News update for Mon 14 April 2025
Your trusted guide to the top independent news and views of the day...
19 days until the May 3 federal election
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 - Amy Remeikis for The Australia Institute here - and through 6 News here
Amy Remeikis: As Dutton’s election campaign implodes, Albanese is allowed to coast and voters end up the losers - The New Daily
The 2025 election Coalition campaign is now about how many seats Peter Dutton has to win in order to maintain his leadership and our national debate could not be poorer for it.
The number Liberal party figures were floating late in the week was 65. That would mean winning about a dozen.
At one point, maybe even as recently as January, that was a considered the minimum. At this point in the campaign, it’s a high watermark.
Read more from Amy Remeikis for The New Daily
Also read >
Strongmen, Daggy Dads and State Daddies: how different styles of political masculinity play into Australian elections - The Conversation
A small target has suddenly got bigger - Karen Middleton for Inside Story
The Coalition doesn't have long to get clear on its policies before pre-polling begins - Laura Tingle for The ABC
Ten things we learned from Anthony Albanese’s speech at the Labor party campaign launch - The Guardian
Ten things we learned from Peter Dutton’s speech at the Liberal party campaign launch - The Guardian
Is this the worst election campaign ever? - Bernard Keane for Crikey (paywall)
Dutton is dying on Trump’s hill—and taking the Coalition with him - Women’s Agenda
Rightwing lobby group Advance says it makes ‘no apology’ for support given to anti-Greens groups - The Guardian
Spokesperson acknowledges supply of flyers, T-shirts and corflutes to ‘dozens of community groups’ seeking to defeat party’s candidates.
The rightwing advocacy group Advance has acknowledged it is paying for election materials attacking the Greens to be used by third-party groups during the election campaign.
“Advance is working with hundreds of volunteers from dozens of community groups to defeat Greens candidates and we make no apology,” a spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said Advance did not fund groups directly but “we absolutely pay for anti-Greens campaign material to be at the disposal of volunteers”.
“This includes 2m flyers and thousands of T-shirts and corflutes.
Also Read >
How election candidates are boosting The Noticer, a news site promoting neo-Nazi ideologies - ABC News
Image emerges of Jacinta Price wearing Maga cap – one day after she says Coalition will ‘make Australia great again’ - The Guardian
Gettin' Scared - The Sunday Shot Podcast
There really is a "vast right wing conspiracy". Lucy Hamilton and The Klaxon's Anthony Klan join us to explore the shocking deep reach of the Atlas Network and the sinister way it propagates messages that support its own commercial and political interests while masquerading as grassroots organisations.
Listen to The Sunday Shot podcast
Voters have a clear choice. Labor’s long term and equitable tax reform or the Coalition’s big but one-off tax cuts - The Conversation
The election campaign has erupted into a economic battleground as Labor and the Coalition unveiled major new tax policies at their campaign launches.
Each policy package is aimed at addressing the mounting cost-of-living pressures facing millions of Australians.
Labor’s flagship announcement is a new standard tax deduction of $1,000 per year for work-related expenses. It represents a permanent reform designed to simplify the tax system and provide consistent, predictable relief.
Also read >
Battle of the election ‘sugar hits’: Labor and Coalition announce tax plans at duelling campaign launches - The Guardian
What do Labor and the Coalition’s new housing polices mean for first home buyers? - The Guardian
Labor and Coalition support for new home buyers welcome but other Australians also struggling with housing affordability - The Conversation
The housing policies of both major parties are bad for Australia’s aspiring homebuyers - Saul Eslake for The Guardian
George Monbiot: Rightwing populists will keep winning until we grasp this truth about human nature - The Guardian
Economic inequality breeds resentment and a desire to get even. That’s what fuels support for even incompetent regimes.
The one thing that can stop the rise of the far right is the one thing mainstream parties are currently not prepared to deliver: greater equality. The rich should be taxed more, and the revenue used to improve the lives of the poor. However frantically centrist parties avoid the issue, there is no other way.
Read more from George Monbiot for The Guardian
Also read > Post-election tax reform is the key to reversing Australia’s growing wealth divide - The Conversation
Today’s cartoon by David Rowe
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS UPDATES: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - Amy Remeikis for The Australia Institute here - and through 6 News here
Join the new Boiling Point community - where we’re growing a group of politically informed Australians in the lead up to the 2025 federal election. See details and sign up here.
Nuclear “largely irrelevant” amid booming solar: Top expert - The Klaxon
A massive increase in solar power generation capacity is already putting Australia on the fast track to a 100 percent renewable energy future.
