News update for Wed 12 March 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
Happy 8th birthday to The Daily Aus - listen to their latest podcast where they outline lessons learned along the way
BREAKING NEWS: US rules out tariff exemption for Australia after Trump ‘considered it and considered against it’ - The Guardian
Rex Patrick: Radioactive secrets. Fight to hide AUKUS nuclear waste sites gets absurd - Michael West Media
Where to store nuclear waste from AUKUS submarines is a decision which will impact us for millennia, but they are going to extraordinary lengths to hide it from the public.
Somewhere deep inside a locked government filing cabinet within Australia’s labyrinthine Defence bureaucracy, there’s a document intended to advise the Government on what locations in Australia might be suitable to store high-level nuclear waste and how to select one of those locations.
It’s a roadmap to where the most toxic material on our planet may be dumped for tens of thousands of years. The report itself is just paper, but it’s red hot. It’s politically radioactive.
Read more from Rex Patrick for Michael West Media
All cloud, no lining - Democracy Sausage Podcast with Mark Kenny
Researcher Nicholas Biddle joins Democracy Sausage to discuss new research on Australia’s optimism (or lack thereof), what’s driving it, and what it means for the election. What’s the current mood in Australia and how is it impacting votes? Can our pessimism drive support for any particular policy, party or candidate? And will we see populist support grow in Australia? On this episode of Democracy Sausage, Professor Nicholas Biddle joins Professor Mark Kenny and Dr Marija Taflaga to discuss research on the erosion of hope and Australia’s mood as we move closer to a federal election.
Listen to Democracy Sausage Podcast
Is ‘fake’ terrorism still terrorism? Here’s what the Sydney caravan incident tells us - The Conversation
The recent discovery of a caravan full of explosives in Dural, in Sydney’s northwest, caused significant fear about the possibility of a mass casualty attack.
On Monday, the Australian Federal Police declared it and 14 antisemitic attacks a “con job” by organised criminals who were trying to distract police or use it as a bargaining chip to influence prosecutions.
Following dawn raids, more than 140 charges have been laid, including for arson, possessing prohibited weapons, and destroying property – but not terrorism.
Also read >
No apologies over fabricated terror plot from pollies or lobby groups - Pearls and Irritations
The caravan ‘con job’ shows why we should question the terrorism label - Michael Bradley for Crikey (paywall)
Take two in Bradfield: hundreds of teal volunteers head down a familiar road - The Guardian
Independent candidate Nicolette Boele has high hopes of being next in line to wrest a northern Sydney seat from the Liberals at the federal election.
Beside a national highway on Sydney’s north shore, a coalition of volunteers in teal T-shirts, armed with badges and yard signs, wave energetically at morning traffic. It is just after 7am on a weekday morning and hundreds of them – from teenagers to octogenarians – will be out in force for the next two hours, braving petrol fumes.
The federal election campaign is been put on hold for a few weeks but, in the now-marginal seat of Bradfield, independent candidate Nicolette Boele has recruited more than 1,000 volunteers.
Australian immigration and the federal election - Pearls and Irritations
The Albanese Government has done a reasonable job in repairing the immigration train wreck it inherited from the Coalition. However, excessive caution and fear of being wedged has severely limited its achievements. In the forthcoming election, the Dutton Opposition can be expected to be short on policy, but to stoke up fears about border security and foreigners. He will borrow from the nasty Trump playbook when convenient. Australia deserves better immigration policy and administration.
Read more in Pearls and Irritations
Turnbull raises hell. Marles goes to water - The Politics
The defence minister fawns and grovels to his US counterpart, a completely unqualified man with a tarnished history, leaving it up to a former PM to kick American arse.
Cometh the hour, cometh the Malcolm. And who’d argue? It’s reached that stage in the life cycle of an issue where Turnbull can no longer stay silent.
This week the ABC’s time came when Turnbull lobbed his inconvenient truths at current affairs doyennes Sarah Ferguson and Sally Sara after they questioned the former PM’s judgment on warning of the perils of Donald Trump while the mad king decides on tariff punishments. It is quite a moment when an Australian political leader has to justify airing his views about a Russia-friendly dictator running the US — but that’s what the ABC calls balance.
Read more from David Hardaker for The Politics
Also > Trump v Turnbull and the looming threat of tariffs - Full Story Podcast
Today’s cartoon by First Dog on the Moon
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian 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.
Australia's economic future: The neoliberal lie - Independent Australia
WE WERE SOLD A LIE.
The brilliant among us speculated that technology would deliver us from drudgery. Now we have bullshit jobs and record hours, despite historic productivity.
The liberal within us predicted that our infinite economy would grow infinitely. Now real wages, per capita growth and innovation fall, while wealth outguns incomes.
