News update for Thur 8 May 2025

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

May 08, 2025

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TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS UPDATES: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here

BREAKING NEWS:

Tony Abbott calls new bill to improve abortion care access an ‘assault on our rights’ - Women’s Agenda
Greens leader Adam Bandt concedes defeat in seat of Melbourne - The Guardian

Tim Dunlop: Welcome to country, Prime Minister - It's a beautiful country and your party's primary vote is 35% - The Future of Everything

One matter that should temper Labor’s celebrations is that their primary vote remains stubbornly low: 32.6% in 2022 and 34.8% in 2025. I’m not taking anything away from the scale of their win—as it translated into seats—only to say that with two-thirds of voters giving their first preference to someone other than Labor, they remain vulnerable to the shifting allegiances of that floating third.

Look, I’m happy to cut a winning prime minister some slack in terms asserting his right to govern as he sees fits, but a 35% primary vote does not deliver you a mandate. Or at least, if it delivers Labor one in the Lower House, then voters have delivered the crossbench something similar in our almost uniquely powerful Upper House.

Anyway, we are now in the dust-settling phase and there is plenty of cautious goodwill towards the new government.

Also read >

The polls were off in Australia’s election – but it’s the uniformity that has experts really asking questions - The Guardian
Explore the new House of Representatives - The Conversation

The Peter principle: how Dutton’s election campaign in Dickson went horribly wrong - The Guardian

When Anthony Albanese visited Dickson on the first day of the election campaign, Labor strategists were still not expecting to mount a serious challenge in the Brisbane commuter belt seat, held by Peter Dutton for 24 years.

“I think the logic was to start the campaign on the front foot, in enemy territory, rather than anyone thinking too much that we could win Dickson,” a Labor source says.

Five weeks later on election night, Labor’s Ali France, a three-time challenger in Dickson, became the first person ever to unseat an opposition leader at a federal election.

India and Pakistan have fought many wars in the past. Are we on the precipice of a new one? - The Conversation

India conducted military strikes against Pakistan overnight, hitting numerous sites in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir and deeper into Pakistan itself. Security officials say precision strike weapon systems, including drones, were used to carry out the strikes.

While there’s still much uncertainty around what’s happened, it is clear both sides are closer to a major conflict than they have been in years – perhaps decades.

We’ve seen these kinds of crises before. India and Pakistan have fought full-scale wars many times over the years, in 1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999.

There were also cross-border strikes between the two sides in 2016 and 2019 that did not lead to a larger war.

Lucy Hamilton: Tackling Christian extremism in Australian politics - Pearls and Irritations

The election campaign was fraught. Reports of violent interactions at booths have circulated in recent polls.

Advertising campaigns were aggressive, with more mysterious front groups emerging to push talking points that official actors were not prepared to utter themselves. Perhaps most worrying was the growing activity by religious actors. Australia was lucky that enough of our voters could see the threat posed by the Trumpian chaos of the current Liberal Party; now is the time to tackle these challenges before they do any more damage to our democratic project.

NSW antisemitism inquiry. Jewish organisations reject Zionist claims - Michael West Media

Submissions to the NSW antisemitism inquiry show large cohorts of Jewish people reject the attempts at conflating Zionism with Judaism and criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

Coming out of NSW’s ‘summer of racism’, the inquiry seeks to investigate and combat an “alarming rise in antisemitism, including record levels on university campuses and in schools, [which] threatens both public safety and community cohesion’,” according to committee chair, Robert Borsak, of the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party.

Despite this a priori framing, a large number of the published submissions challenge the inquiry’s narrow framework, calling instead for nuanced approaches to tackling antisemitism that are attentive Jewish Australians’ diverse experiences and opinions.

Fool me twice, shame on me - The Shot

Saturday’s Labor victory was its biggest win since the Chifley era, with a lower primary vote (34.7%) than Bill Shorten (34.73%) in his 2016 loss to Malcolm Turnbull. It was a historical victory, with 8-15 seats gained for the ALP, while the Coalition is looking to have lost at least 19, including the Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s own seat of Dickson. Two seats in NSW, one seat in Western Australia, six in Queensland! In every state, LNP seats went to the ALP.

Among all the insights, among the about-faces from the press about the results from Saturday night, two things stand out: the quality of the Labor campaign team and the lack of prowess from the Coalition.

What happened to the Greens? - The Daily Aus Podcast

Over the weekend, there was a federal election in Australia. At that election, Labor won a significant majority, while the Coalition had their standing in Parliament weakened considerably. While much of the media’s attention has been on the major parties, in today’s podcast we’re going to talk about how the Greens fared.

Listen to The Daily Aus Podcast

Also >

The Greens’ identity crisis: where to now for a party built on protesting against the status quo? - The Guardian
Bandt was presented with a historic opportunity. Instead, he wrecked his party - Bernard Keane for Crikey (paywall)
The Greens proved a sad truth. Progressive politics and electoralism don’t mix - Crikey (paywall)
Greens’ election hubris – how the minor party lost its way and now its leader - The Conversation

ELECTION LESSON #1: Australians want the Far-Right-crazy dialled down, not up - Independent Australia

While Saturday’s election result was an outstanding win for Albanese and Labor, it was also a clear and powerful message from Australians to our polity: Australians want the Far-Right-crazy dialled down, not up.

The resounding victory for Labor was as intricately connected with world events as it was with the Opposition Leader’s attempt to exploit them and the message that reverberated from the voting booths was all encompassing:

This is not who we are!

Rachel Withers: Tim’s back, baby! Is it time to make him the Liberal leader? - Crikey

What does Wilson’s victory mean for the Liberal Party? No-one really knows, but it’s going to be great content.

One does, unfortunately, have to hand it to Tim Wilson.

The former IPA policy director and most divisive “moderate” in politics — a man banned from editing Wikipedia after trying to remove negative aspects of his own page — never took his eye off the prize (or the wreath), yesterday reclaiming the wealthy seat of Goldstein from independent Zoe Daniel in the first Liberal gain of the election. And he’s already back on the tweets.

Whatever-it-takes Wilson, the only Liberal MP beaten by an independent to recontest their seat, becomes the first and only Liberal to defeat a member of 2022’s “teal wave”

Will the Coalition ditch its nuclear power policy? - Renew Economy

There are deep divisions within the Coalition over energy policy, so much so that a split is under consideration. Canvassing a split, Queensland Senator Matt Canavan said he wants more coal power plants built and an end to the Coalition’s net zero emissions policy. He appears to be ambivalent about nuclear power: “I’m not against nuclear but … it would take some time. We need solutions now for the Australian people.”

Other Nationals MPs are promoting retention of the nuclear power policy, including leader David Littleproud, senate leader Bridget McKenzie, Colin Boyce and Michelle Landry.

The Nationals are congratulating themselves for outperforming the Liberal Party in the election. But the nuclear policy was initiated and strongly pushed by the Nationals and it was a drag on the Coalition vote across the country.