News update for Thur 6 March 2025
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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TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS UPDATES: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here (inc updates on Cyclone Alfred) - and through 6 News here
Nikki Savva: Federal election 2025: Teals set to seize balance of power in sink-or-swim election - The SMH/Age
Nor are they beholden to party machines, factions, unions or particular news outlets. They don’t resort to robo-speak because they aren’t following the talking points issued by central command.
They have taken their responsibilities seriously. They are working on policies and they are consulting widely, including constitutional lawyers, on their obligations in a minority government.
Read more from Nikki Savva for The SMH/Age (paywall)
Also read >
Minority government: what will it look like? - Pearls and Irritations
Police release CCTV of men stealing political posters in battleground seat - The ABC
Memo to indies: Here’s how you can major party-proof politics for decades - Bernard Keane for Crikey (paywall)
‘Untested waters’: How the LNP is dealing with independent threats to its regional heartland - Rachel Withers for Crikey
The pros and cons of minority government with David Pocock and Tony Windsor - Follow the Money Podcast
Polls point to a power-sharing government being the most likely outcome at the upcoming federal election, but how do they actually work?
Listen to The Follow the Money Podcast
Greg Jericho: The Reserve Bank should be looking at these numbers and wondering why it waited until February to act - The Guardian
Yes, the worst may be behind us, but GDP figures provide little sense of an economy powering ahead at full steam.
And so the corner has been turned. No longer is population the only thing keeping the economy growing. But the still-weak GDP figures of the last three months of 2024 highlight that the Reserve Bank took too long to cut rates and more cuts are needed.
First things first: let’s bid adieu to the crappiness that was 2024. It was not a year that will bring many fond memories, especially on the economic front here in Australia.
Read more from Greg Jericho for The Guardian
Also read > Australia’s economy has turned the corner, and consumer spending was a big help - The Conversation
Dutton’s Dickensian working-from-home ban - Independent Australia
The public servants Dutton refers to are always in Canberra even though the majority of public servants work outside of Canberra. Working from home actually enables more of the public service workforce to work from regional areas due to the improved internet connectivity provided by the NBN. But it seems the Nationals are again not prepared to stand up for regional Australia.
As Scrooge would have thought, Dutton thinks people working from home aren’t actually working.
Read more from Abul Rizvi for Independent Australia
“World-leading” array of massive eight-hour solar batteries to reboot Australian manufacturing - Renew Economy
The Australian infrastructure investor Quinbrook has unveiled plans for a series of massive eight-hour solar batteries that they say will offer Australia the best – and possibly the only chance – to protect Australian manufacturing and attract new industries.
The plans unveiled by Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners would involve three such batteries in Queensland – in Brisbane and the industrial centres of Gladstone and Townsville – and possibly two in NSW.
Also read > ‘The possibilities are huge’: The world’s first surfboards made from recycled wind turbine blades - Women’s Agenda
None of This is Normal. A Bizarre and Brutal Administration Makes a Mockery of Governance - Ruth Ben-Ghiat
Anyone who studies authoritarianism, a political system that depends on propaganda, corruption, machismo, and violence, is well acquainted with the parade of sociopaths, sycophants, petty and grand criminals, and zealots who flourish in lawless environments where the performance of power is everything and the leader is elevated to a semi-divinity.
In authoritarian states, ridiculousness often competes with brutality for center stage.
Also read >
The method in Trump's madness - Tim Dunlop for The Future of Everything
Greenland politicians condemn ‘disrespectful’ Trump takeover claim - The Guardian
Consumer resistance is rising in the age of Trump. History shows how boycotts can be effective - The Conversation
Safe for autocracy: the world according to Putin and Trump - The Conversation
Today’s cartoon by Matt Golding
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here (inc updates on Cyclone Alfred) - 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 power’s global stagnation and decline - Pearls and Irritations
The current push in Australia to deploy nuclear power reactors once again contrasts an excessive optimism by nuclear proponents against the continuing stagnant situation of nuclear power worldwide. That contrast is the subject of our new report for the EnergyScience Coalition.
The latest nuclear proposals are built on three speculations.