The elite amid us assured us that inequality was fine, so long as the worst off were not worse off. Now even our parents had it better, as living standards decline and the poorest go backwards, with scarce income growth to offset billowing inflation.
Read more in Independent Australia
Peter Dutton, Donald Trump Jr and the Australian weapons mogul - 7am Podcast
As Trump’s radical reshaping of the US pulls into focus, so too has the list of those who have gained entry to his inner circle. That list includes not only Australia’s richest person – but also Australia’s largest private arms supplier. Robert Nioa isn’t yet a household name, but the weapons mogul is a close confidante to Peter Dutton, married to a Katter, as well as a fishing and hunting pal to Donald Trump Jr. Today, special correspondent for The Saturday Paper, Jason Koutsoukis, on Robert Nioa’s arms empire and the impact he’ll have on Australian defence policy.
Sound the trumpet: Clive Palmer’s carpet-bombing begins again - The Guardian
Clive Palmer has a new party and a new slogan but it’s still the same old ads from the mining magnate. Not content with pouring hundreds of millions into the past two federal campaigns, for the princely return of one senator who seemingly spends most of his days tweeting furious support for Donald Trump, Palmer is kickstarting his blanket ad campaigns again – this time for the Trumpet of Patriots but still in the ubiquitous Palmer yellow.
On Monday huge banner ads ran across the front pages of the Australian, Daily Telegraph and West Australian newspapers: “We don’t need to be welcomed to our own country,” one ad screamed, while the other yelled: “Too much immigration destroys infrastructure.”
Also read > Staff at the Age protest over Trumpet of Patriots gender ad as Newcastle Herald apologises for running it - The Guardian
Tim Dunlop: Democracies don't just fail - The Future of Everything
The phrase “crisis of democracy” is regularly invoked in contemporary discussion of politics, but we need to be careful with it. It directs our attention to the effects rather than the causes of the problems that confront us, and it’s that misdirection I want to talk about.
The truth is you have to work hard to make a democracy fail.
The democratic collapse in the US, for instance, has been set up over decades as various forces have conspired to undermine and demonise every aspect of democratic practice. It has reached the point where a well-known commentator feels that this is a reasonable description of the current mindset amongst a plurality of the US population:
Read more from Tim Dunlop for The Future of Everything
Bernard Keane: Albanese must ignore the bootlickers, get off his knees and punch back at Trump - Crikey
The prime minister should ignore the counsel of appeasers and retaliate against Trump’s tariffs — and use the chance to reshape his image.
While Anthony Albanese’s political and media opponents will revel in his failure to secure an exemption from the Trump administration’s tariffs on steel and aluminium, it represents a rare late-term opportunity for the prime minister to reshape his image with voters.
The Americans have set out to damage the Australian economy, as well as their own, while ignoring rational, well-evidenced arguments for why they shouldn’t. Bizarrely, American businesses and consumers will bear the brunt by paying more for key building materials, even if our exports to the US are worth a mere $1 billion a year.
Read more from Bernard Keane for Crikey (paywall)
Also read > Refusing to comment on these Trump outrages got us precisely sod all - Crikey (paywall)
John Lyons: Zelenskyy's willingness to sign a temporary ceasefire with Russia suggests he's learned to play Trump's game - ABC News
As quickly as Ukraine's fortunes deteriorated after one brutal meeting in the White House, they have changed yet again.
Global politics have now become a day-by-day proposition.
Ukraine's reality reached a nadir two weeks ago after its President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a meeting from hell with US President Donald Trump.
Zelenskyy stood up to Trump, occasionally talking over him and disputing much of what he was saying.
Read more from John Lyons for The ABC
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See a list of the 35 community independents - who have (so far) announced their candidacy in the upcoming federal election. Subscribe, volunteer, donate to support their campaigns.
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Quick Links…
Coalition claim inflation doubled under Labor misleads - AAP
A new definition of antisemitism from Universities Australia is attracting criticism – two historians explain why - The Conversation
Labor’s bid to bolster Australian airline passenger rights may prove weaker than existing law, Choice warns - The Guardian
Australia’s China diplomacy: Is it ready for a world without US certainty? - Pearls and Irritations
‘We should be furious at the lack of leadership on climate’: Women climate leaders speak in Sydney - Women’s Agenda
These are the social media influencers looking to win your vote this election - The New Daily
While the government denies the science on carbon credits, the climate suffers - Crikey (paywall)
The last election before we expand the parliament? - The Tally Room
TikTok, the AEC, and the problem no one’s talking about - Red Packet
The case against "demand tariffs" for electricity - John Quiggin
Indigenous leaders celebrate as court rejects appeal in landmark Yunupingu compensation case - The Guardian
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 Wednesday the 12th of March. See you tomorrow!
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian 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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