News update for Fri 27 June 2025

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

Jun 27, 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 the news and views you need to know today…

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

Watch The Sunday Shot - LIVE STREAMED - this Sunday morning at 9am - with Jo Dyer, Dave Milner, Doug Cameron, Josh Bornstein and Peter Cronau. Subscribe to The Sunday Shot’s Youtube channel for a notification as the panel goes live.

Sussan Ley pushes for new collaborative policy process in bid to avoid Peter Dutton-style party control - The Guardian

Opposition leader wants to take advantage of MPs’ expertise and community connections and give backbench policy committees more say in the pitch to voters.

Sussan Ley will ask Coalition MPs to endorse a new policy development process designed to empower backbenchers and include more diverse voices, part of efforts to avoid repeating the political overreach which occurred during Peter Dutton’s leadership.

At a meeting of the joint Coalition party room in Canberra on Friday, the opposition leader will outline a bottom-up approach for new policy proposals.

Why Albanese backed Trump’s Iran attack - 7am Podcast

When US President Donald Trump ordered strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, the world watched for a response. But in Australia, there was silence. It took a day before Prime Minister Anthony Albanese or Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong addressed the media. When they did, they backed the US, tentatively, while calling for calm. For Albanese, a leader who once opposed the Iraq war, it’s a moment that reveals how far Labor has travelled on foreign policy and how little resistance that shift is meeting inside his own party. But while Labor falls in line, the Coalition are thrashing their way to a new identity. This week, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley made her first major pitch to the public – signalling where she wants to take her divided party. Today, columnist for The Monthly and Inside Story, Karen Middleton, on war, politics and the calculations driving both major parties.

Listen to the 7am Podcast

Also >

The risks for Australia in backing US military action - Full Story Podcast
Dr. Emma Shortis on Trump, US politics, and Australia’s Sovereignty - Bogan Intelligentsia

Australian foreign policy is in the doldrums - Pearls and Irritations

Opinion polls indicate Australians are at last waking up to the fact that their country’s security reliance on Trump’s US is no longer tenable.

Indeed, it never has been. A complete foreign policy overhaul is now urgently needed. But Australia’s foreign minister is dithering. Is she not up to the task?

Penny Wong may go down as one of of the great disappointments in Australia’s foreign policy history – a history which itself is as disappointing as it is long. Her formulaic call for “de-escalation, dialogue and diplomacy” in response to the Iran-Israel conflict is a trilogy of words that mean nothing. Despite Trump’s contempt for the US’ allies, she continually mouths the tired old refrain that America is our most important global ally.

ACCC sues gas company, saying its “love gas” campaign amounts to greenwashing - Renew Economy

Millions of Australian consumers have been misled about the future of gas in a series of advertisements claiming the resource will become renewable within a generation, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says.

The regulator has launched what it calls its biggest greenwashing lawsuit against Australian Gas Networks over the “love gas” campaign in Federal Court on Thursday, alleging it “overstated” the likelihood of producing renewable gas.

But the company behind the claims has called the legal action disappointing and will defend its actions.

Who’s your daddy? NATO head has no doubt - The Politics

Love means always having to say you're sorry, and Mark Rutte has taken on the sins of the father with fawning servility.

It’s not every day the head of NATO calls a US president “daddy”, especially a “daddy” like Donald Trump. But here we are: a transatlantic love story like no other.

It began with a gushing private message two days ago, man to man, from Mark Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister. “Daddy” was on his way to a meeting in the Dutch capital. He of course promptly leaked Rutte’s private note. Why wouldn’t he? The European had praised Trump to the heavens for his decision to unleash massive bombs on Iran’s nuclear sites.

Was this a case of Rutte taking one for the team, to secure Trump’s support through flattery?

