News update for Tue 13 Aug 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.
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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
Higgins v Reynolds: A very political defamation trial - The Guardian’s Full Story Podcast
Senator Linda Reynolds is suing Brittany Higgins in the supreme court of Western Australia over social media posts. The former minister’s legal team claims that after Higgins alleged she was raped in Parliament House, she and her now husband, David Sharaz, cast Reynolds as the ‘villain’ and damaged her reputation on social media. But Higgins’ legal team says this case is about the power discrepancy between a then 24-year-old with limited job security and the minister for defence.
Listen to The Guardian’s Full Story Podcast
Paul Bongiorno: Voters are hurting, but they aren’t going for the baseball bats yet - The New Daily
Well ahead of the 1996 election that saw the Keating government swept from office, then Queensland’s Labor premier Wayne Goss warned that voters were sitting on their verandas with baseball bats for his federal colleagues.
The latest batch of opinion polls provide no evidence that the Albanese government is heading for the same fate.
The respected Newspoll finds after preferences the contest is 50-50 between Labor and the Coalition, broadly in line with the past six months that wax and wane between tight and exceptionally tight results.
Jack Waterford: Albo may struggle to enthuse his followers - Pearls and Irritations
I do not expect that there would be an outbreak of existential angst, despair, or deep public sullenness, even among committed Labor voters, if Anthony Albanese were to fail to win the next election.
Traditional supporters, even true believers, would be sad and shake their heads. But they would not consider the outcome as their fault, a consequence of their failure to keep the faith, or desertion to the coalition, or even of party disunity and internal sabotage. They will instead blame Albanese himself, for conscious acts of self-harm. For leading a party afraid to govern, irresolute in the face of political risk, paralysed about doing good, and seeming to want to cynically imitate the worst features and policies of the Morrison government. To base policies around their susceptibility to criticism from Peter Dutton or the Reserve Bank.
Read more from Jack Waterford for Pearls and Irritations
‘Labor doesn’t care what we think’: doctor to take on Tony Burke in safe western Sydney seat - The Guardian
Dr Ziad Basyouny is the first of several independents expected to challenge federal Labor seats amid the Israel-Gaza war.
While there are many things driving the independent candidate Dr Ziad Basyouny to challenge Tony Burke for the seat of Watson in Sydney, there is one word that wraps them all together.
“Injustice,” Basyouny declared, speaking from his medical practice in Lakemba.
“It is sad to see the areas in Watson so neglected, it’s pure injustice. If you speak to people here, they will tell you that they’re struggling with access to health services, education, transport, housing, you name it.”
The 44-year-old Basyouny, who will formally announce his candidacy on Tuesday, is the first of a series of independents expected to challenge Labor’s grip on federal seats in western Sydney.
Peter Dutton’s nuclear lies - The Saturday Paper
On June 19, Peter Dutton announced that a future Coalition government would introduce nuclear energy to Australia. A fact-check of the media release he sent out that day, and subsequent claims made by the leader of the opposition, reveals a whole series of factual errors, half-truths and barefaced lies. The media release urged an open discussion about nuclear power, but its tsunami of misinformation could have been designed to avoid serious evaluation of the proposal.
Before dealing with the explicit baseless claims, I remind you that the whole scheme is totally illegal.
Read more in The Saturday Paper (paywall)
Also read > From net zero to Indigenous knowledge, Australia has finally set new science priorities. How can we meet them? - The Conversation
Julie Inman Grant: Eight to two: The abysmal ratio we must factor into gendered violence - Women’s Agenda
Step into the online spotlight as a woman in business, politics, sport or media, you’ll almost unconsciously brace yourself for an avalanche of abuse, falsehoods and sexist tropes. From my experience, the classic opener for online ‘commentary’ dripping with disdain and vitriol is, “That woman…”
The energy and ingenuity of online perpetrators continues to grow as they seek to undermine, discredit and humiliate women. Even family members can become pawns in these vicious games, especially when the abuse rachets up to doxing and death threats.
Read more from Julie Inman Grant for Women’s Agenda
Today’s cartoon by David Rowe
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here
Senator David Pocock on "How to Be a Senator & World-Cup Athlete"- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
Why do some people have strong moral opinions but don't act on them, while other people effect real change? It's a question Josh wanted to ask Australia's most influential athlete-turned-politican. David Pocock was a rugby champion who played for Australia's national team, one of the world's most iconic rugby sides. He then became the first senator not aligned with any major political party to represent the Australian Capital Territory. He was one of the most prominent faces in a tsunami of independents who annihilated the ruling conservative government.
