News update for Mon 15 July 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.
Please share with friends, family, colleagues - as good journalism is always worth supporting.
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
Emma Shortis: A bloodied, defiant Trump could become the defining image of the US election - The Conversation
The shots fired at Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday are being investigated as an assassination attempt of the former president and current Republican presidential nominee.
Assassination attempts on presidents and presidential nominees are littered throughout American history. What happened in Pennsylvania is horrifying, but sadly not surprising.
I’ve been really struck by how many senior political figures in the United States came out after the shooting and said political violence has no place in America. US President Joe Biden said violence of this kind is “unheard of” in the US.
Read more from Emma Shortis for The Conversation
Cam Wilson: Australia’s pro-Trump media are already blaming Biden and left-wing opponents for the assassination attempt - Crikey
In the fallout of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, Australian media supporters of the former president lined up to argue that responsibility for the act of political violence fell squarely upon President Joe Biden, the Democrats and their supporters.
Undeterred by the little we know about the shooter’s confusing political history (he was a registered Republican who once donated to a scammy progressive campaigning outfit) and the absence of any information about his motive, the pro-Trump media machine wasted no time in blaming their opponents for the attack.
Read more from Cam Wilson for Crikey (paywall)
Bernard Keane: Shooting will arm Trump to take America into the authoritarian darkness - Crikey
Given that Donald Trump incited a violent insurrection in 2021, regularly endorsed or urged violence during his presidency, has been invoked as an inspiration for racist violence scores of times, and endorsed calls for his own vice president to be hanged, it’s perhaps unsurprising that America’s culture of political violence has engulfed Trump himself, at a tragic cost of one man’s life, along with injuries to two others.
Read more from Bernard Keane for Crikey (paywall)
Tim Dunlop: Donald ducks just in time But can the rest of us still dodge the bullet? - The Future of Everything
We are meant to understand that the failed assassination attempt on the most disgusting candidate their corrupted system of democracy has ever thrown up, the convicted felon, probable paedophile, convicted rapist, business shyster and instigator of a coup that almost overthrew the 2020 election, the big guy in the red hat who has effortlessly taken over the major conservative party in the land, we are meant to understand that the attempted assassination of that guy was an aberration rather than a distillation of some pure essence of the country’s politics.
Read more from Tim Dunlop for The Future of Everything
Also >
Political Violence Makes The Task Of Stopping Trump And Fascism Much Harder - Zeteo
The attempted assassination of Donald Trump – The Guardian’s Full Story podcast
An attempted assassination: What we know - The Daily Aus Podcast
MAGA Narratives about the Trump Assassination Attempt - Lucid
America is staring into the abyss - Financial Times
Our fractioned country - Dan Rather
Politicians in Australia need better security as debate becomes more polarised, expert says - The Guardian
Australia’s reminder to protect politics from violence - Angela Priestley for Women’s Agenda
Marcus Storm: The Setka Circus: get the gangsters out CFMEU and the building industry for unions sake - Michael West Media
The latest revelations of organised crime in the CFMEU show that royal commissions, police, union bosses, the crime commission and the construction giants have all been unable to keep gangsters out of the building industry.
Ten years ago I broke the story that organised crime had gained a foothold on the Barangaroo building site in Sydney using labour hire firms with the knowledge and support of senior figures in the CFMEU building union in NSW.
After a $50 million royal commission and much hand-wringing, nothing seems to have changed.
Read more from Marcus Storm for Michael West Media
Peter Dutton’s big Queensland energy - 7am Podcast
In Queensland, one issue is already dominating the upcoming state election: youth crime. So when the Liberal National Party launched their campaign, Peter Dutton was the perfect man to help sell their pitch. The federal opposition leader and former Queensland cop has been stressing his closeness to his home state. Already Peter Dutton has promised to crack down on crime, slow immigration, break up supermarket monopolies, and shift the green energy focus to nuclear. So will the Queensland election be a testing ground for Dutton’s federal agenda?
How Queensland’s youth crime crackdown is forcing vulnerable kids into ‘brutal’ detention system - The Guardian
Concerns grow over police arresting children – some as young as 11 – accused of low-level crimes or bail breaches.
With an election on the horizon, the Queensland government has begun posting tallies of the children arrested and charged by its flagship “saturation” youth crime operation.
Senior police say the operation is designed to target “serious repeat offenders”. But as arrest numbers grow month by month, concerns have emerged that the operation is forcing some of the state’s most vulnerable kids – some as young as 11, with little criminal history, and accused of low-level crimes or bail breaches – into the “brutal” detention system.
