News update for Wed 23 April 2025
Your trusted guide to the top independent news and views of the day...
10 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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Scroll down for the news and views you need to know today…
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
Paddy Manning: Extreme Weather’s True Death Toll Is Becoming Clearer - Bloomberg
Better modeling is starting to reveal the full global health impact of climate change, just as Trump steps up his war on science.
Heat waves, wildfires, floods, tropical storms and hurricanes are all increasing in scale, frequency and intensity, and the World Health Organization forecasts that climate change will cause 250,000 additional deaths each year by the end of this decade from undernutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat stress alone. Even so, the impact on human health and the body count attributed to extreme weather remain massively underreported — resulting in a damaging feedback loop of policy inaction. Meanwhile, the very people who might fix that problem, at least in the US, are being fired en masse amid the Trump administration’s war on science.
Read more from Paddy Manning for Bloomberg (paywall)
Also >
These 3 climate misinformation campaigns are operating during the election run-up. Here’s how to spot them - The Conversation
Nationals MP accused of ‘fobbing off’ Gippsland constituents concerned by Dutton’s nuclear plan - The Guardian
What would change your mind about climate change? We asked 5,000 Australians – here’s what they told us - The Conversation
More than 80% of the world’s reefs hit by bleaching after worst global event on record - The Guardian
Trade unionists, conservationists and church groups unite against Dutton’s nuclear plan - The Guardian
Trump and the Australian election - Follow the Money Podcast
The United States is disappearing down an authoritarian rabbit hole and Australian leaders are struggling to respond.
On this crossover episode of After America and Follow the Money, Ebony Bennett and Dr Emma Shortis discuss the US administration’s mass deportations, the scandals surrounding the Departments of Defense and State, and why Australian democratic institutions are worth defending.
Listen to the Follow the Money Podcast
Also > Australia’s Right Tried to Copy Trump. It’s Been a Disaster - The Jacobin
Jack Waterford: Crossbench pressure will lift and improve Albo’s game - Pearls and Irritations
Now that the danger of a Dutton Government has receded, a good many left-of-centre people would rather that Labor had less than an outright victory.
An absolute win is quite possible, even likely, but would be the ruination of the Labor Party, at least while it was under the leadership or influence of Anthony Albanese.
Albanese, they say, is still entrenched in his timidity and limited vision. He would see a Labor victory as an endorsement of his approach, rather than a popular repudiation of a virtually unelectable Peter Dutton.
Read more from Jack Waterford for Pearls and Irritations
Also >
The dropping major party vote - The Tally Room Podcast
Beyond fear and false choices: Why loyalty to the major parties is no longer tenable - Pearls and Irritations
Can the teals repeat the success of 2022 at the upcoming election? - ABC News
Coalition cosies up to One Nation with preferences in ceasefire after 30-year war - Annabel Crabb for The ABC
The Greens are hoping for another ‘greenslide’ election. What do the polls say? - The Conversation
Honest Peter Dutton Ad - The Juice Media
Peter Dutton has made an election ad, and it’s surprisingly honest and informative!
Watch The Juice Media’s latest honest Government ad
Also > Senator's welfare wait time blowout claim uses outdated data - AAP Fact Check
What would Australia be willing to go to war over? This needs to be made clear in our defence strategy - The Conversation
In 2024, the National Defence Strategy made deterrence Australia’s “primary strategic defence objective”.
With writing now underway for the 2026 National Defence Strategy, can Australia actually deter threats to the nation?
Traditionally, our defence strategy only asked that our military capabilities “command respect”. In today’s world, however, Australia needs a far more active military posture to defend itself.
Also read > Only a third of Australians support increasing defence spending: new research - The Conversation
Election promises and empty houses: The fiction of fixing Australia’s housing crisis - New Politics
Changing how a society thinks about housing won’t be easy and we do have to start somewhere. But based on what’s on offer during this election campaign, it’s not going to happen any time soon.
As the 2025 federal election campaign enters its final stages, housing has become the headline issue – and for many good reasons. In most parts of Australia, housing affordability is at crisis levels, home ownership is slipping out of reach for an entire generation, and homelessness is on the rise. With two major parties locked in a battle over who can present the more convincing solution, voters are being bombarded with promises that, on the surface, might sound bold and decisive – but are not much than hollow gestures that are likely to exacerbate the very problems they claim to address.
Also >
Labor vs the Coalition: Which housing plan is worse? - 7am Podcast
Australians could be waiting more than 70 years for affordable housing if prices follow path pushed by major parties - The Guardian
Today’s cartoon by Fiona Katauskas
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.
‘Moral panic’ about new media’s influence on young voters underplays their interest in politics, creators say - The Guardian
Young Australian voters “do actually care” about politics and current affairs, Konrad Benjamin tells Guardian Australia. “Aussie punters are not disengaged,” he says. “Most of the corporate media and politicians just refuse to talk about the big, systemic things that are broken, and how we can fix them.”