Also read >

Biden 1, Trump 0 — US economy shrinks as MAGA chaos bites - Crikey
Listen Up, Democrats - Lessons to be learned from an NYC shocker - Dan Rather
All politics is global: The meaning of Zohran Mamdani’s insurgent victory - Pearls and Irritations
Do all Iranians hate the regime? Hate America? Life inside the country is much more complex and nuanced - The Conversation
‘You don’t wanna know what daddy means in my community’: Gay Senator delivers perfect one-liner to GOP - Women’s Agenda

Today’s cartoon by David Rowe

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

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Whatever happened to the Albanese government’s wellbeing agenda? - The Conversation

The Albanese government devoted time and energy in its first term to developing a wellbeing agenda for the economy and society.

It was a passion project of Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who wanted better ways to measure national welfare beyond traditional economic indicators such as growth, jobs and inflation.

As Labor settles into its second term, what has happened to its wellbeing agenda? And how much was a poor consultation process to blame for it apparently falling by the wayside?

Vindicated: Antoinette Lattouf's Fair Work Win Against The ABC - Fourth Estate Podcast

What began as just five casual shifts behind the microphone has escalated into one of the most high-profile legal battles in Australian media. In 2023, Antoinette Lattouf was dropped as a fill-in presenter on ABC Radio Sydney after she shared a Human Rights Watch post about the Israel-Gaza conflict, which claimed Israel had used starvation as a "weapon of war." Lattouf took the national broadcaster to court, alleging wrongful dismissal. Now, after a lengthy and expensive legal fight, Justice Darryl Rangiah has ruled in favour of Antoinette Lattouf. Co-founder of Lamestream Media, Scott Mitchell and Media Reporter for Crikey, Daanyal Saeed, joined Tina Quinn to discuss both the judgment and the implications for not only the ABC, but the media more broadly.

Listen to the Fourth Estate Podcast

Also >

Why the ABC lost an unfair dismissal case - The Daily Aus Podcast
Australia’s media myopia - Pearls and Irritations
The ABC's Antoinette Lattouf ‘issue’ - Michelle Pini for Independent Australia
What can newsrooms learn from the ABC’s ‘state of panic’ on Lattouf? - Crikey (paywall)
It’s more than a coat: An ode to Antoinette Lattouf’s meaningful courtroom fashion - Crystal Andrews for Crikey (paywall)
Antoinette Lattouf judgment underlines role of News Corp’s deadline in ABC management’s ‘panic’ - Amanda Meade for The Guardian

Monique Ryan: How lobbyists are blocking bans on advertising for online gambling – and putting young Australians at risk - The New Daily

Two years ago this week, the late Labor MP Peta Murphy tabled a landmark parliamentary report — You Win Some, You Lose More — calling for a phased ban on gambling advertising.

It was a bold, evidence-based proposal to protect Australians — especially children and young people — from the saturation of betting promotions that normalise harmful behaviour. It had rare bipartisan support from all members of the Parliamentary Committee into Social Policy and Legal Affairs.

Two years on, the Albanese Government has failed to respond to these recommendations in any formal manner. Sadly, this is because a dense thicket of lobbying and political donations, shielded by loopholes and opacity, is holding reform hostage.

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Tony Abbott loves to fail — and it keeps impacting politics - Crikey

He’s had a shocker, frankly. An absolute mare.

Sometimes the symbolism in a situation is so prominent, so unavoidable, it feels downright needy. Per Guardian Australia, right-wing lobbyist group Advance is courting donations “from deceased estates with the blessing of former prime minister Tony Abbott as part of its latest efforts to fundraise for its campaign war chest”.

Having helped drive the Liberal Party into its electoral grave, Abbott and Advance have decided they might find riches there, now taking its sustenance from the dead, not just its ideas.

Labor must protect environment while rewriting laws ‘written to facilitate development’, Larissa Waters says - The Guardian

Greens leader says redesign of ‘ridiculous’ Howard-era rules must include explicit consideration of climate.

Greens leader Larissa Waters warns Labor’s rewrite of national environmental laws will not be credible if the government uses its planned 18-month timeline to continue to approve new coal and gas projects or allow continued habitat destruction.

Labor’s proposal to create a federal environment protection agency collapsed in the final months of the last parliament. A deal with the Greens was being negotiated by the then environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, but Anthony Albanese pushed the changes off the agenda, fearing an electoral backlash in Western Australia.