News update for Thurs 11 April 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 selected 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
My Place groups worry about 5G and chemtrails. Some are also taking an interest in Queensland’s council elections - The Guardian
My Place network founded in Victoria writes about setting up a parallel system of governance and promotes a range of conspiracy theories.From its Melbourne headquarters, My Place has created about 180 Facebook groups, including about 50 for Queensland communities, promoting sovereign citizen messaging and conspiracy theories about 5G, chemtrails, fluoride, wind turbines and smart cities.
Mark Zuckerberg is playing chicken with Australian news - 7am Podcast
Three years ago, Australia became the first nation in the world to make Facebook pay for news. Now, those deals are about to expire, and Facebook isn’t willing to renew them. That leaves Australia’s world-first deal hanging by a thread, and if the conflict escalates, it could even lead to Facebook and its other products, Instagram and WhatsApp, pulling out of the Australian market completely.
Also read > As Facebook seeks legal immunity, Forrest’s lawsuits reveal deep challenges - Crikey
Why moving to the right could be wrong for Dutton and the Coalition - The Conversation
Evidence that support for the Liberal Party is softening in its affluent inner-city homelands continues to accrue, while its hopes of capturing disgruntled voters in Labor seats in the suburbs and regions presume a historic shift in voting patterns with two former Liberal ministers told columnist Niki Savva in April that the current strategy of taking the party further to the right is arithmetically flawed.
Read more from Mark Kenny for The Conversation
The Government must abandon its gas policy - Pearls and Irritations
For every thousand tonnes of fossil fuels mined, one person dies. As climate science provides increasing evidence of accelerating warming, we must recognise that gas is our main threat and stop producing it.
Gas is 84 times more potent then carbon dioxide. In the next two critical decades there is justifiable concern that climate change could become irreversible. Cessation of gas mining will be the quickest way to reduce emissions.
Read more in Pearls & Irritations
Also read > The heat is on: what we know about why ocean temperatures keep smashing records - The Conversation
Orwell revisited. Transparency sucked down the electronic memory hole of disappearing messages - Micheal West Media
Government officials are using disappearing text messages to circumvent scrutiny, threatening transparency and risking democracy.
Former SA Senator, Rex Patrick exposes a dangerous practice ignored by the PM for Michael West Media
Cartoon by Glen Le Lievre
Also read > SECRETS OF THE WEAPONS TRADE - The Australian government is obscuring weapons exports to Israel despite International Court’s ruling to oppose ‘plausible genocide’ - Declassified Australia
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here
Did Lambie MPs get dud deal in Rockliff's agreement? Many seasoned politicians think so - ABC
Lots of people reading the deal the Liberals struck with Tasmania's newest political party had the same question: Were the Lambies fleeced?The media releases make the deal with the Jacqui Lambie Network seem pretty equal. A guarantee of confidence and supply in exchange for commitments to beef up the Integrity Commission, strengthen political donation reform, and give them extra resources to do their work.But when you dig into the agreement, the trio of newbie JLN MPs are giving up a fair bit.
CITIZEN ASSEMBLIES - Transit Zone Podcast
Peter Clarke & Margo Kingston discuss the prospects for more deliberative parliament and the vision for a standing Citizen Assembly, made of citizens not elected but sampled from the population. And, with the roiling USA presidential and congressional election campaigns now well under way Peter & Margo take a brief look at the looming possibility, Donald J. Trump could return to the Oval Office.
Listen to the Transit Zone podcast
Great Barrier Reef suffering ‘most severe’ coral bleaching on record as footage shows damage 18 metres down - The Guardian
Concern that the Great Barrier Reef may be suffering the most severe mass coral bleaching event on record has escalated after a conservation group released footage showing damage up to 18 metres below the surface.
Read more from Adam Morton for The Guardian
The Meanjin essay: The Voice and Australia’s democracy crisis - Aust Independent Media Network
The dire state of truth in Australia’s civic space crystalised in 2023. We had seen the waning influence of News Corp’s impact on our elections and assumed it meant that enough of us were becoming inoculated against the propaganda. The defeat of the notoriously mendacious Coalition government might have signalled a ceasefire, a moment for the ‘conservative’ parties to rediscover their integrity. We had underestimated, however, the strategising of vested interests.
Read more from Lucy Hamilton for The Australian Independent Media Network
Something rotten - The Politics
It gets quite exhausting trying to find new ways to write about Peter Dutton’s vile rhetoric, to give it the condemnation it deserves without sounding like a broken record. But it goes without saying that there is something deeply wrong with comparing a pro-Palestine protest to a massacre, no matter what you thought of those protests.
The Opposition leader has made a career out of incendiary commentary, willing to use all sorts of tragedies to his own political ends. But it’s increasingly apparent that it’s Dutton himself who is creating this rotten moral fog, in which it is perfectly normal to evoke a deadly massacre in an attempt to condemn those who are crying out against another.
Read more from Rachel Withers for The Politics
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Quick Links…
Australians’ spending softened in March after Taylor Swift concert splurge - The Guardian
2500 older Swiss women just landed a massive climate victory - Women’s Agenda
Independent candidate announces campaign for Johnston - NT INdependent
Australian fossil car industry spends over $500 per vehicle on advertising - The Driven
Talk of interest rate cuts soon is optimistic – here’s why the RBA may decide doing nothing is safer - The Guardian
The face of the nation - Mark Kenny’s Democracy Sausage Podcast
Hybrids surge as record number of Australians plan to ditch petrol-only cars - The New Daily
If you squat in a vacant property, does the law give you the house for free? Well, sort of - The Conversation
Coalition nuclear plan would force consumers to wait 20 years longer for 30% higher electricity bills - Renew Economy
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here
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You’re up to date for Thursday the 11th of April. See you tomorrow!
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here