News update for Mon 24 Feb 2025

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

Feb 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

BREAKING NEWS: Conservatives win German election but far-right AfD doubles support - The Guardian

Labor and the Coalition have pledged to raise GP bulk billing. Here’s what the Medicare boost means for patients - The Conversation

Labor yesterday foreshadowed a major Medicare change to address the falling rate of bulk billing, with an A$8.5 billion election announcement. The government said it would increase incentive payments for GPs to bulk bill all patients, from November 1 2025.

Today the Coalition said it would match Labor’s Medicare investment dollar-for-dollar.

Medicare was designed as a universal scheme to eliminate financial barriers to access to health care. The contemporary slogan is that you only need your Medicare card, not your bank card, to see your doctor.

Tim Winton: Labor hasn’t delivered on more effective nature laws. It’s not just embarrassing, it’s calamitous - The Guardian

This is what 30 years of denial and delay have brought us. This is what current government policy settings produce, and what they’ll continue to inflict on our coral reefs unless we turn back from the brink right now.

These marine heatwaves are becoming more frequent and more intense. Climate scientists predicted this, politicians and fossil fuel barrackers dismissed their warnings, but here it is.

Such is the cost of business as usual – more heat stress, more damage, more death, more anguish.

Also read >

Environment: Australia’s exported greenhouse gas emissions are double our domestic emissions - Pearls and Irritations
Coalition nuclear plan hides a 2bn tonne ‘carbon bomb’ that puts net zero by 2050 out of reach, new analysis shows - The Guardian
Global coal demand holds, but drops among our biggest buyers - The New Daily

Honest Government Ad - Our Last Fair Election? - The Juice Media

The Australien Government has made an ad to announce the 2025 election, and it's surprisingly honest and informative.

Watch The Juice Media’s latest Honest Government Ad

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More than 10,000 First Nations people killed in Australia’s frontier wars, final massacre map shows - The Guardian

The final findings of the “horrendous” eight-year long “massacre map”, tracing the violent history of the Australian colonial frontier have been released.

The Colonial Frontier Massacres Digital Map Project, spearheaded by the late emerita professor of history at the University of Newcastle, Dr Lyndall Ryan, officially concluded in 2022.

Helen Haines: How to regain public trust in the NACC - The Saturday Paper

As we hurtle towards the next federal election, I often reflect on the months leading up to the last one. In those dying days of the Morrison government, the public and political push for a federal corruption watchdog was at its peak.

The lack of accountability for the devastating robodebt scandal and allegations of bullying and sexual assault at Parliament House left people angry and wanting to see justice done. As part of what was then a much smaller cross bench, I was fighting doggedly to push the government to establish a robust, independent federal integrity commission.

The MAGA challenge to Australia’s self-respect - Pearls and Irritations

The Trump ascendancy has, and not for the first time, posed a simple question to Australian foreign and defence policy makers: what limits are to be put on the national tolerance of egregious behaviour by the United States? What is apparent now (even if many ignored it before) is the accelerating transformation of this country’s closest, and dominant ally into an oligarchal Christian fascist state. It is a change which cannot be ignored; moreover, it is one that should give pause to all joint ventures.

If truth be told, the pause was due decades ago on the grounds that the metamorphose was palpable and attention to it was being drawn by a growing list of the most astute observers of US politics.

Part 1: James and Rupert Murdoch’s ‘bitter meltdown’ - 7am Podcast

Last year, one of the world’s most powerful families converged in a Nevada court room to fight over the future of their empire. Rupert Murdoch was attempting to change a decades-old family trust in order to install his chosen son, Lachlan, as heir apparent when he dies. Exactly what happened in that court room was a tightly guarded secret. But then, in a rare interview with The Atlantic staff writer McKay Coppins, James Murdoch gave his account of the case and how it tore his family apart. Today, Coppins tells us why James spoke out to reveal the bitter details of the battle over the Murdoch empire

Listen to the 7am Podcast

Part 2: The fall of the Murdoch empire - 7am Podcast

One of the cardinal Murdoch family rules is never speak about the family outside the family. So, when journalist McKay Coppins got in touch with James Murdoch last year, he really wasn’t expecting a reply. But Coppins was curious – what would happen to the Murdoch empire when Rupert died? And what it would mean for his youngest son, James, who was seemingly an outcast from the family? What he didn’t yet know was there was a secret high stakes legal battle going on – and James was ready to talk. This is part two in a two part interview.

Listen to the 7am Podcast

Also read >

‘We’re clearly heading towards collapse’: why the Murdoch empire is about to go bang - The Guardian
Murdoch family meltdown might bode well - Pearls and Irritations
John Hewson: Why the ABC matters - The Saturday Paper (paywall)
Ita Buttrose claims ‘inconsistencies’ in ABC boss David Anderson’s affidavit in Antoinette Lattouf case - The Guardian

Julianne Schultz: Australians mostly have little to worry about. So why do we succumb to fear? - The Guardian

A miasma of fear is sweeping over the land and, as we jump at the shadows in the mist, it is sending us all a bit mad.

Think for starters of Creative Australia’s decision to withdraw Khaled Sabsabi as Australia’s representative at the 2025 Venice Biennale, the painful details of the ABC-Lattouf case, the failure to staunch the appeal of violent extremism, the rise of antisemitism and Islamophobia, the paid removal of stateless refugees, locking up children as if they were adults, introducing mandatory sentencing, cancelling truth-telling and treaty processes.

Also read >

Labor crashes to a 55–45 deficit in Resolve despite interest rate cut - The Conversation

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Ross Gittins: RBA is lost in the frightening territory of full employment - The SMH/Age

The Reserve Bank’s behaviour last week can only be described as bizarre. It’s a sign that it’s lost its bearings and isn’t sure what’s happening in the economy or where it’s headed. What has caused its befuddlement? Our unexpected return to near full employment. Sheesh. Whadda we do now?

The way “monetary policy” – the Reserve’s manipulation of interest rates – normally works is that, when the rate of price inflation gets too high, it raises interest rates to discourage borrowing and spending. Then, when the demand for goods and services has weakened and the rate of inflation has started slowing, the Reserve starts cutting interest rates back to their normal level.

Australians invade London’s right-wing ARC conference, and the anti-Trump dam is breaking - Crikey

The ARC of political history is bending towards Trumpism, pulling even the conflicted and hesitant along with the tide.

London is used to being inundated with Australians, and last week’s Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference was no exception.

Right-wing lawmakers, influencers and two-bit grifters descended for the conference, which vies for the title of the conservative movement’s largest global gathering. The other contender, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), was also held last week in Washington DC.

Speakers at this year’s ARC included pseudo-intellectual Jordan Peterson, UK Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and Speaker of the US House of Representatives Mike Johnson.

The brown, brown grass of home - The Politics

Take the Hume Highway from Sydney towards Canberra and exit at the Picton Road, heading to Wollongong. After about 2km, at the next traffic lights, turn right into Greenway Parade and the ambitiously named Wilton Greens, a new “greenfields” suburb in the making on the sprawling fringe of south-western Sydney.

You’ve arrived at ground zero for the kind of economic and lifestyle aspiration that will help to decide this year’s looming federal election. Every month more families move into mainly project homes, and building sites are breaking ground, a case study of the aspirations of many Australians, anchored by the great Australian dream of home ownership. Look closely, however, and you can sense the growing nightmare of uncertainty, lagging fulfillment and teetering hopes that accompany this “master-planned” development response to the siren’s call of a better life in challenging times.

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