conversation
Also >
Nine's Axe Swings, As Mass Exodus Begins - Fourth Estate Podcast
Nine's staff redundancies shows board don't care about journalism - Crikey (paywall)
Where’s the beef? Gina Rinehart puts past journalism quarrel aside with pies at the Kennedys - Amanda Meade for The Guardian
Five important questions for the incoming ABC managing director after David Anderson's resignation - ABC News
Australia has a poverty problem – so why is there no agreed measure of it? | Poverty | The Guardian
In a cost-of-living crisis and a housing crisis, coming off the back of a global pandemic and amid an escalating climate catastrophe, understanding poverty and inequality is paramount.
But Australia does not have an agreed national measurement for poverty or disadvantage. All the research, reports and strategies by governments and social services are created using different methods, working against different benchmarks and coming to significantly different conclusions about how many people are deprived and by how much.
But there are globally recognised, flexible and effective ways of measuring the complex nature of poverty which have allowed governments around the world to accurately work out the level of deprivation experienced by their citizens and to change it.
So how can Australia do better?
The NDIS reform bill has been passed – will it get things ‘back on track’ for people with disability? - The Conversation
The government has passed a bill that will pave the way for sweeping reforms to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
In late March many in the disability community were surprised when the government introduced a new piece of legislation to get the NDIS “back on track”. The route of the bill through parliament has not been easy and many in the disability community have been highly critical of it, even calling for the current reforms to be scrapped altogether.
On Wednesday, NDIS Minister Bill Shorten said agreement had been reached with states and territories about how they will work together regarding the scheme. The provision of “foundational” disability support and services outside the NDIS has been a sticking point.
Why has this bill been so controversial? And now amended reforms have passed, what will happen next?
Jane Caro: How Australia shaped Trump’s education policy - The Saturday Paper
Among its many recommendations, Project 2025 would put the Department of Justice under direct presidential control, eliminate job protections for public servants, increase funding for “The Wall”, increase barriers and costs for immigration, end climate change mitigation, increase fossil fuel production, slash corporate taxes, abolish the Federal Reserve, ban the abortion pill mifepristone and maintain a biblically based definition of marriage and family.
It also favours abolishing the federal Department of Education and introducing an Australian-style funding system for schools. Yes, Australian-style. They don’t acknowledge it as that but the resemblance is uncanny.
Read more from Jane Caro for The Saturday Paper
Today’s cartoon by David Rowe
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here
Newsroom edition: Peter Dutton is ‘flooding the zone’ with distractions -
The Guardian’s Full Story Podcast
This week Peter Dutton used the war in Gaza to make a political point, accusing the government of bringing people in from the Gaza ‘war zone’ and ‘not conducting checks and searches on these people’ – claims not wholly true. But what is really driving this divisive debate?Today I am talking to editor-in-chief Lenore Taylor and head of newsroom Mike Ticher about why Dutton is dominating political discourse with distractions.
Listen to The Guardian’s Full Story Podcast
Also >
Dutton, Gaza and why we need an emergency protection framework - Pearls and Irritations
Defaming Dutton and Co or calling a racist a racist? - Independent Australia
Tim Dunlop: Peter Dutton has a tell. On the Opposition leader's theory of shame - The Future of Everything
The winter session of Federal Parliament has been particularly fractious, culminating in Peter Dutton suggesting he might sue community independent Zali Steggall for saying that his policy of restricting Australia’s intake of Palestinian refugees is racist. This is the same person who last year told another independent MP, Kylea Tink, to “toughen up” after she complained about the abuse she had received from a Liberal MP.
The tells, the clues, the signs and the symptoms of what sort of person Peter Dutton is have been there for a long time and his recent behaviour has been a further flickering movement on the line of scrimmage. The jury is in, I think.
Read more from Tim Dunlop for The Future of Everything
A near 100 per cent renewable grid is readily achievable and affordable - RenewEconomy
Three years ago, on August, 25 2021, I started running a weekly simulation of Australia’s main electricity grid. The intention was to show that it is possible to get close to 100% renewable electricity with just 24 GW / 120 GWh of storage, enough storage to supply average demand for 5-hours.
Each week, the simulation uses actual demand data from the previous week, with no modifications. It also uses actual wind and solar generation data, but they have been rescaled so that they provide a little over 60% and 45% of annual demand respectively.
Friday essay: how an unholy alliance of the separatist left and reactionary right rejected the Voice’s ‘sensible middle way’ - The Conversation
If the 1999 republic referendum got crushed by an “unholy alliance” between monarchists and direct electionists, the Voice referendum was repudiated by an unprincipled union between the separatist Indigenous left and the reactionary right – though the right’s opposition was more electorally impactful.
The reactionary right wants assimilation. No special place for Indigenous people can be accommodated – let’s even get rid of Welcomes to Country, some “No” proponents have argued.
At the other extreme, the separatist left seeks Indigenous “sovereignty”. It rejects any Indigenous inclusion in Australia’s “racist and colonial” Constitution, the authority of which it disputes – although the figurehead of the Blak Sovereign Movement, Lidia Thorpe, is open to “infiltrating” the Australian political system in other ways, including by being a federal senator.
These two groups hated each other. They nonetheless joined forces to defeat the Voice referendum, which proposed a sensible middle way between their extremes.
Read more from Shireen Morris for The Conversation
Bernard Keane: More taxpayer money for companies linked to Israel’s war in Gaza - Crikey
Australian taxpayers will once again be funding companies with ties to the Israel Defense Forces, with the government’s announcement that Norwegian arms manufacturer Kongsberg will receive $850 million to build missiles at a manufacturing facility near Newcastle.
Kongsberg, which has maritime, defence, aerospace and digital arms, is majority-owned by the Norwegian government.
Norway bans arms exports to countries in states of war, including Israel, and in February, Norway’s foreign minister Espen Barth Eide said: “states exporting weapons to Israel should reassess whether they are effective partners in the genocide in Gaza Strip or not.”
Read more from Bernard Keane for Crikey (paywall)
How leaders are responding to Micaela Cronin’s update on the government’s plan to end male violence - Women’s Agenda
The government, opposition and frontline services are determined to progress with the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children 2022-2032.
Yesterday, Australia’s Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner Micaela Cronin addressed the National Press Club to provide an inaugural but what will become a yearly “report card” update on how the government is progressing with the national policy framework to end gender-based violence.
This year, 46 women have been killed by male violence, according to Destroy the Joint’s Counting Dead Women. That’s 11 more women than this time last year.
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Ministers rack up $1m more in taxpayer-funded robodebt legal expenses, with Scott Morrison topping list - Paul Karp for The Guardian
Can free-to-air TV survive a blanket ban on gambling ads? - ABC News
Australia – the indentured state - Pearls and Irritations
‘Heat engine’ fuelled by climate crisis bringing blast of summer weather to Australian winter - The Guardian
‘We’re winning!’ What Sean Kidney said about green finance – we’re talkin’ trillions - The Fifth Estate
An open letter from legal experts on the ICJ Advisory Opinion - Overland literary journal
Superannuation must protect, not exploit: Urgent reforms needed to shield women from financial abuse - Women’s Agenda
This NT election, even pet crocs are campaign fodder. Just don’t mention the ballooning debt - The Conversation
A new Australian media company has just launched. But who on earth is funding it? - Crikey (paywall)
Snowy Hydro buys another boring machine, hoping to make up for lost time - The ABC
Singapore solved its housing crisis. It could hold lessons for Australia - Capital Brief (paywall)
This NT election, even pet crocs are campaign fodder. Just don’t mention the ballooning debt - The Conversation
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 23rd of August. 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