News update for Mon 3 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.
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
HONEST GOVERNMENT AD | DEMOCRACY™ - The Juice Media
THE GOVERNMENT™ HAS MADE AN AD ABOUT THE STATE OF DEMOCRACY™, AND IT’S SURPRISINGLY HONEST AND INFORMATIVE
Watch The Juice Media’s Honest Government Ad
Alan Kohler: The rise of the far right, and the fall of Donald Trump - The New Daily
It will be nowhere near as consequential, but the next battle in the war between the Right and the Left that started with the French Revolution won’t be the US presidential election in November, but next week’s election of 720 members of the European Parliament.
In many ways it will be a better reflection of which side is winning because the two leaders of the European far Right, Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni and France’s Marine Le Pen, are far more appealing and electable than their American counterpart, Donald Trump, especially now that he’s a convicted felon.
Read more from Alan Kohler for The New Daily
How payday lenders target Australia’s most vulnerable – and the ‘whack-a-mole’ fight to crack down on them - The Guardian
In May, the federal court ruled that the type of payday loan issued to Grace – and more than 100,000 others, who were collectively charged over $70m in fees – had contravened the National Credit Act by issuing loans without a credit licence and charging prohibited fees. The court ordered the business to no longer collect on the loans in response to a lawsuit from the Australian Securities and Investment Commission.
But this is not the first time Cigno, and its associated lender, BSF Solutions, have been found to have issued loans unlawfully, and some fear that the court’s latest action won’t be enough to stop Cigno targeting vulnerable people again.
Our News. Your Voice. From Monday June 3 to Friday June 7 LINA (Local and independent news association) is promoting a national movement of newsrooms calling on our communities to support local and independent news. Find out how you can support hyperlocal independent newsrooms around Australia. (TrueNorth is a member of LINA)
The call for a Human Rights Act in Australia - The Daily Aus Podcast
Australia is currently the only Western democracy without a national human rights act. Last week, a parliamentary committee recommended to the Federal Government that this change. It could mark a significant turning point in how rights are recognised and enforced across the nation. On today’s podcast, we sat down with Professor Justine Nolan, Director of the Australian Human Rights Institute and Professor at UNSW, about what this could mean for the country.
Listen to The Daily Aus Podcast
Poll position - Inside Story
How did the pollsters perform at the federal election two years ago? Which final poll got closest to the actual result? These questions might seem old hat, but the next election is less than a year away and the answers will influence how we interpret polls during the 2025 campaign, or at least the ones released in the final week — and, less importantly, what we make of surveys between now and then.
Read more from Peter Brent for Inside Story
The oil and gas industry has been lying about global warming for decades — accountability is long overdue - The Conversation
The science is clear: the planet is warming at an alarming rate and we need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.
For decades, effective actions have lagged behind the needs of the moment. The 2022 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report suggested that at least part of the reason for this inaction has been “due to misinformation about climate science that has sowed uncertainty.”
Also read >
Are the climate wars really over, or has a new era of greenwashing just begun? - The Guardian
‘It’s all we have’: young climate activists on the state of politics around the world - The Guardian
The ABC of craven capitulation - The Shot
The ABC is no stranger to the confected hysteria of a News Corp pile-on. Like the rest of us, they witness the regular ad hominem attacks on the latest hapless target – attacked, ridiculed, endlessly excoriated for daring to express an opinion News Corp deems unacceptable until they are cowed, silenced or, in some cases, literally driven from the country. The ABC itself is a regular victim of News Corp’s unhinged editorialising in bloviating bile that is then taken up by various Coalition attack pups in pincer moves as iniquitous as they are inevitable.
That News Corp presumes to pontificate on ABC standards despite the incessant revelations of its unethical, immoral and often illegal business practices is laughable. That the ABC takes its criticisms seriously is absurd.
Read more from Jo Dyer for The Shot
Also read >
Trump, Tingle and touching the nerve of white grievance - Bernard Keane for Crikey (paywall)
In publicising Laura Tingle’s ‘counselling’, the ABC risks giving the bullies a victory - Margaret Simons for The Guardian
In defence of Laura Tingle - The Saturday Paper’s Editorial (paywall)
The media’s broken mirror exposes Australia’s racial divides and the ABC’s lack of integrity - New Politics
Today’s cartoon by Alan Moir
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here
'You're all owned by China!': Rage at the Trump conviction - The 7am Podcast
Donald Trump’s conviction in a New York courthouse has led to furious reactions from his supporters and allies. A presidential candidate has never been convicted of a felony during their campaign and that historic first is just the latest uncertainty thrown into an already fractious election campaign. So, could things combust? Has the risk of political violence just gone up? Today, senior researcher at The Australia Institute Dr Emma Shortis, on the mind-boggling logistics and the risk of violence and disorder in the fallout from the verdict.
