News update for Wed 5 Feb 2025

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

Feb 05, 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 | Also follow The Australia Institute's new Live Blog with Amy Remeikis

BREAKING NEWS: Follow - Antoinette Lattouf/ABC Hearing - Middle East Crisis

Countering effective mislabelling - Democracy Sausage Popcast with Mark Kenny

Senator Larissa Waters joins Democracy Sausage to talk electoral reform, resisting the far right and the Greens’ ongoing negotiations. What’s stopping donations data from being revealed in real-time? Do proposed donation reforms go far enough to strengthen Australian democracy? And is the left too fractured to rise to the challenge at the next election? On this episode of Democracy Sausage, Senator Larissa Waters joins Professor Mark Kenny to discuss political donations, truth in advertising and responding to the far right.

Listen to the Democracy Sausage Podcast

Also > Conservative activists target Greens - ABC Radio

Liberal party investment vehicle donated $500,000 to rightwing group Advance - The Guardian

A Liberal party investment group donated $500,000 to the rightwing advocacy group Advance last financial year, fuelling speculation from the Greens the two are teaming up to take out the minor party’s influence in the upcoming federal election.

Advance, which has pledged to “expose” the Greens as Australia’s “biggest threat to freedom, security and prosperity”, received more than $15.6m in the 2023-24 financial year, up from $5.2m the year prior, according to the latest Australian Electoral Commission annual donation disclosure figures.

Just $914,000, or 5.8%, of the donations’ sources are known with the remaining $14.8m not publicly declared, sometimes referred to as “dark money”.

Michael Pascoe: Dutton’s dog whistle – why the grandstanding on antisemitism - Michael West Media

What’s the political payoff for Peter Dutton’s all-the-way-with-Israel stance? The number of Australians identifying as Jewish is relatively few. Michael Pascoe reports there is a more subtle dog whistle at work.

As you may have noticed, Peter Dutton never misses a chance to grandstand on antisemitism or back Israel’s government without reservation.

When it was a simple matter of Australia being consistent with long-standing bi-partisan policy in a United Nations vote, Dutton hyperbolically claimed Labor had “completely abandoned the Jewish community”.

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Peter Dutton is promising to slash the public service. Voters won’t know how many jobs are lost until after the election - The Conversation

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has doubled down on his commitment to sack thousands of public servants if he’s elected prime minister.

Dutton has again highlighted the “wasteful” 36,000 increase in public service jobs under Labor, which he says has made the Australian Public service “bloated and inefficient”.

While there is considerable political hyperbole and Trumpian allusions in Dutton’s statements, there are areas where legitimate savings could be made by whoever wins the coming election. That includes a second-term Albanese government, which would need to find efficiencies to offset promised wage increases.

Paul Budde: DeepSeek gives China breakthrough in AI development - Independent Australia

The release of DeepSeek R1, a powerful new large language model (LLM) developed in China on a shoestring budget, has sent shockwaves through the artificial intelligence (AI) community.

I am sure, like me, many people chuckled when they heard about this shortly after Donald Trump’s announcement just days earlier of an American initiative based on the old “big iron” approach to AI, with a massive investment of US$500 billion (AU$808 billion).

The fact that a small AI lab, operating under U.S. semiconductor sanctions, has managed to outperform OpenAI on key benchmarks raises two crucial questions: Where is AI headed? And at what cost?

“Snouts in the Trough” – Senators oppose “Electoral Reform” bill - The Klaxon

The Federal Government’s “biggest reform in 40 years” to electoral donation laws has been pushed back for debate in the Senate until tomorrow.

Proposed amendments to the Electoral Reform Bill suggests that some Senators hold a level of distrust regarding the proposed new laws.

Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe has moved an amendment to change the title of the Electoral Reform Bill – from “Electoral Reform” to “Sham Democracy”.

“Amendments to be moved by Senator Thorpe…Clause 1, page 1 (lines 6 and 7), omit “Electoral Reform”, substitute “Sham Democracy”, states Thorpe’s proposed amendment.

Today’s cartoon by Pat Hudson

TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here | Also follow The Australia Institute's new Live Blog with Amy Remeikis

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Tariffs, climate & the rules based order: what the Trump presidency means for Australia - Politics Podcast with Michelle Grattan

We're joined by John Blaxland and Richard Holden to talk about the impact of global uncertainties will have on Australia.

Listen to The Politics Podcast with Michelle Grattan

Ending the US alliance: America first means Australia last - Pearls and Irritations

The foundation of Australia’s alliance with the US is that there is a shared commitment to the rule of law and constitutional democratic government. We are faced with the choice of waiting until there cannot be a shred of doubt that the US is committed to a dictatorship or beginning the process of cutting our ties with this latest incarnation of American democratic government.

There are those who think Trump is an aberration, things will return to normal once he leaves office in 2028. Trump is not an aberration, he is the logical consequence of a system of government that is essentially a plutocracy.

In bed with madmen - The international order as we know it is breaking down. Australian leaders have some choices to make - Nick Feik

Without attempting to summarise the chaotic opening weeks of Trump’s second presidency, we can already see that the international order as we know it – the one centred around the United Stated – is breaking down. The responsibility for cleaning up the mess, or at least stemming the flow, will eventually fall on everyone, including Australia. Our island continent won’t be uniquely protected or even insulated from the Trump madness, regardless how many times our leaders pay fealty to our close relationship with our great and powerful ally.

Ash Streeter Jones: Young voices, big ideas, no vote: Why Australia needs to listen to teen girls and gender-diverse youth this election year - Missing Perspectives

In November last year, I was in Canberra supporting a workshop with high school-aged students. An annual workshop, it focused on building the political literacy of young people, positioning them as people with solutions, and encouraging them to bring their solutions to life.

In one session, the Speaker of the House, Milton Dick MP, asked the room who would be interested in running for office. Looking around, I noticed a trend.

Despite hands shooting up across the room, not a single one belonged to a young woman.

Five things we’ve learned this week from Antoinette Lattouf’s alleged unfair dismissal case against the ABC - The Guardian

Antoinette Lattouf’s alleged unfair dismissal case against the ABC began this week in the federal court in Sydney.

Lattouf was the first witness to give evidence in a trial expected to last a week, that will see some of the most senior figures from the broadcaster take the stand.

It centres around Lattouf’s time as a casual presenter on ABC Radio Sydney in December 2023. Lattouf was taken off air three days into a five-day contract after she posted on social media about the Israel-Gaza war.

The descent into Trumpism and the failure of the left to fight back - New Politics

The Liberal Party in Australia has never been a stranger to opportunism but under Peter Dutton, it has fully embraced the Trumpist model of lies, division, and performative outrage. Despite media attempts to frame Dutton as “different” to Donald Trump’s brand of chaotic politics – the ABC recently editorialised that Dutton was “unlikely to read from Trump’s playbook as the election nears” – the evidence speaks for itself.

The culture wars, the shameless populism, the deliberate misinformation and disinformation – all of this follows the same blueprint that has worked so effectively for right-wing populists across the world, including Trump.