News update for Tue 2 April 2025
Your trusted guide to the top independent news and views of the day...
31 days until the May 3 federal election
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 - Amy Remeikis for The Australia Institute here - and through 6 News here
Global warming of more than 3°C this century may wipe 40% off the world’s economy, new analysis reveals - The Conversation
The damage climate change will inflict on the world’s economy is likely to have been massively underestimated, according to new research by my colleagues and I which accounts for the full global reach of extreme weather and its aftermath.
To date, projections of how climate change will affect global gross domestic product (GDP) have broadly suggested mild to moderate harm. This in part has led to a lack of urgency in national efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Also read >
Australians want nature protected. These 3 environmental problems should be top of the next government’s to-do list - The Conversation
Taxpayers on hook for offshore legal threats against Dutton gas plan, says treaty expert - ABC News
Littleproud’s great pretence on nuclear insurance, as sparkies attack Coalition nuke proposals - Renew Economy
Testing the suburban strategy - Democracy Sausage Podcast with Mark Kenny
In the first sausage sizzle of this federal election campaign, pollster Shaun Ratcliff gives Democracy Sausage an update on the state of the campaign. Is Labor bouncing back in the polls? How likely is it that Will Peter Dutton pull off his appeal to voters in the outer suburbs? And will the question ‘are you better off than you were three years ago’ sway voters this election? On this episode of Democracy Sausage, Dr Shaun Ratcliff joins Professor Mark Kenny and Dr Marija Taflaga to discuss the 2025 federal election.
Listen to Democracy Sausage Podcast with Mark Kenny
Also >
Peter Dutton says he will help homebuyers who don’t have the bank of mum and dad. But how would his policy work? - The Guardian
Séance politics: Is it unpatriotic for Turnbull to question AUKUS? - Crikey
A sense of optimism: independents in regional Australia claim to offer a new kind of politics, but can they win? - The Guardian
Alex Dyson in Wannon, Caz Heise in Cowper and Kate Hook in Calare are among those hoping to upset the major parties in the federal election. But don’t call them teals.
Among the hopefuls are Dyson, Caz Heise in Cowper and Kate Hook in Calare, all receiving funding from Climate 200. They are less teals, however, than independents in the Cathy McGowan mould: harnessing a sense that major parties fail to properly represent regional electorates by campaigning strongly on local issues such as roads and childcare.
Given the higher-than-usual possibility of a hung parliament, these candidates could hold significant power should they prevail.
Also read > Hair salon bans an election candidate for life. Proves women really do face higher standards - Women’s Agenda
How we can be better allies to the trans community ahead of the election - Women’s Agenda
The anti-trans lobby is exploiting the lack of familiarity that people have with the trans community to try and maintain a really outdated and patriarchal understanding of gender norms. Just like when they target any minority, they are doing this to try and win and hold onto power.
Many groups who are now anti-trans started out as anti-marriage equality organisations, or as organisations that promoted conversion practices for gay and queer youth. Over the last 5 years or so they have simply switched to attacking trans people.
The attacks on trans and gender-diverse people are in many ways a recycling of the things that people said about gay people in the 70’s and 80’s.
The personification of politics - Pearls and Irritations
Reducing the complexities of international politics to the idiosyncratic personalities of world leaders suggests the Western media believes concision is an antidote to the short attention spans of readers, viewers and listeners. They may be right about this._
Today, news and analysis is rapidly scrolled on electronic platforms such as X, Facebook, TikTok and Instagram. Hard copy is out, especially journals and books, while small screens are in. Despite an interconnected world of unlimited and varied sources — podcasts, blogs, online magazines, journals and newspapers — there is little patience for background history which makes sense of rapidly changing international events.
Read more from Scott Burchill for Pearls and Irritations
Today’s cartoon by David Pope
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS UPDATES: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - Amy Remeikis for The Australia Institute here - 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.
Are Australians better off than three years ago? It’s complicated - The Guardian
Standards of living have stagnated but no major party is willing to propose reforms to make the coming decade better than the last.
“Ask yourself: are you better off than you were three years ago? The answer is no.”
That was the shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, straight after last week’s budget.
