News update for Mon 10 June 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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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
Paul Karp: The robodebt six: why it’s time we were told who was referred to the corruption commission - The Guardian
When Catherine Holmes’ scathing royal commission report on the robodebt scandal was released, it made abundantly clear who she felt was at fault for the scheme.
But the public did not get the juiciest bit: Holmes’ view of precisely what consequences should attach to those failings.
The “sealed chapter” recommended the referral of individuals for civil action or criminal prosecution but was not released, so as not to prejudice those processes.
Last week, one of them came to an end.
Read more from Paul Karp for The Guardian
Zero accountability: Rick Morton on the NACC dropping robodebt -7am Podcast
When the robodebt royal commission’s final report landed, it was scathing. It condemned the entire scheme, the individuals who rolled it out and the government culture that enabled it. The commissioner went to significant lengths to refer six people to the then very fresh National Anti-Corruption Commission. But last week, the NACC decided to drop the investigation, essentially saying it had nothing to add. So, what’s the motivation behind this shift? Why not take a swing at the architects of such a discredited and damaging scheme?
Listen to Rick Morton for the 7am Podcast
Anthony Klan: NACCered: How Dreyfus fudged the figures to deliver a secret regulator - The Klaxon
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus used fudged data to justify implementing the almost entirely secret National Anti-Corruption Commission, which vastly understated the level of NSW anti-corruption hearings held in public.
After the Albanese Government installed a highly opaque NACC shortly after winning power, it justified the move by stating the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) held only “3.5 per cent of all hearings” in public.
In fact, around 50 per cent of ICAC hearings are held in public — over 14 times more.
Read more from Anthony Klan for The Klaxon
Alan Kohler: Australia must do what Esperance did, and get off gas - The New Daily
Peter Dutton is absolutely right that Labor has little prospect of achieving its target of a 43 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030.
His cunning plan is to give up and oppose it, while using nuclear power to stick with net zero by 2050, which is far enough in the future that nuclear isn’t entirely laughable and keeps the Nationals in the tent.
Also, Dutton will be 79 in 2050 and long retired, so he won’t have to wear the backlash over higher power bills from nuclear reactors.
Read more from Alan Kohler for The New Daily
Dutton confirms nuclear push and climate denial go hand in hand: The pretence has gone - Renew Economy
So, let there now be no doubt or confusion: Opposition leader Peter Dutton has confirmed that his Coalition’s push for nuclear energy is inextricably linked with his party’s implacable denial of climate science. The pretence that it is anything else is now gone.
Dutton’s interview with The Weekend Australian published on Saturday makes two important concessions: That nuclear energy is very slow, and cannot feasibly be deployed in Australia before the mid 2040s. It also proves that he is ready and willing to rip up the Paris climate target – and sacrifice the country’s economic future – in the name of his energy dogma.
Australians should not be surprised, but they ought to be appalled, and terrified.
Read more from Giles Parkinson for Renew Economy
Rex Patrick: Talking the Talk: Dutton dumps climate commitment, Labor speaks with forked tongue - Michael West Media
Peter Dutton’s Coalition is abandoning Australia’s climate targets while new FOI data show Labor’s fossil fuel commitments are spin.
As the saying goes, ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there’. And that’s the problem with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s announcement that the Coalition is abandoning Australia’s 2030 emissions targets.
Leaders set a direction and then guide the team there. Having an aim to point to keeps the team focussed and allows performance to be assessed against stated ambition. In this regard, Dutton’s announcement represents failure before the journey even starts.
But is Labor any better? Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has set a direction, but is doing everything not to land the goal.
Read more from Rex Patrick for Michael West Media
Today’s cartoon by Megan Herbert
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here
Corporations far right machine is busy - Pearls and Irritations
The radicalised right has been very active in Australia and internationally recently. With corporate money backing the movement at every turn, the networking is amplifying. If democratic projects can be made more illiberal, and international bodies crippled, the liberal tradition can be replaced with an authoritarian reimposition of “order” and corporations will have an easier route to profit.
Read more from Lucy Hamilton in Pearls and Irritations
Tim Costello: I am a Christian but my tribe supports Trump. I feel like I no longer belong - The SMH/Age
Searing insight can come from unexpected places. Take Billy Graham, the most prominent evangelist of the 20th century, who also turned out to be a prophet for our times. Back in 1980, he was being urged to support Ronald Reagan’s candidacy for president by Reverend Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority evangelicals. He refused and said: “It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.” How true that has proven to be.
Read more from Tim Costello for The SMH/Age (paywall)
Costello goes, but the cultural problems at Nine Entertainment remain - The Conversation
Peter Costello has long had an uneasy relationship with journalistic truth-telling.
In 2005 he dined with three journalists from the Canberra press gallery, during which he told them the Coalition government led by John Howard, and of which he was treasurer, could not win the election due in 2007 with Howard as leader.
Next morning, a member of his staff induced the three journalists to treat the conversation as off the record – that is, in confidence.
Read more from Denis Muller for The Conversation
John Lyons: Analysis Gaza has become a humanitarian catastrophe and Israel will have to answer tough questions - The ABC
"Frozen" children — it's an unusual description of an appalling reality.
They're the words Sydney clinical psychologist Scarlett Wong used after a recent trip to Gaza with Doctors Without Borders.
"When you see a starving child, they are apathetic, they have no response," she told SBS News. "This is the kind of thing we were seeing from a medical view … children have become frozen, with no emotion, and apathetic."
The situation, Dr Wong said, was "the worst humanitarian disaster I have ever seen".
Gaza has become one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of our time. The UN's World Food Programme has said parts of Gaza are now gripped by "a full-blown famine".
Read more from John Lyons for The ABC
Dr Victoria Fielding: News Corp calls for tech giants to adhere by 'social license' utterly hypocritical - Independent Australia
When you see the way News Corp would have to change to meet media standards and basic standards of common decency, it is clear just how far removed News Corp is from having any positive influence on society.
But let’s not kid ourselves to think News Corp has any intention of changing to have a more positive influence.
News Corp does not exist to contribute to a positive media culture and does not set out to provide news and commentary which informs a healthy democracy.
It exists to wield political power in aid of conservative causes — to intervene in democracy in its own interests.
It will continue to do this as long as it exists.
Read more from Dr Victoria Fielding for Independent Australia
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Labor slumps in Newspoll to a tie with Coalition, with Albanese also down - The Conversation
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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You’re up to date for Monday the 10th of June - the King’s Birthday Holiday. See you tomorrow!
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here