News update for Wed 4 Sept 2024
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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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
BREAKING NEWS: Australia’s economy fares better than expected but still weakest since early 1990s - The Guardian
Thomas Mayo on continuing the fight for recognition - 7am Podcast
Although Australians voted resoundingly against an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, Thomas Mayo – one of the Voice’s key campaigners – has not given up hope. He says while the “Yes” campaign lost the referendum, what they gained was resilience and a new generation of Indigenous leaders ready to take up the fight. He’s also written a new book, Always Was Always Will Be: The Campaign for Justice and Recognition Continues – outlining a vision for what comes next. Today, Kaurareg Aboriginal and Kalkalgal, Erubamle Torres Strait Islander activist Thomas Mayo
‘A symbol of our nation’: waratah among 20 more species added to Australia’s threatened wildlife list - The Guardian
Twenty more plants and animals, including a type of waratah, have been added to Australia’s list of threatened wildlife, bringing the total number of endangered species and ecosystems to almost 2,250.
The fresh listings come as the government faces a battle to pass legislation for a new national environment watchdog in the Senate and has been under pressure from the Greens and Coalition about delays to a broader package of reforms to the country’s environment laws.
Let’s be honest: Australia’s claim to have cut climate pollution isn’t as good as it seems - The Guardian
Australia has a problem with greenhouse gas emissions – a bigger problem than the political debate concedes.
Late last week, as Australians endured record August warmth and global heating-fuelled extreme rain, the federal government released data that suggest heat-trapping gases across most of the economy are currently headed in the wrong direction or yet to budge much from historic highs.
Read more from Adam Morton for The Guardian
Also read >
How everything became about the Greens blocking the CPRS in 2009 - Crikey (paywall)
Fire services warn of likely early start to Australia’s bushfire season - The Guardian
How much koala habitat is cleared for mining and renewable energy projects each year? - The ABC
The Greens want a super-profits tax. Labor and business used to like the idea too - The Conversation
When the Greens proposed an extra super-profits tax on the excessive part of really excessive profits last week, business and the government acted as if the sky was about to fall in.
It would make Australia one of the “worst places in the world to run a business”, said the Business Council. It would “force up prices on everyday essentials”.
The idea that large profits were “unjustifiably extracted” was false, said the head of the Commonwealth Bank, and so on.
Labor was the same. The Greens were making up numbers, the super-profits tax was “designed to get attention,” according to Treasurer Jim Chalmers.
But the principle behind the idea is a good one – as Labor and the Business Council should know better than anyone.
Read more from Peter Martin for The Conversation
Record numbers of temporary graduates in immigration limbo - Pearls and Irritations
Temporary graduate visas are for overseas students who complete their study and wish to undertake work in Australia, often as a pathway to permanent residence. These visas work best when the bulk of temporary graduates seeking permanent residence are able to secure skilled work and eventually a permanent residence employer sponsored (or other) permanent visa.
But a growing number of temporary graduates appear to be struggling to get skilled work and permanent residence visas. This is a sign the system is not working well.
Read more from Abul Rizvi for Pearls and Irritations
Six ways to rein in Musk - Robert Reich
Today I want to tell you the dangers posed by an out-of-control Elon Musk (in part I), and six ways to rein him in (in part II). I also provide some personal evidence of how bonkers he is (in my P.S. at the end of today’s letter).
I. Elon Musk is Out of Control
Elon Musk is rapidly transforming his enormous wealth — he’s the richest person in the world — into a huge source of unaccountable political power that’s now backing Trump and other global authoritarians.
Musk owns X, formerly known as Twitter. He has publicly endorsed Donald Trump. He is spending as much as $180 million on transforming the Republican Party’s field organizing program to help Trump — to which he has brought in new leadership, including a new personal aide to help him make political decisions.
Trump and Musk have both floated the idea of governing together if Trump wins a second term.
Also > Is this the beginning of the end for X? - The Daily Aus Podcast
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
“Why are they there?” Trucking regulators fail Australian truckies as death toll rises - Michael West Media
As trucking fatalities rise, whistleblowers and other industry activists allege that trucking regulations are not working and the regulators are failing drivers.