An academic living in cold Canberra retired his gas heaters a few years ago and installed electric heat pumps for space and water heating. His gas bill went to zero.
He also bought an electric vehicle, so his petrol bill went to zero.
He installed rooftop solar panels that export enough solar electricity to the grid to pay for electricity imports at night, so his electricity bill also went to zero.
That Canberra academic will get his money back from these energy investments in about eight years.
Also read >
Forget nuclear, Australia is on fast lane to 100pc renewables - Michael West Media
Community groups furious Coalition nuclear plan would go ahead even if locals oppose it - The Guardian
Tim Flannery on the Coalition’s energy plan - 7am Podcast
As a scientist, Tim Flannery says he’s seen climate change kicked around parliament for decades. Australians are now paying for the years of denial, distraction and delay from our politicians, with a decade’s worth of warming just in the past couple of years. While the last election sent the major parties a clear message that Australia should act on climate change, he says this election is all about how. And he says he’s optimistic that this could actually be the last climate election. Today, chief councillor of the Climate Council Tim Flannery on the choice Australians are facing – between expanding renewables, or repeating the mistakes of the past.
How Dutton’s campaign fell apart - New Politics
The second week of the election campaign has seen the opposition leader’s campaign disintegrate and a Prime Minister unwilling to talk about climate change.
The second week of the federal election campaign – a stage when political parties are seeking stability – descended into yet more misfires for the Liberal Party, and it started off with bringing one of the worst deals in recent political history into the campaign: the lease of the Port of Darwin to a Chinese company, the Landbridge Group. Despite having implemented the entire deal, the Coalition sought to reframe the issue as a national security threat in an attempt to reignite anti-China sentiment and regain some control over their campaign.
Trade wars. Trump is fighting a fight the US lost decades ago - Michael West Media
Poor old Donald Trump thinks the United States still dominates the global economy, but the ‘stable genius’ has lost touch with reality and is a couple of decades out of date.
The US is important, the traditional consumer of last resort, but relatively speaking, it is no longer the colossus it once was. Other than in the fantasies of Emperor No Clothes, the US can no longer use economic heft to command the world.
Read more from Michael Pascoe for Michael West Media
Nicole Chvastek: Mark her words: Jacinta’s in poor voice again - The Politics
Has the right-wing Nats senator whose big mouth helped kill the Voice referendum killed off Peter Dutton's chances with her Trump-MAGA throwaway line?
There’s nothing more devastatingly effective at election time than a well-chosen slogan. With surgical precision, three or four words can sometimes make or break a political party’s campaign.
MPs and marketing gurus agonise over a magic phrase. To be clear, it doesn’t have to be evidence-based or mean anything. It just has to sound like it does. The Voice to Parliament referendum, for instance, seemed a reasonable and doable proposition until Liberal leader Peter Dutton forecast a catastrophe with a tsunami of lies, backed in by a snappy chant: “If you don’t know, vote no.”
Game over.
Read more from Nicole Chvastek for The Politics
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Quick Links…
From margins to movement: Why Muslim votes matter - Pearls and Irritations
Australian academics refuse to attend US conferences for fear of being detained - The Guardian
Productivity reform has been put in the too-hard basket for years. Here’s why leaders leave it alone - The Conversation
Donald Trump's executive order on showerheads seems trivial but it's a subtle power grab - Alan Kohler for ABC News
Channel 7’s hit on EVs exposes brutal work practices, Indonesia hits foreign media - Michael West Media
Gaza's trees now bear a strange fruit - Pearls and Irritations
Experts debunk Liberal's inflation claim against Labor - AAP Factcheck
Huon Aquaculture dominates use of underwater explosives against seals at salmon farms, government data reveals - Tasmanian Inquirer
I’ve seen Australia’s beloved gumtrees dying and it makes me wonder: if they can’t survive, how can we? - The Guardian
Australian Politics: Leaks, lies and sabotage: The Coalition’s second-week election meltdown - New Politics Podcast
Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor (Member For Hume) - Betoota Talks Podcast
Gina episode 3: Love and money - Full Story Podcast
Glazing politicians, + where is ending DV this election? - The Women's Agenda Podcast
Election Special Live - Melbourne Comedy Festival 2025 - A Rational Fear
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS UPDATES: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - Amy Remeikis for The Australia Institute here - and through 6 News here
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You’re up to date for Monday the 14th of April. See you tomorrow!
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS UPDATES: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - Amy Remeikis for The Australia Institute here - and through 6 News here
Join the new Boiling Point community - where we’re growing a group of politically informed Australians in the lead up to the 2025 federal election. See details and sign up here.
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