News update for Wed 15 Jan 2025

Your trusted guide to the top independent news and views of the day...

Jan 15, 2025

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

Cathy McGowan on how to run a community independent campaign - 7am Podcast

When Cathy McGowan won the seat of Indi as an independent in 2013, she was one of only two independents in the House of Representatives. In 2022, the Liberals lost six seats to independents, and at least 51 electorates across the country are planning to put forward a community backed independent in this year’s election.

Today, former federal MP Cathy McGowan on which major party candidates should be worried about their seats – and if there’s such a thing as too many independents in parliament.

Listen to the 7am Podcast

Also read > "It's not all about getting your candidate elected" - A conversation with former member for Indi, Cathy McGowan, about the real promise of community engagement - Tim Dunlop for The Future of Everything

Anti-Voice group spreading "whale death" lies - The Klaxon

The group behind the “No” campaign against the Indigenous Voice to parliament is at the heart of an anti-renewable energy disinformation campaign flooding the nation.

Secretive lobby group Advance is “openly propagating the false claim that offshore wind farms are killing whales”, one of the nation’s top disinformation experts has told a Senate inquiry.

Professor Dr Jeremy Walker of the University of Technology Sydney has told the Senate inquiry into offshore wind that Advance is a key player in a string of connected fronts being used to spread anti-renewables disinformation.

Albanese says our laws would stop Elon Musk interfering in the Australian election. In truth, there’s little to stop him - The Conversation

Some political analysts have warned that Musk will turn his attention to Australia, with a federal election due by the end of May 2025. In response, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese cautioned that “we have foreign interference laws in this country and Australian elections are a matter for Australians”.

However, the problem is the foreign interference provisions were designed to protect Australian democracy from interference by foreign governments – and their spies, secret agents and saboteurs – not massive social media super-corporations, or the world’s richest man.

Nationals take nuclear pitch to coal-rich Hunter region as energy dominates early campaigning - Renew Economy

Early campaigning ahead of a federal election is giving insight into what voters will be pitched, with energy and leadership quality dominating the discussion.

The political tussle on Tuesday largely focused on respective energy policies with Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton each painting themselves as the best chance to take Australia forward and address the cost of living.

“The next election will be about Labor with cost-of-living relief and a plan to build Australia’s future, Peter Dutton costing people more and taking Australia backwards,” Mr Albanese said.

Australian mining group promotes nuclear with memes about The Grinch and seasoning steak with sawdust - The Guardian

Australia’s peak mining lobby group is promoting nuclear energy to young people with a social media campaign generating millions of views on TikTok through memes about Wicked, The Grinch, and seasoning steak with sawdust.

The Minerals Council of Australia campaign, which appears linked with digital communications group Topham Guerin, has also been targeting young people with pro-nuclear Facebook ads related to video game Fortnite and a series of memes mentioning Ikea wardrobes.

Your guide: how to fight misinformation on social media - The Canberra Times

As social media and the online world become ever more prone to mis- and disinformation it's getting harder to sort fact from fiction, opinion and propaganda.

Australians increasingly get news and information from social media, where anybody with an internet connection and a smartphone can share unverified posts and comment without review.

Australia will head to the polls in the first half of 2025 and informal campaigning has already begun, including partisan attacks and ads from lobby groups dressed up as fact.

Today’s cartoon by Fiona Katauskas for 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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Asylum seekers’ frustration mounts, pressure on Australia to act - Michael West Media

The return of people smuggling into Northern Australia could throw some Labor votes overboard in the upcoming election. Duncan Graham reports on asylum seekers from Indonesia.

More than 200 asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh are hanging around Kupang on Indonesia’s Timor Island, hoping for a safe refuge to start new lives. Some, like Hazara tailor Sayed Nouroz, 28, have been waiting for more than a decade.

Anthony Albanese couldn’t sell a schooner to a shearer. He needs to ask ‘what would Xenophon do?’ - The Guardian

In the 1990s, a trend took hold among evangelical Christians – wristbands with the letters “WWJD”.

“What Would Jesus Do?”

Anthony Albanese, looking fit and focused, is out flogging Labor’s election slogan: “Building Australia’s Future.”

He’s trying his hardest. He gestures with his hands to accentuate each of the three words as if reminding himself of their proper order, and looks boyishly pleased when he lands them.

To watch him is to be reminded of an awkward – even fundamental – truth.

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The petro-politics of Western Australia is costing us billions. This is how we end it - Crikey

Labor and the Coalition are both terrified of losing seats in WA. Subjecting them to the same fear in eastern states is the only option voters have.

How much damage will the inability of the major parties to do anything other than pander to the petro-state of Western Australia do to the federal budget? Two recent updates have confirmed the cost is growing rapidly.

We recently noted that economist Saul Eslake, lone crusader against the special deal that hands WA billions more GST revenue than it’s entitled to and compensates the other states from the federal budget, had calculated that the cost of the deal — negotiated by Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison and extended by Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers — was heading towards $40 billion over 11 years.

Flawed AUKUS pact sinking quickly - Independent Australia

Things are going from bad to worse for the AUKUS agreement with a series of delays and blunders broadening its futility, writes Dr Binoy Kampmark.

A STILLBORN agreement treated as thrivingly alive; an understanding celebrated as consensual and equal. The AUKUS security arrangement between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, envisaging the transfer and building of nuclear-powered submarines to the Royal Australian Navy, continues operating in a haphazard fashion.

So far, the stream has flown away from Australia and into the military-industrial complexes of the UK and the U.S., both desperate to keep the production of these absurd boats steady.