Listen to the Uncomfortable Conversations Podcast
Queensland’s premier wants publicly owned petrol stations – is that a good idea? - The Conversation
Queensland’s Labor government turned heads last week with a bold new election promise. If returned to power, it would set up 12 state-owned petrol stations and limit fuel price rises to just five cents a litre on any given day.
The proposal certainly tapped into a pain point for Queenslanders – Brisbane topped national petrol price rankings last year.
But it was quickly met with a predictable pile on from opposing political commentators, industry bodies and some economists, attracting labels like “risky” and “dumb and stupid”.
Mark McKenzie, chief executive of the Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association, called it a “wildly bizarre intervention” in the retail fuel market.
So is the Queensland premier really out of his mind, trying to win votes less than three months out from an election? Or is there actually some merit to this proposal?
Despite all the alarmism, I strongly suspect the latter.
Abul Rizvi: Government agencies confused about overseas student policy - Independent Australia
AMENDMENTS to the Education Services for Overseas Students (ESOS) legislation give the Government the power to cap the number of students at each of the approximately 1,400 registered providers. Recent Senate hearings into these changes saw government agencies struggle to provide a sensible rationale for current policy directions. Why?
Major policy responsibility in this area has always been split between Education and Home Affairs (formerly Immigration) with Education usually pushing for ever faster growth (until there is a crash) and Immigration trying to limit the level of non-compliance, fill key skill shortages and reduce the number of people in immigration limbo. That has been the case since the 1980s.
Read more from Abul Rizvi in Independent Australia
Fossil fuel exports mean Australia’s carbon footprint is not getting smaller - Michael West Media
The Labor Government continues to approve new fossil fuel projects and subsidise others. A new report shows that by 2035, Australia’s global carbon footprint from fossil fuels will be about the same as it is today. Kim Wingerei with the story.
The Climate Analytics (CA) report published this week confirms that Australia has one of the world’s highest total per capita emissions for all greenhouse gases, double that of China and nine times bigger than India.
Australia emitted 1.7 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) per year in 2023 and will continue to emit a similar amount every year until 2035, when the annual emission is expected to be 1.5 GtCO2e.
The main culprit is our fossil fuel exports. Fossil fuel burnt in Australia is responsible for ‘only’ 1% of global CO2 emissions, but taking fossil fuel export into account,
Read more from Michael West Media
Bernard Keane: You don’t have to be a Sinophile to know Keating’s right about AUKUS - Crikey
This deal is getting worse all the time.
Courtesy of the latest details of the AUKUS agreement tabled yesterday in Parliament, we now know that the moment it becomes inconvenient for the Americans or the Brits, there’ll be no submarines for Australia:
Cooperation under the agreement is to be carried out in such a manner as to not adversely affect the ability of the United States and the United Kingdom to meet their respective military requirements and to not degrade their respective naval nuclear propulsion programs.
Those programs, as even ardent defenders of the program admit, are already pretty degraded.
Read more from Bernard Keane for Crikey (paywall)
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Labor’s plan to put young people into aged care - 7am Podcast
Australians have lost so much faith in government that just being heard feels like special treatment - Peter Lewis for The Guardian
Albanese government developing proposal for new digital ID system to protect personal information - The Conversation
Australia’s to-do list: stop supporting war, avoid becoming US satrap - Pearls and Irritations
"It felt liberating to speak the truth": Fatima Payman is "loving" being an independent senator - Missing Perspectives
Australia’s airline duopoly won’t keep planes in regional skies - Gabrielle Chan for The Guardian
Australia’s elevated terror alert: National security or politics as usual? - New Politics
SA state redistribution – the starting numbers - The Tally Room
Free-to-air TV in ‘diabolical trouble’ and needs gambling ads to stay afloat, Bill Shorten says - The Guardian
The Geneva Conventions at 75: do the laws of war still have a fighting chance in today’s bloody world? - The Conversation
Trump revisits most divisive talking points in rambling interview with Musk -The Guardian
Seven isn’t a suitable TV licence holder. Time to shut it down - Bernard Keane for Crikey (paywall)
‘We are aware of many more situations’: We talk to ABC’s Louise Milligan after Four Corners’ Seven investigation - Mumbrella
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 Tuesday the 13th of August. See you tomorrow!
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here