Deaths involving large trucks constitute 27% of all road fatalities in Australia, according to the latest report (June 2024) from the Department of Infrastructure, an increase from last year of 3.5% (12 deaths). Trucking industry whistleblowers claim regulators must take some of the blame.
Read more from Michael Gardiner for Michael West Media
AUSTRALIA’S COLLABORATION WITH ISRAEL’S GENOCIDE - Declassified Australia
Israel continues to use its fleet of F35-I Adir fighter-bomber aircraft, with Australian parts and components, in its illegal assaults on Gaza and elsewhere.
The F35 is far more than a cutting-edge aircraft. Its capacity as an instrument of destruction and death is enhanced by being integrated into a complex intelligence technology that captures and processes data from many sources, including the aircraft themselves, and provides the pilot with intelligence of extraordinary breadth and detail.
Read more in Declassified Australia
Ross Gittins: Albo’s lack of courage makes headlines, but doesn’t tell the full story of his government - The SMH/Age
If you’ve gained the impression that Anthony Albanese’s government is one that knows what it should be doing to fix our various problems, but lacks the courage to do anything that might be controversial – even just including questions in the census about people’s sexual orientation – I can’t tell you you’ve got the wrong idea.
What people outside Canberra often don’t realise is how obsessed governments, of either colour, become with how their opponents will react to anything they do or say. Albo seems to have a bad case of this.
It’s something economists understand from their study of the behaviour of duopolies. Albanese has forgotten the golden rule of competition laid down by the social psychologist Hugh Mackay: to compete successfully, focus on your customers, not your competitors.
Read more from Ross Gittins for The SMH/Age (paywall)
Also read >
Is grown-up government enough? The puzzle of Anthony Albanese’s struggling prime ministership - Inside Story
Toxic cost of Labor’s WA obsession just keeps growing - Bernard Keane for Crikey (paywall)
The certain death of local news is dragging democracy down - Crikey
Right now, we’re getting a preview of what a world without newspapers — democracy’s traditional fourth estate — might look like. Local elections in NSW are taking place largely in a local news media vacuum, as the traditional regional chains owned by News Corp and Australian Community Media (ACM) shut up shop.
Not that long ago, there were 11 long-established daily newspapers serving each of the largest cities in regional NSW (that is, outside the Sydney-Newcastle-Wollongong metro area), buttressed with a string of tri-, bi- and weekly papers in the smaller towns.
Now, there are just three daily newspapers, while most of the papers on a lesser frequency have been shuttered and rolled into a single corporate digital offering, like News Corp’s Daily Telegraph.
Read more in Crikey (paywall)
Also read > Will Labor's media reforms run out of time before the election? - Tim Burrowes for Unmade
Anne Hollands: Australia is failing its children. A ‘tough on crime’ approach to youth justice puts politics before prevention - The Guardian
We all want to live in communities where we feel safe and where children can flourish and get the best start in life. But the last few weeks have marked a major step backwards for the rights of Australia’s children.
Between the newly elected Northern Territory government’s plan to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 12 to 10, the Queensland opposition’s pledge to sentence serious child offenders as adults if it wins next month’s state election and last Thursday’s tragic death in youth detention of a teenager in Western Australia, our nation’s failures to protect our most vulnerable children have again been laid bare.
Read more from Anne Hollands for The Guardian
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Australia is about to get a new economic report card. What GDP figures mean – and what to look for - The Guardian
If Australia wants to fast-track 100% renewables, it must learn from Europe’s risky path - The Conversation
NT Labor makes history appointing Australia’s first Indigenous woman to lead a major political party - The Guardian
How To Take Down Trump: Debate strategies for Harris - Dan Rather for his Steady substack
The rise of Germany’s far-right - The Rest Is Politics Podcast
ADF spent $60m on recruit advertising. Defence is quiet about whether it’s worked - Crikey (paywall)
Are private hospitals in Australia really facing a cash crisis and could some close? - The Guardian
Australia needs 21,000 early learning educators to meet current demand – but this is what’s getting in the way - Women’s Agenda
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian 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 4th of September. See you tomorrow!
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here