News update for Wed 21 May 2025

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

May 21, 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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TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS UPDATES: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here

BREAKING NEWS: Nationals say Coalition split not unanimous as Littleproud takes swipe at election policy ‘fiasco’ - The Guardian

Michelle Gratten: Nationals break the Coalition, in a major blow to Sussan Ley - The Conversation

The Coalition is first and foremost an agreement – or rather, a series of agreements. It is predicated on the pragmatic reality that neither the Liberal Party (and beforehand, its predecessor parties) nor the agrarian National (formerly Country) Party was able to govern alone, or at least not for very long.

The first of these agreements was struck in February 1923, following an election the previous year that left the Nationalist Party, led by wartime prime minister Billy Hughes, well short of a lower house majority. The new Country Party won 14 seats in the lower house (roughly 18%) on its own, making it a force to be reckoned with.

Also read >

The band is breaking up: has the Coalition stopped making sense? - The Conversation
Nationals break the Coalition, in a major blow to Sussan Ley - Michelle Gratten for The Conversation
The band is breaking up: has the Coalition stopped making sense? - John Quiggin for The Conversation
David Littleproud cites nuclear energy disagreement as major factor in Coalition split - The Conversation
The Coalition is on a break, but the Nationals risk finding their former partner doesn’t want them back - The Conversation
From Barnaby to Barilaro, the Nats *live* for drama - Charlie Lewis for Crikey (paywall)
Quota of ignorance: Modern Australia leaves the Liberals stumped - Nicole Chvastek for The Politics

Frank Bongiorno: History shows Coalition split a trial separation, not a divorce - Crikey

The Coalition alliance between the Liberals and Nationals has hardly been without conflict, with the two parties having split and come back together many times.

If there were any doubt that the centre-right of Australian politics is in a deep crisis and not merely having a bad decade, it has now been dispelled by the National Party’s decision not to reunite the Coalition with the Liberals. This federal alliance, founded in early 1923 and rarely broken since, has been another casualty of the ordeals suffered by the Liberals at the elections of 2022 and 2025, reducing their numbers to a rump.

The relationship between these parties has been at the heart of the dominance that centre-right parties have exercised over federal politics since World War I.

Also read >

Amy Remeikis: Why this all-too predictable divorce is really a big question for Labor - The New Daily

Once the schadenfreude settles (and we all need a little bit of a giggle right now) there are some very serious questions to be asked about the Coalition’s split.

And they all involve the actual elephant in the room – the Labor government. Will Labor rehabilitate the Liberal Party? Or will it actually take the path voters mapped out for it at the last election to actually create change for the better.

The split between the Liberals and the Nationals was obvious to anyone paying attention.

Also >

Picking Sides - Truth, Lies and Media Podcast
The end of the affair: Ley and Littleproud go their separate ways …for now - David Hardaker for The Politics
Coalition of the unwilling - Tim Dunlop for The Future of Everything
The Nationals dilemma - Ben Raue for The Tally Room
End of the Coalition is a win-win for Sussan Ley and the Nationals - Bernard Keane for Crikey (paywall)
The fault line that opened up a Coalition chasm can be traced back decades - Judith Brett for The Guardian

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Michael Pascoe: RBA drops interest rate with real wages due to fall again - Michael West Media

The Reserve Bank’s numbers shout that it made a mistake not cutting interest rates in April, as well as yesterday. The forecast drop in real wages underlines the need.

I hope you enjoyed this financial year, when real wages actually rose for a change, because next year, they’re going backwards again.

And that is just one of the reasons why the Reserve Bank will indeed cut interest rates twice more this year, and was wrong not to cut in April as well. Here’s the scoop about real wages that is nearly always overlooked by economists and about which the general commentariat is totally ignorant:

Also read >

RBA cuts interest rates, ready to respond again if the economy weakens further - The Conversation
The RBA has just cut its cash rate but the question already on borrowers’ lips is: when can we expect another one? - Nicky Hutley for The Guardian

How should Australia respond to the starvation of Gaza? - Pearls and Irritations

It has now been more than two months since Israel began to block the entry of food and medicine to Gaza. According to the World Food Program, about 1.94 million people across the Gaza Strip experienced high levels of acute food insecurity between 1 April and 10 May 2025, including nearly 244,000 people facing catastrophic food insecurity.