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
The whisper in the west - Inside Story
Glenn Druery is one smart cookie. Having long ago mastered the art of harvesting preferences under the old group-voting option on upper house ballot papers, and having perfected the schmoozing needed to convince aspiring upper house members to fund his lotteries, he’s also picked up useful insights into how political journalists and the media operate. The beast constantly needs stories, column inches, headlines — something, anything.
Read more from Peter Brent for Inside Story
Also read > Navigating Islamophobia in Australian media and politics - Inside Politics
The 'dark arts' tactic that could be a major threat to Australia's climate goals - SBS
Companies not living up to their public environmental claims will be increasingly vulnerable to legal risk, a report has argued.
The report — published by corporate climate action organisation Climate Integrity — suggests there is a misalignment between the public claims of nine of Australia's largest companies and their lobbying activities.
It said such activities, commonly known as 'greenwashing' expose the companies to legal risk for misleading consumers and investors.
However, some companies named in the report have responded and rejected the greenwashing claim.
Climate plans of Australian companies would be exempt from private litigation for three years under proposal - The Guardian
The climate plans of Australian companies would be immune to private litigation for three years under an Albanese government proposal before parliament.
The grace period is included in legislation before the Senate that would expand the information companies must provide about the risk the climate crisis poses to their business and what they will do about it.
Also read >
Climate activists have received months-long sentences. Are tougher laws eroding Australians’ right to protest? - The Guardian
Climate in the courtroom: all sides are using ‘green lawfare’, and it’s good for democracy - The Conversation
No room for nuclear power, unless the Coalition switches off your solar - Renew Economy
Labor continues double-speak on forestry issues - Independent Australia
Young Australians feel they are ‘missing out’ on being young: new research - The Conversation
While most adults have nostalgic memories of being young, and the freedom, exploration and learning that entails, this will be less likely for the current generation of youth. Newly published research into and by young Australians presents disturbing findings that a high proportion of Australians feel as though they are missing out on being young.
NACC marred by “silence and secrecy” - The Klaxon
The Albanese Government’s long promised anti-corruption commission is marred by “silence and secrecy” and has failed its first major test, according to one of the nation’s top legal experts.
Former Judge Anthony Whealy KC said he had “high hopes” for the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) — which passed its first anniversary last week — but now had serious concerns.
“You can’t deter corruption by remaining silent,” Whealy told the ABC.
“I’ve had great hopes for it, but so far there’s been silence and secrecy surrounding it, and that’s not a good thing”.
The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) had failed its “first test” by refusing to investigate the Robodebt welfare payments scandal and the reasons it gave were “fatuous”.
“We thought this will be a real test of the strength of the NACC and it decided it wouldn’t investigate those matters at all,” Whealy said.
Read more from Anthony Klan for The Klaxon
Australian foreign legion? Australia's new military recruitment strategy has a long and sinister history - The Politics
Going back a long way, Australian governments have tended to see migration as a necessary evil, and migrants themselves – especially from the Pacific – as collateral for nation-building. In 1863, 67 Pacific Islanders were transported to Australia to work on sugar and cotton plantations. Over the next 40 years some 62,000 followed, becoming labourers and domestic servants. Many were kidnapped – “blackbirded” – or conned into indentured servitude. Beginning in 1906, those who remained were mostly deported.
That same year, the very new Commonwealth of Australia claimed full control of British New Guinea, formally administered by Britain and several Australian colonies. The territory had been annexed in the 1880s to rebuff advancing German imperialists. PNG only gained its independence from Australia in 1975.
These days, the government fears not Germany but China; and supporters of expanding ADF recruitment to Pacific nations see this as a way of gaining the upper hand, as well as addressing a chronic shortage of willing ADF recruits.
Inspired by a local group of people in Sydney's north who were looking for t-shirts to wear on their regular walks, Democracy Walks champions, supports and actively engages in our democracy.
CLICK here to see Democracy Walks’ t-shirt designs - and BUY!
Quick Links…
Seventy-five years of NATO, and just four women at the Summit - The Crux | Women's Agenda Podcast
A hero’s welcome home for Flinders, two centuries too late - Peter Fitzsimmons for The SMH/Age (paywall)
Program: Conspiracies: why people change their mind - ABC Podcasts
Islamophobia, the last refuge of the scoundrel - The New Politics Podcast
Alan Kohler: Victoria’s rail loop is a travesty; its housing plan is good, but doomed - The New Daily
Paul Bongiorno: Labor and the Muslim vote - The Saturday Paper (paywall)
We like to think we’re a secular nation, but our constitution needs to catch up with modern Australia - Julianne Schultz for The Guardian
Defence botched centralised vetting system implementation: ANAO - The Mandarin
Orwell revisited. The Government playing word games with weapons to Israel - Michael West Media
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 Monday the 15th of July. See you tomorrow!
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here