News update for Fri 24 Jan 2025

Your trusted guide to the top independent news and views of the day...

Jan 24, 2025

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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Scroll down for today’s news and views…

TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS UPDATES: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here

Murdoch’s UK newspapers have apologised to Prince Harry. Where does it leave the legally embattled media empire? - The Conversation

This week Prince Harry achieved something few before him have: an admission of guilt and unlawful behaviour from the Murdoch media organisation. But he also fell short of his long-stated goal of holding the Murdochs to account in a public trial.

The Duke of Sussex, along with Tom Watson, the Labour MP who had led the charge against the Murdochs’ News Group Newspapers (NGN) in the United Kingdom during the 2011–12 phone hacking scandal, are the last to settle their claims against News over their privacy being invaded by phone hacking or through the use of private investigators.

Is Albanese letting Dutton set the political agenda? - Full Story Podcast

As an election year begins, both the prime minister Anthony Albanese and the opposition leader Peter Dutton have started laying out their priorities and setting the tone for the upcoming election. But with Donald Trump returning to the White House, and as horrific antisemitic attacks continue to dominate our politics, both leaders have found themselves battling for headlines. Bridie Jabour talks with editor-in-chief Lenore Taylor and head of newsroom Mike Ticher about whose pre-election message is cutting through and connecting with voters.

Listen to The Guardian’s Full Story Podcast

Also read > We live in times of multiple entwined crises – but our policy responses aren’t keeping up - The Conversation

Lucy Hamilton: The Liberal party, Moira Deeming and political Christianity - Pearls and Irritations

In Australian politics at federal and state level, it is desirable and appropriate that politicians with a religious commitment are elected to office, while also at times keeping separate their professional roles from private convictions for the sake of constituents and members of the community who do not belong to that faith.

It is altogether a different matter when a religious faction demands followers infiltrate a range of parties’ branches and structures to bend them to their will.

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Resisting ‘deliberately divisive’ 26 January debate, First Nations leaders seek a broader view of history - The Guardian

Every year in the lead-up to 26 January, Bundjalung woman Karen Mundine dreads hearing “the same or similar voices yelling at each other”.

For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, it is a day of mourning, marked with pain, sadness, frustration and anger at the continuing damage done by colonisation.

Thirty-one years ago, prime minister Paul Keating declared Australia Day a national public holiday. About two centuries earlier, in 1788, the First Fleet arrived in Sydney Cove from Botany Bay.

Working holidaymakers contributing strongly to net migration - Independent Australia

Several policy changes and a strong labour market have led to a surge in working holidaymakers, setting new records and soaring above pre-COVID levels.

THE WORKING holidaymaker contribution to net migration blew all previous records out of the water, at 89,950 in 2022-23 and 72,480 in 2023-24. (Working holidaymakers consist of two types of visas — the demand-driven SC 417 based on the older agreements and the more restricted SC 462 Work and Holiday visa for new agreement countries.)

Poll claims almost half the world's population, 20% of Australians antisemitic - Michael West Media

If a survey undertaken by the US-based Anti-Defamation League is to be believed, 4.7m Australians are antisemites. Is that really true?

According to the ADL survey, “anti-Jewish sentiments are at an all-time high globally, revealing areas where governments must take action to tackle antisemitic hate.”

It appears this survey is deliberately conflating negative attitudes with hatred and calls to violence.

Today’s cartoon by Fiona Katuaskas

TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here

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Burnt mansions: Why the next election is a fork in the road - 7am Podcast

As wildfires tore through some of LA’s most affluent neighbourhoods, burning down mansions owned by celebrities, some wondered if it might be a turning point in how seriously we take the climate crisis. But climate scientist Joëlle Gergis wasn’t sharing that hope. Instead, Gergis was angered by our heartache for wealthy communities while the impact of climate change disproportionately affects the poor. And to make matters even worse, a climate denier has entered the White House. Now, Gergis is turning her attention to the upcoming election here in Australia, where she says we have a choice to make about how comfortable we are being complicit on climate. Today, climate scientist and contributor to The Saturday Paper, Joëlle Gergis, on why the next election is a fork in the road for our climate.

Listen to the 7am Podcast

Also >

Trump has withdrawn the US from the Paris Agreement. Here’s why that’s not such a bad thing - The Conversation
Trump launches immediate attack on climate, renewables and EVs. How worried should we be? - Renew Economy
Halting new wind farms while coal plants buckle: Is this the LNP’s plan for Queensland? - Renew Economy

Jordan Peterson laid the groundwork for Zuckerberg's 'masculine energy' - Women’s Agenda

January is a month that inevitably ushers in a lot of sentimental ideas about ‘fresh starts’. For some of us, that means splurging on an overpriced wall calendar. For Meta, it means scrapping DEI programs, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg disbanding his global diversity, equity and inclusion team.

As Zuckerberg explained on the popular podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, he believes companies need to bring back more “masculine energy” into a “neutered” corporate culture.

The term “masculine energy” really landed, quickly generating a swarm of headlines globally.

Should we believe a Mediscare campaign? – Croakey Health Media

For the last two and a half years the Federal Opposition under Peter Dutton’s leadership has avoided virtually any concrete policy commitments in the health area.

What happened when the Coalition won Government in 2013, when Dutton became Health Minister?

When the Liberal National Party under Tony Abbott won government at the 2013 election, Dutton had been shadow health minister for over five years. He had not been an active shadow minister – months would go by without a media release, far less a policy statement.

The health policies the Coalition took to the 2013 election were largely promises to undo Labor decisions or maintain the status quo.

Australia at the Crossroads: Resisting the Trumpian Turn in Our Democracy - Sue Barrett

In the dim light of Australian politics, a shadow looms large, one that echoes the divisive and destabilising tactics of Donald Trump. As we edge closer to the 2025 federal election, it's crucial for Australians to recognise this shadow, cast by Peter Dutton and his Liberal National Coalition (LNP), bolstered by the fossil fuel industry and billionaires like Gina Rinehart.

Here's why we must be vigilant.

Is international law even a thing anymore? Not when it comes to Nauru - Crikey

The UN Human Rights Committee has twice called out Australia's treatment of refugees on Nauru. The government — and media — have ignored it.

In a world where law per se is rapidly ceasing to have much meaning — I mean, the US president did just pardon or commute the sentences of 1,500 individuals who had attempted the violent overthrow of his own country’s government because he said they were “hostages” rather than convicted criminals — it is almost quaint to pretend that international law is even a thing anymore.

Our own attorney-general just went over to Israel to mend fences, comfortably ignoring the fact that its prime minister is the subject of an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes.

Dave Milner: How did America Nazi this coming? - The Shot

Within hours of the 45th President of the United States becoming the 47th President – a failed coup and a malignant personality turning out to be quite the vote winner! – the United States had pulled out of the Paris Climate Accords, pardoned the January 6th rioters, ramped up deportations, and signed an Executive Order to outlaw birthright citizenship for people without legal American parents. Trump has even promised to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, with the “full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement”, to deal with foreign criminal gangs. The last time the act was applied was to round up Japanese Americans and put them in camps during World War II.

And amidst all the xenophobia and pomp, Elon Musk stood on a stage and offered the inauguration audience not one but two Nazi salutes.