News update for Wed 30 April 2025
Your trusted guide to the top independent news and views of the day...
3 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
BREAKING NEWS: Inflation is easing, boosting the case for another interest rate cut in May - The Conversation
Hedging our bets: the existential questions facing Australia’s next government in unpredictable times - The Guardian
Australia finds itself caught between two competing global giants: the US and China. Whoever wins government on Saturday faces tough challenges in securing the country’s security and prosperity.
The world is a more dangerous place.
Global conflicts have doubled over the past five years, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (Acled). In 2024 alone, one person in eight across the world was exposed to conflict: political violence increased by a quarter, by factors worse in countries that held elections.
Australian political leaders of all stripes couch it in shared aphorism: the most “challenging strategic circumstances since WWII”.
Also read > The stakes are high for women this federal election. Here’s where each party stands on the issues - Women’s Agenda
What might a hung parliament look like? - The Tally Room Podcast
Ben is joined by Peter Brent and the ABC's Tom Crowley for the final pre-election episode of the 2025 federal election campaign. We discuss how a hung parliament might play out and the experience of riding Peter Dutton's campaign bus. For our seat of the week we discuss the NSW seat of Werriwa
Listen to The Tally Room Podcast
Also >
Who are the minor parties and independents? - The Daily Aus Podcast
Why Chinese Australian voters could be key in a close race between teals and Liberals - The Guardian
Last Minute Polls Show ‘Political Immaturity’ Of Australians Is Really Hurting Coalition — The Betoota Advocate
Simon Holmes à Court lit a fire for independents who say he holds no sway - ABC News
Climate 200 styles itself as a financial backer and service provider to independents who already have their own campaign teams, fundraising and a critical mass of community support.
Candidates applying online for the group's backing literally tick three boxes: support for action on climate change, gender equity and integrity.
There's no grilling over policy specifics.
Also read > From corflute craziness to ‘Trumpet’ texts, election day can’t come soon enough - Sarah McDonald for The SMH/Age
Government ignores AUKUS 'very high risk' warning from the Admiral in charge - Michael West Media
The AUKUS submarine project faces huge risks, and Cabinet knows. But as the Government ships $2B of taxpayers’ money to the US this year, with much more to follow, the taxpayer is not being told.
On 26 February this year, Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead, the man in charge of AUKUS, advised the Senate that the AUKUS submarine program was “very high risk”. He said, “We’ve made that clear to government, and the government has made that clear to the public.”
However, it has not.
Read more from Rex Patrick for Michael West Media
A manufactured crisis: how cost of living fear is shaped for political gain - New Politics
Whether the cost of living message is powerful enough to overcome the broader distrust in the political class will be found out in just a few days’ time.
We’ve been hearing a lot about cost of living issues throughout this election campaign, and it’s clear that this is being framed as the cost of living election. In fact, for most of this parliamentary term, the media has driven a continuous and sustained narrative that living costs are spiralling out of control, ever since the Labor government took office in May 2022 – even though inflation and price rises began during the final year of the Coalition government. This is always a difficult area to debate, because once you point out that things are not quite as catastrophic as the media portrays, you’re instantly labelled as out of touch, a privileged snob, or totally oblivious to the struggles of ordinary families.
Corporate sector warms to climate policy in lead-up to election, goes cold on nuclear - Renew Economy
The Labor government’s multi-billion-dollar plan to help recover Australian manufacturing by encouraging investment that will help the transition to a zero-carbon economy appears to have won support from corporate Australia according to a new analysis.
InfluenceMap, a UK-based climate thinktank, analysed 185 consultation submissions from 58 companies and their industry associations to gauge how they were responding to the government’s Future Made in Australia Plan.
Under the plan, $22bn of public funding has been made available to support the transition to a net-zero economy with the goal of encouraging investment in clean energy manufacturing.
Also read >
Coalition says its energy plan is climate approved. Here’s what the IPCC really says about nuclear - Renew Economy
Fireys pour water on Peter Dutton's "potentially catastrophic" nuclear power plan - RenewEconomy
Today’s cartoon by David Rowe
Also read > Could Canada's election hold lessons for Australia? - SBS News
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.
Voters looking at the least bad option - Pearls and Irritations
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has a very big problem this coming Saturday, election day; he is the most distrusted political leader in Australia according to an April 2025 survey by Roy Morgan.
Roy Morgan chief executive Michele Levine said that “distrust was at dangerously high levels for Dutton".
“Roy Morgan’s special survey on trust and distrust in the lead-up to the federal election shows that Coalition Leader Peter Dutton has the unwanted and extremely unhelpful, distinction of being Australia’s most distrusted politicians – by a significant margin,” she said.