For at least 20 years, young people have been moving away from formal politics – such as joining a political party or a volunteering organisation – and towards “issues-based” politics, says Prof Philippa Collin from Western Sydney University. Collin researches the role of the internet in the political lives of young people.
Bearing witness in Gaza: an Australian doctor returns - Full Story Podcast
When British-Australian doctor Mohammed Mustafa walked into the terminal at Perth airport last week, there were hundreds of people waiting to welcome him back. He touched down after spending weeks on a medical mission, volunteering at the last fully functioning hospital in Gaza city. Mustafa speaks to Nour Haydar about what he witnessed, why he would not hesitate to go back into the centre of a humanitarian crisis and his message to the political leaders of Australia.
Listen to the Full Story Podcast
Also > This British-Australian doctor has seen the unspeakable in Gaza. He wants to shout from the rooftops - The Guardian
Ketan Joshi: Dutton’s weird energy claims in leaders debate show he’s living in opposite-world - Renew Economy
Back in 2022, just after the previous federal election, I think it’s fair to say that I predicted the tone of this one. I wrote that power prices were likely to go up under Labor’s first term government regardless of their policies, and that the Coalition would, in opposition, callously pin the blame on the Labor party and renewable energy.
It was not exactly a brave prediction, considering this has been a political tactic going back decades. That does make Labor’s decision to lean hard on the election bill promise of the last election somewhat strange, and they’re definitely paying a small price for that this time around.
Read more from Ketan Joshi for Renew Economy
Whatever happened to Peter Dutton’s would-be workers’ party? - Crikey
By April 2024, having helped defeat the Voice referendum, Dutton told a small business forum that the Liberal Party was now ‘the party of the worker’. But was he right?
On May 30, 2022, during his first media conference as the new Liberal Party leader, Peter Dutton laid out a strategy that he has stuck fairly closely to in the three years since. It was a misconceived strategy, based on large doses of wishful thinking about his party’s capacity to attract Labor-leaning voters, which the Coalition is now paying a heavy price for entertaining.
“Our policies will be squarely aimed at the forgotten Australians in the suburbs,” he announced, and particularly “those in seats where there has been a swing against the Labor Party on their primary vote”.
Read more from Frank Bongornio for Crikey (paywall)
Australia’s forgotten female voting bloc: the election’s hidden time bomb - Women’s Agenda
Australia sits atop a demographic volcano, and our politicians are dangerously ignoring the tremors beneath their feet.
While government attention rightly addresses childcare reform—a vital investment—a storm is brewing at the other end of the care spectrum. A new voting bloc is emerging: the “Sandwich Generation”—millions caught between raising children while taking on increasing caring responsibilities for their aging parents and in-laws, while juggling their careers, relationships, well-being and financial security.
This burden falls overwhelmingly on women. Violet’s #SandwichGenerationSpeaks campaign reveals a stunning truth: 98 per cent of submissions come from women. These midlifers face impossible daily choices between career advancement and family care.
A minority is the only government that will bring political change - Nick Feik
The Labor government under Albanese, as I’ve written before, is allergic to bravery and incapable of bold and imaginative leadership. The problem is both structural and deeply behavioural. Why would we expect any different from a future Labor majority? That would be, as per the famously misattributed quote, the definition of insanity.
There is another possibility: a minority Labor government. This outcome has long been the subject of intense scaremongering in the mainstream media and from the duopoly parties, which is perhaps the best reason to barrack for it. A minority government is the only chance for significant political change in this country.
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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.
Quick Links…
Is it too late to solve some of our most wicked problems? The Australia Institute won’t let us die wondering - The Conversation
‘We want people who can help us’: polls open in Pirlangimpi as AEC makes remote communities push - The Guardian
Who are the 'BETTER' Economic Managers? & Other Political BS - Punters Politics Podcast
Albanese’s brand of cultural Catholicism harks back to an earlier Australia – but it’s also thoroughly modern - Frank Bongiorno for The Guardian
Port of Darwin’s struggling Chinese leaseholder may welcome an Australian buy-out - The Conversation
Fertiliser on the Astroturf - Advance and Altas - Truth, Lies and Media Podcast
Gambling in Australia: how bad is the problem, who gets harmed most and where may we be heading? - The Conversation
Inside the plot to ‘get rid’ of Peter V’landys - AFR (paywall)
Parties have a lot of valuable data about you. In fact, they’ve put an actual price on it - Cam Wilson for Crikey (paywall)
Holy hell: Vance’s hypocrisy curses dying pope - David Hardaker for The Politics
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
Share your views on Australia’s media landscape through TrueNorth’s short survey
You’re up to date for Wednesday the 23rd 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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