Also read > What will Trump’s conviction really mean? - The politics of martyrdom - Robert Reich
The nuclear files series - Inside the nuclear influence machine - The Fifth Estate
There’s a sophisticated, well funded strategy underway to prolong coal and gas and eventually take Australia down the nuclear road.
Documents unearthed by The Fifth Estate lay bare how funding for the strategy, now in motion, is coordinated by a coal mining leader from Queensland, working with possibly Australia’s most influential conservative think tank, and also a key member of Australia’s unofficial nuclear club.
For this to work, the Liberal-National coalition needs to win back political power at the next federal election due by May next year.
Also read > Urgent reform needed to shield consumers from yet another round of grid gold plating - Renew Economy
“Hungary is our Israel”: Tony Abbott and Orbán’s Danube Institute - Pearls and Irritations
Rather than blaming the toxic neoliberalism that has increasingly driven political economies since the Reagan and Thatcher era (and resistance to its cruelty), Abbott blames “green-left governments” for “crumbling services, declining productivity, stagnant wages, growing street crime, disruptive and intimidatory protests that are becoming routine, propaganda masquerading as education, emasculated police and armed forces, and an uncertain response to dictators-on-the-march.” Apparently only a true “conservative” politics can solve those problems.
The network of organisations that interweave through these events ought to be remarked. They are all loosely part of the National Conservative (NatCon) movement that aims to prevent climate action because it is fossil-fuel funded. And they aim to prevent change through populist nativist nationalism.
Read more from Lucy Hamilton for Pearls and Irritations
How the redistributions are shifting the margins - The Tally Room
Last Friday's analysis tended to focus on two scales: either the level of the individual seat, or looking at the party totals across each state.
At the federal redistributions in Victoria and Western Australia, three seats had a change in party status: Bullwinkel was created as notional Labor seat, Higgins was abolished and Menzies flipped from Liberal to Labor.
But sometimes it's not just about which seats may have switched from one side to the other, but how much a seat's margin has changed.
It's also worth understanding how much these seat changes cancel each other out, or change the overall shape of the pendulum.
Read more from Ben Raue for The Tally Room
The deportation debate is toxic politics – if the system is truly broken, we need more than kneejerk solutions - The Guardian
There is little to envy about Andrew Giles’ position as stories of released immigration detainees convicted of serious crimes dominate the news cycle and the opposition frames the controversies as governmental dysfunction. Conservatives all over the world link immigrants, crime and border control to build their political fortunes. In Australia, Scott Morrison’s “stop the boats” campaign helped win an election in 2013, just as the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, and aspiring US president Donald Trump hope similar tactics will help them in 2024.
As minister for immigration and border protection, both Morrison and his successor, Peter Dutton, turbocharged the securitisation of migration.
12 countries across the world have lowered their voting age from 18. Australia should be next - Crikey
The likelihood of a federal election happening in the next 12 months is set to up the ante in the political arena. People around Australia will cast their votes on issues like the housing crisis, the climate crisis, gendered violence and the cost of living. Yet despite the fact that plenty of young people are bearing the brunt of these issues, they will be denied a say at the ballot box.
In recent weeks we’ve seen UK Labour leader Keir Starmer voice his support for lowering the voting age to 16. This comes on the back of Germany lowering its voting age for the European Parliament to 16, and would bring the UK in line with the 12 countries across the world who have lowered their voting age from 18.
Read more in Crikey (paywall)
The racist in the mirror - The Politics
If you want to prove Australia is racist, simply say that Australia is racist. Laura Tingle did exactly that last week, with outrage dominating the media cycle, overshadowing the crucial context: last week was the first Reconciliation Week since the country's failure to enshrine a Voice to Parliament. The week was set aside for truth-telling and meaningful reckoning with the "unfinished business" of reconciliation, yet the scandal over Tingle's words relegated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices further to the periphery.
The media reaction itself demonstrated the systemic racism they sought to deny exists.
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…
Single older women living in converted tiny homes, cabins at caravan parks amid housing crisis - The ABC
Australia, Defence and the anti-Midas touch with submarines - Michael West Media
Labor’s crafty offer for a second term and News Corp in a Tingle - The New Politics Podcast
How much more asbestos regulatory failure needs to be exposed before the NSW government gets the political will to act? - Wendy Bacon for The Guardian
Amelia Hamer was preselected. Surely Josh Frydenberg wouldn’t attempt a comeback now - Angela Priestley for Women’s Agenda
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 3rd of June. See you tomorrow!
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here