Read more in Pearls and Irritations
Also read > Dutton rides MAGA wave as PM pitches promise - Independent Australia
‘Devastating’: Why the Liberals are preferencing One Nation - 7am Podcast
Under Peter Dutton’s leadership, the Coalition has placed One Nation candidates second on scores of how-to-vote cards across the country. In return, Pauline Hanson has switched One Nation's how-to-vote cards to preference the Liberals second in seats where the Coalition is under threat. The decision goes against decades of principled condemnation of Hanson and One Nation inside the Liberal Party, and normalises what has for almost 30 years been a shunned fringe voice in Australian politics. It signals a change not just in campaign tactics, but in what the Liberals stand for. Today, national correspondent for The Saturday Paper Mike Seccombe, on the preference deal between One Nation and the Liberal Party and whether it could backfire.
Also > Peter Dutton’s preference call on One Nation could hurt Coalition in at-risk seats, strategists warn - The Guardian
Liberals give “Advance” more than Gov’t spends on Welcome to Country - The Klaxon
The Liberal Party gave more money to anti-Welcome to Country hate group “Advance” last financial year than the Federal Government spent on the Indigenous ceremonies over its entire three-year term.
Advance is running a campaign of lies and disinformation against the Welcome to Country, including that “its purpose is to make you feel unwelcome in your own country”.
“The government spends hundreds of thousands of YOUR taxpayer dollars on these elite and activist-led ceremonies that divide us by race,” it states. (Emphasis Advance’s).
In its attack material, Advance repeatedly cites its “spokesperson”, Liberal Senator Jacinta Price, stating that the Federal Government is spending “$450,000 a term” on the ceremonies.
Read more from Anthony Klan for The Klaxon
State of the states: the campaign is almost over, so how has it played out across Australia? - The Conversation
While many Australians have already voted at pre-poll stations and by post, the politicking continues right up until May 3.
So what’s happened across the country over the past five weeks?
Here, six experts analyse how the campaign has looked in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia.
Desperate Measures - Truth, Lies and Media Podcast
As the polls solidify against him, Peter Dutton equates journalistic scrutiny with hate speech. His "Hate Media" includes the ABC, Guardian Australia, and "others", which by inference are The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
Listen to the Truth, Lies and Media Podcast
Welcome to Dutton’s race to the bottom - The Politics
In his last desperate pitch for approval, the opposition leader blacklists Welcomes to Country, Indigenous flags and the 'hate media'. Are 'wokes' eating cats and dogs next?
What do you do when opinion polls and debate audiences say you’re losing the ultimate cost-of-living election in the legitimate head-to-head policy contest, and you’ve got only a few days before crunch day? If you’re Opposition Leader Peter “Donald” Dutton, you double down on culture wars.
With the campaign descending into negative overdrive, Dutton has cast off the mythical quest to unveil his “softer side”, turning back to a hotchpotch of grievances. The Greens are an “anti-Semitic, Jew-hating party”. The ABC and Guardian Australia are “hate media”.
Read more from Murray Hogarth for The Politics
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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.
Quick Links…
Coalition coy on curriculum changes despite Dutton’s claims of student ‘indoctrination’ - The Guardian
Matt’s kid signed up for a charity fundraiser. The Liberal Party began emailing him a decade later - Crikey
TALK: The Murdoch Empire & Real Life Succession PART TWO - Big Small Talk Podcast
Unhappy Gilmore: Appearing in a seat that should have already been in the bag strengthens claims that Peter Dutton’s campaign is floundering - Capital Brief
Leaked document shows two threatened species could be wiped out at Middle Arm development site - The Guardian
The Vietnam War ended 50 years ago today, yet films about the conflict still struggle to capture its complexities - The Conversation
Status quo or a salmon revolution? Anything could happen in Tasmania’s five crucial seats - The Guardian
Mega Election Preview with Shaun Ratcliff - Curtin’s Cast Podcast
Should You Vote Labor? Punters Audit V Chris Bowen - Punters Politics Podcast
Message from the editor-in-chief: Genocide is not newsworthy in The Australian - Pearls and Irritations
100 DAYS OFTRUMP - The Guardian
'Failed to meet even the most basic requirements': Inhumane conditions flagged in remand prison - The Justice Map
Dirty salmon and the corporate takeover of Tasmania’s waters - Green Left
Peter Dutton’s Guide to Disagreeing Nicely - Bernard Keane for Crikey
Who will better manage the economy: Labor or the Coalition? - Pearls and Irritations
Older Australians are also hurting from the housing crisis. Where are the election policies to help them? - The Conversation
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 30th 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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