News update for Tue 14 Jan 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 - and through 6 News here
PUBLISHER’S DAY OFF: TrueNorth will not publish on Wednesday 15th of January. Thank you for your support. TrueNorth is a solo run newsletter. See further information about us here.
2025 election campaign set to be Australia’s dirtiest and most divisive - New Politics
Building Australia’s Future and Australia Back On Track are facile campaign slogans but there’s one that sums up the feeling in the electorate: Surely Australia Deserves Better.
The political year has barely begun, yet the sounds of a federal election can already be loudly heard. Despite January being a month that is usually reserved for rest and reflection, both major political parties have started positioning themselves for the inevitable contest that must result in an election before 17 May. As the stakes rise, so too does the rhetoric, with Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton charging into the fray – as he usually does – leveraging a mix of typical conservative Liberal Party talking points and calculated distortions to rally his base.
Also read > Federal election: Liberals overwhelmingly pick men for safe seats - The AFR (paywall)
NBN’s $3bn fibre revamp is great news but don’t Australians now care more about price than higher speeds? - The Guardian
The announcement of the demise of NBN’s fibre-to-the-node technology will be welcomed by those who have endured poor speeds and service for the past few years, but making the internet more affordable would have a much bigger impact.
When Tony Windsor sided with Labor in the 2010 election, he put the NBN as one of the key issues, saying famously: do it once, do it right, and do it with fibre.
It’s taken nearly 15 years but we have just about met Windsor’s last point
Read more from Josh Taylor for The Guardian
Jane Gardiner: The deliberate omission of climate change in coverage of the LA fires - Women’s Agenda
The Los Angeles fires are a climate catastrophe. There’s no mistaking it. But if you read the Murdoch papers or scrolled through X over the last week, you’d never know it. This reticence to acknowledge the role of a rapidly changing and destabilising climate – and the nefarious, greed-driven fossil fuel companies that are fuelling this nightmare – is astonishing.
We are becoming numb to words like ‘unprecedented’ and phrases like ‘once-in-a-lifetime’. These words are used so frequently they have lost all meaning.
Read more from Jane Gardiner for Women’s Agenda
Also read >
As the world burns, young Australians are feeling disbelief – and looking for answers - Anjali Sharma for The Guardian
‘Have some guts’: Sarah Hanson-Young challenges Labor to keep its environmental promises - The Guardian
Much of Australia enjoys the same Mediterranean climate as LA. When it comes to bushfires, that doesn’t bode well - The Conversation
What is happening in Los Angeles is our future - The Guardian
Grace Tame, Emma Mckeon, Tim Winton sign letter pushing for climate duty of care - Women’s Agenda
A clear and present danger to the peace of the world - Pearls and Irritations
Donald Trump is still to be sworn in for his second term, but is already confirming that he remains a menace to world peace, security and stability.
He has already announced hostile trade measures – mostly in the form of tariffs, against America’s two immediate neighbours, Canada and Mexico. He has effectively announced new tariffs against China and the European Community. He has declared that the US wants to buy Greenland, and suggested darkly that he might annex it by force, because it is vital to USS national security and western security. When Denmark responded tartly, not for the first time, that Greenland, which forms part of Denmark, was not for sale, Trump responded by threatening Denmark with sanctions and economic retaliation. He has also indicated that the US wants Canada to join the US, but, while speaking of economic force, has not threatened military action.
Read more from Jack Waterford for Pearls and Irritations
Also >
The world braces for Trump 2.0 - Full Story Podcast
How Donald Trump’s international ambitions revive Roosevelt’s ‘big stick diplomacy’ - The New Daily
Total information collapse: It's started. And it's only going to accelerate from here - Carol Cadwalladr for The Power
A few days after the US presidential election, I wrote a piece about how the coming age of information chaos and the profound consequences on what comes next. The destabilisation in our information system that we woke up to in 2016 has now entered a wholly dangerous new reality: the merger of Silicon Valley and an authoritarian US state.
But, the speed of it still shocks.
Read more from Carol Cadwalladr here
Also >
Mark Zuckerberg’s War on Truth, Equity, and Inclusion: Why Leaders Must Call Him Out - Sue Barrett
How Elon Musk shapes politics - 7am Podcast
Today’s cartoon by Cathy Wilcox
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here
Muddied waters: Behind a veneer of optimism, Australia’s strategic establishment is watching Donald Trump nervously - Inside Story
As Washington representative of Australia’s Office of National Intelligence, or ONI, for most of Donald Trump’s first presidential term, Ben Scott had a ringside seat on the convulsions in America’s defence, foreign policy and security circles. Surfacing back in Australia for the Lowy Institute and ANU’s National Security College, he has since described in a series of commentaries how Trump changed the Washington consensus and why Australia should look at the United States through new lenses.