The Gaza Media Office claims 290,000 children may now be on the “ brink of death”. Twenty United Nations Human Rights council experts last week called for measures to end the ”annihilation” of Palestinians in Gaza and said that the world had to make a “stark decision” – to “remain passive and witness the slaughter of innocents or take part in crafting a just resolution”. About 3000 trucks carrying aid from UNRWA are stuck waiting for entry to Gaza.

GetUp! in crisis — CEO ousting, job cuts and clash on Palestine prompt staff revolt - Deepcut

Exclusive: staff members pass a motion of no confidence in GetUp!'s chairman and deputy chair after CEO "forced out".

Leaked internal documents and a staff member’s testimony from the progressive campaign group, GetUp!, reveal the organisation is in crisis.

The staff member who spoke to Deepcut on condition of anonymity claims the former GetUp! CEO, Larissa Baldwin-Roberts, was unofficially forced out of her role by members of GetUp!'s board in December 2024, with staff barred from contacting her for months.

Also read > Donations are nosediving and staff fleeing. But GetUp!’s chair is feeling optimistic — and wants to take risks - Cam Wilson for Crikey (paywall)

Journey of rediscovery - Democracy Sausage Podcast with Mark Kenny

Correspondent Jason Koutsoukis joins Democracy Sausage to discuss the latest power plays, election missteps and the lost heart of the Liberal party. How did the Liberal party misjudge the election? Now returned to power, can Labor deliver on its election promises? And is Sussan Ley up to the task of reshaping a Liberal party adrift? On this episode of Democracy Sausage, journalist Jason Koutsoukis joins Professor Mark Kenny and Dr Marija Taflaga to discuss stories from this new parliament.

Listen to the Democracy Sausage Podcast

Paul Budde: How Australia lost its broadband lead and how to win it back -Independent Australia

As the world races toward fibre and 5G, Australia risks being left in the digital dust unless bold leadership steps in.

THE LATEST OECD data confirms what many of us in the broadband sector have warned about for years: the digital divide is widening not just within countries, but between them. Fibre and 5G are expanding rapidly across OECD member nations. Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) is also gaining serious momentum. Yet Australia, once a global trailblazer in national broadband ambition, continues to fall behind.

According to the OECD's 2023 statistics, fibre now accounts for 42% of all fixed broadband subscriptions in the OECD, up from 38% the previous year. In contrast, Australia remains stuck with fibre penetration well below the OECD average, trailing not only digital leaders like Korea, Japan and Spain, but also smaller economies such as Lithuania and Iceland.

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Bernard Keane: Trump is the root of upheaval. Can Albanese capitalise on the chaos? - Crikey

Anthony Albanese now has huge political capital. What will he spend it on? There are strategic opportunities on offer, but he will need to show boldness to seize them.

At some point in most prime ministerships, there’s a moment where everything is going perfectly for the incumbent. They’re seeing it like a beachball, their opponents are scattered and inept, they wield unquestioned authority and real-world events conspire to deliver boundless opportunity.

That’s how it is now for Anthony Albanese. It won’t get any better than this: a colossal majority, the removal from parliament of both opposing leaders, the sundering of the federal Coalition, the Reserve Bank cutting interest rates, and a rapid and successful trip to Indonesia, Europe and Singapore that involved catching up with several key leaders and a pope along the way.

Also read > Lethal' ad campaign helped Labor achieve landslide victory, says campaign guru Paul Erickson - The ABC

It’s not as simple as building more houses - Inside Story

Labor’s housing policies focus on increasing supply. Now it must also tackle distribution.

The most common explanation for Australia’s housing woes is a lack of supply. Property values and rents have outstripped incomes for a simple reason: we haven’t built enough homes to accommodate a growing population. If we want to make housing affordable again, we must free up developers to build more.

The prevalence of this view explains the near-universal condemnation of the Coalition’s election policies.