Read more in Pearls and Irritations
Also read >
Australia's biggest coal-fired power station, Origin-owned Eraring, is 'driving up energy bills' - The ABC
Nuclear memo to the L-NP: Less enthusiasm and more evidence - Independent Australia
The killing of Natan Mwanza - 7am Podcast
One evening, two weeks ago, Natan Mwanza was stabbed and killed at a bus stop in Melbourne’s south-west. He was 24 years old. Natan’s family had migrated to Australia from the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2008, and his death sparked an outpouring of grief from African diasporic communities in Australia. Historian and filmmaker Santilla Chingaipe also felt the impact of Natan’s death and sought to understand what had happened. But it soon became a story about how we write and report on crime – and how Black lives are treated in the media. Today, Santilla Chingaipe on the life of Natan Mwanza and how Black grief is rendered invisible.
50 new urgent care clinics are on the cards. But are the existing ones working? Here’s what we know so far - The Conversation
Over the weekend the Australian government announced A$644 million to build an extra 50 Medicare urgent care clinics around Australia. This is on top of nearly $600 million previously committed to establish 87 clinics.
Once these 50 new clinics open in the 2025–26 financial year, the government says four in five Australians will live within a 20 minute drive to a clinic. While this seems like a worthy pursuit, the question is whether they are worth the taxpayer dollar, when we already have GPs and emergency departments.
So what does the evidence say? Are urgent care clinics worth the money?
Also read > An election looms, but there's no sign of the political boldness needed to fix our healthcare system - Pearls and Irritations
Cam Wilson: Politicians are being lobbied behind closed doors. Here’s a list of everyone they met - Crikey
Crikey believes the public should know who our political leaders are meeting with, so we’re publishing federal ministers’ diaries until they start doing it themselves.
A phone call between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and ambassador-turned-lobbyist Joe Hockey just weeks before Trump’s win. A meeting between Richard Marles and BHP chief Mike Henry. A calendar entry called “Michelle Rowland” at the communication minister’s former workplace in Bill Shorten’s diary — but curiously redacted by Rowland’s office.
These are just a handful of the hundreds of never-before-published meetings and events that happen behind closed doors every day between Australia’s most powerful people.
Read more from Cam Wilson for Crikey (paywall)
Australia, who ya gonna call? - The Shot
On 8 December 1941, Australia declared war on Japan. It was one day after Pearl Harbour, and it was our first ever independent declaration of war as a sovereign nation.
When we’d gone to war against Germany in 1939, Australia still considered itself a vassal dominion of Great Britain and that it had no say in the matter.
In the meantime, the conservative government of Robert Menzies had fallen and Labor Prime Minister John Curtin had taken office.
The Australian people gathered around their radios to hear Curtin’s New Year’s message on 26 December 1941:
Read more from Michael Bradley for The Shot
Chinese checkers afloat have Australia all at sea - The Politics
When three PLA navy ships set a course to lap Australia, they blew cost-of-living off the front pages. Is this the pre-election reality check Australia needs?
Star-billing must go to Peter Dutton’s opposition leader strongman act, in combo with the Coalition’s shoot-from-the-lip China hawks and Donald Trump sycophants. The Albanese Labor government’s persistent weak guy image is a critical sub-plot, which may yet turn out to be wise restraint when global realpolitik is dealing you a shite sandwich. Ask Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy what that feels like, live on TV.
Read more from Murray Hogarth for The Politics
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See a list of the 35 community independents - who have (so far) announced their candidacy in the upcoming federal election. Subscribe, volunteer, donate to support their campaigns.
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.
Quick Links…
Definition of 'Australian business' altered for procurement - Business News
Google, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon among tech companies making $27bn from Australians - The Guardian
Everything you need to know about Cyclone Alfred - The Daily Aus
Major party domination in WA - The Tally Room
Western Australia has one story about the gas industry. It won’t accept dissent from ‘over east’ - The Guardian
Creative Australia’s decisions should be peer reviewed and at arm’s length. Where did things go wrong? - The Conversation
The creeping crisis we're ignoring (Indonesia) - Pearls and Irritations
Israel’s Shin Bet says Netanyahu policies helped pave way for 7 October - The Guardian
Ousted CFMEU officials funding ads attacking Labor in marginal seats - ABC News
How the family law amendment bill could transform women’s lives - Women’s Agenda
Voice referendum normalised racism towards Indigenous Australians, report finds - The Guardian
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here (inc updates on Cyclone Alfred) - and through 6 News here
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You’re up to date for Thursday the 6th of March. See you tomorrow!
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here (inc updates on Cyclone Alfred) - 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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