“The United States — long a key constant in Australia’s international environment —is now the main variable,” he wrote well ahead of November’s election.
My homelessness was temporary. But for many older women like me, a house is becoming out of reach - The Guardian
At the end of 2014, my husband and I sold every last pot and pan, every stick of furniture we owned – we even sold my house. To fund a year-long adventure overseas. Eight months later, I was forced to return to Australia under terrible circumstances. My husband had shockingly, and unexpectedly, died from a heart attack in Portugal. Obviously, there is no good time for your husband to die, especially in a foreign country, but death came for him at the worst possible time for me.
Our arrogant assumption was that, once the money had run out, we’d simply pick up jobs and accommodation back home. But this proved impossible. We’d used up all our savings. I had no job. And, critically, I was alone.
Abul Rizvi: Record November grants extend Australia’s third student visa boom - Independent Australia
If the extraordinary November 2024 offshore student visa grants for the higher education sector continue, the Government will have an even bigger challenge than it already had to resolving Australia’s third student visa boom and reducing net migration to the Treasury forecasts.
Australia has had two previous student visa booms. The first started in the late 1980s and took five to six years to fully address. The second started around 2006-07 and also took many years to address.
Read more from Abul Rizvi for Independent Australia
Cam Wilson: How will social media companies ban teens? A leak revealed how big tech uses AI to guess age and gender - Crikey
How will social media companies enforce Australia's teen ban requirements? A Discord leak shows one way it might work.
With Australia’s teen social media ban going full steam ahead this year, the requirements on social media companies to enforce restrictions are still being hashed out.
Thirty-four companies have said they want to take part in the government’s trial of the age estimation and verification methods. These methods are how social media companies will figure out the ages of their users to prevent under-16s from having accounts on their services. A report from this trial is due in the middle of the year and will inform the legal guidance to social media companies about the ban requirements.
Read more from Cam Wilson for Crikey (paywall)
Also read > Australia's social media ban for under-16s: Better ways to help young people - Michael Quiggin
Rex Patrick: Downer and Howard’s East Timor lies. History missing in action - Michael West Media
The Government commissioned an official history of our operations in Timor and then censored the historian, removing an entire chapter. The partially redacted chapter obtained by MWM confirms lies told by the Howard Government.
In 2015, the Australian Government commissioned the War Memorial to write an official history of our peacekeeping operations in East Timor. UNSW history professor Craig Stockings was engaged as the War Memorial’s official historian and spent the next two years writing Volume One. It took another three years for it to be cleared for publication by Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) bureaucrats.
Read more from Rex Patrick for Michael West Media
Rebecca Huntley: Peter Dutton’s greatest hits might get him elected but he’s not immune to the bad democracy trap - The Guardian
If Dutton wins or manages to form minority government it will not be because of enthusiasm for his compilation playlist of all-too-familiar policies or because of excitement about nuclear energy.
It will be proof positive that we are stuck in what Prof Gabriele Gratton describes as a “bad democracy trap”. Low voter trust in politicians. Scepticism about the effectiveness of institutions in holding politicians to account. A preference for “default”, familiar policies with short-term benefits.
In a bad democracy trap, opposition leaders are required to stand still and point the finger at the other person.
Read more from Rebecca Huntley in The Guardian
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Two types of authenticity, and a new twist to Albo’s tale - Graeme Turner
Our farm caught fire on New Year’s Day, and helpers poured out of the scrub. It’s given me fresh hope for 2025 - Gabrielle Chan for The Guardian
Why U.S. companies are cutting their diversity efforts - The Daily Aus Podcast
Australia now has a national autism strategy. Here's what's in it and why it's needed - ABC News
Immigration detainees held without water or toilet, watchdog finds - SBS News
For many Australians, prosperity has become a pipedream. Peter Dutton wants to help - Rachel Withers for Crikey (paywall)
When leaders act like dogs: A time without shame - Sue Barrett for Pearls and Irritations
The IPA would’ve once opposed boosting Defence spending. Now it spurs it on - Bernard Keane for Crikey (paywall)
The Australian dollar has hit a 5 year low. Sounds bad but don’t panic - The Conversation
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 14th of January. See you tomorrow!
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here
PUBLISHER’S DAY OFF: TrueNorth will not publish on Wednesday 15th of January. Thank you for your support. TrueNorth is a solo run newsletter. See further information about us here.
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