It is a question and answer that sank a series of incumbent governments in 2024 – a “super year” for elections where more than half the globe’s population voted across about 60 countries.
Who decides what Australian students are taught in schools? - The Conversation
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has begun his election campaign with fresh criticism of schools.
The Coalition has previously raised concerns the national curriculum is “unwieldy” and “infused with ideology”. On Monday night, Dutton suggested states needed new funding conditions to make sure schools were teaching appropriate content. He told Sky News federal money should be conditional to ensure schools are not “guided into some sort of an agenda that’s come out of universities”.
Also read >
Labor accuses Dutton of copying Trump with suggestion children being ‘indoctrinated’ at school - The Guardian
Education union calls on Dutton to ‘come clean’ on Department of Education cuts - Women’s Agenda
I loved being a principal, but Australia has grown complacent about the growing violence directed at educators - The Guardian
A sad joke - Nick Feik
The conditions at one inner-city Melbourne high school highlight the absurd level of under-resourcing of state schools around the nation.
The Victorian education department announced late last year that the entire Year 9 cohort of University High School was going to be moved into a new “campus” in the Melbourne CBD. This “safe and fit for purpose environment” would provide an “outstanding, standalone city based educational experience”, one whose classrooms would be “filled with natural light through floor to ceiling windows with city views”. It sounded magnificent.
Australia’s ‘worst prison’ not closing anytime soon - The Justice Map
Broome Regional Prison was found to be not fit for purpose and “inhumane” more than 20 years ago, with a recommendation it be shut down. It’s still operating today.
In its 2005 report on the Broome Regional Prison, the WA Office of the Inspector of Custodial Services (OICS) said the prison should be closed by the end of the decade.
But two decades later, the prison is still operating, with a WA state government plan to build a new prison in the area announced six years ago stalling, with no site identified.
Since 2001, the OICS has issued seven reports based on inspections of the Broome prison, all finding it not fit for use, “decrepit” and “inhumane”.
Read more from Denham Sadler for The Justice Map
Dutton has flirted pathetically with Trump. On ‘Liberation Day’, the honeymoon is over - Crikey
Peter Dutton is unable to help himself in constantly offering Trump-style policies. But if Trump launches another economic attack on Australia, where can he run?
For all the massive implications Donald Trump has on Australia’s security, he poses a much more immediate threat to our economic interests and global stability: by this time tomorrow, we could be in the middle of a trade war on a scale not seen since the 1930s.
Trump has already launched us into a low-level conflict with his tariffs targeting China, selected products like aluminium and steel, and motor vehicles. Tomorrow’s “Liberation Day” announcement, where Trump is expected to announce global tariffs, could initiate a general trade war as China and the EU, which are already retaliating against Trump’s initial blast of protectionism, fight back with their own tariffs, or outright bans on US products.
Read more from Bernard Keane for Crikey
Also read > Elect Peter Dutton, get a Dutton/Rinehart/Trump government - AIMN
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See a list of the 38 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.
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Rupiah down. Sharemarket down. Prabowo doing a Trump on the quiet? - Michael West Media
Labor will urge Fair Work Commission to give real wage rise to three million workers - The Conversation
Queensland children as young as 10 could face life in prison for non-violent crime under new laws - The Guardian
The Mar-a-Lago accord: The real reason Trump wants tariffs - 7am Podcast
Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’: why the US is on a war footing over tariffs and mass deportations - The Conversation
The Election Circus - Truth, Lies and Media Podcast
Nick and Kos on Election Week 1 - Curtin’s Cast Podcast
Defence is shaping up to be a key election issue, whether politicians like it or not - The Conversation
Candidates using influencers to bypass ‘shadow ban’ on campaigning by Chinese social media app Rednote - The Guardian
Palmer's Trumpet of Patriots spends big on misleading ad from two-decade-old documentary - ABC News
Australian exporters brace for immediate US tariffs on Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ - The Guardian
Don't Get Scammed This Election: A Punter's Guide to Voting - Punters Politics Podcast
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS UPDATES: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - Amy Remeikis for The Australia Institute here - and through 6 News here
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You’re up to date for Wednesday the 2nd of April. See you tomorrow!
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS UPDATES: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - Amy Remeikis for The Australia Institute here - 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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