News update for Wed 5 June 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
New Zealand is under siege by the Atlas Network - AIMN
Just as the Atlas Network-connected Advance body intervened in the Voice referendum in Australia and, in recently, the Dunkley by-election, similar organisations spawned from the American model are distorting New Zealand’s politics from within as well as from without.
Read more from Lucy Hamilton for The Australian Independent Media Network
Labor has adopted its own ‘nature positive’ approach to the environment. But is it just a ‘snazzy slogan’? - The Guardian
The term “nature positive” has been adopted by the Australian government as a catch-all title and slogan for its promise to address failing national environment laws and the country’s poor and deteriorating environmental health.
But what does it actually mean? Last week we got an answer – or at least the first part of one – from the government’s perspective.
This ‘World first’ legislation and the creation of new agencies have drawn criticism for a lack of accountability and quantifiable targets
Read more from Adam Morton for The Guardian
Also read >
Groundwater is heating up, threatening life below and above the surface - The Conversation
Australia’s land-use emissions data revisions are an engine of climate delay - Renew Economy
How do we prepare for life on a hot planet? - Crikey (paywall)
Our News. Your Voice. From Monday June 3 to Friday June 7 LINA (Local and independent news association) is promoting a national movement of newsrooms calling on our communities to support local and independent news. Find out how you can support hyperlocal independent newsrooms around Australia. (TrueNorth is a member of LINA)
Rick Morton on Bill Shorten’s NDIS overhaul - 7am Podcast
There are two things to know about the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The first is that it makes an immense difference to many lives across Australia. The second is that it’s wildly expensive and is projected to cost even more in the future. So, how to reconcile those two realities? It’s what the government is trying to solve with a new piece of legislation that’s been shrouded in secrecy for months – but some in the sector say this legislation could hand government authorities more powers to pursue debts.
Listen to Rick Morton for The 7am Podcast
Spare us the talk about a wages explosion. There’s nothing wrong with lifting Australia’s lowest wages in line with inflation - The Conversation
What is it with the Coalition and wages?
When, in the final days of the 2022 election campaign, the then opposition leader Anthony Albanese backed an increase in award wages to keep pace with inflation, his opposite number in the Coalition, Prime Minister Scott Morrison called him a “loose unit”.
“He just runs off at the mouth, it’s like he just unzips his head and lets everything fall on the table,” Morrison said.
Read more from Peter Martin for The Conversation
Michael Pascoe: Albo and Miles punting a billion down at the track - The New Daily
After a nudge and a wink from various connections, Anthony Albanese and Steven Miles have gone down to the racetrack and placed $940 million in a single bet on an untried horse in a race so complicated, so difficult, that it makes it look relatively simple to combine the Melbourne Cup, the Bathurst 1000, the Stawell Gift and Olympic synchronised swimming into a single event.
The race – to build a genuinely useful quantum computer – is being run all over the world with backing by the biggest technology companies, multiple governments and all the major venture capital funds.
Read more from Michael Pascoe for The New Daily
Biggest rort of all - Michael West Media
Michael West sits down with Konrad from Punters Politics to talk about how the Big End of Town is ripping us off.
Watch more with Michael West and Punter’s Politics
Today’s cartoon by Cathy Wilcox for SMH/Age
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here
News outlets producing ‘covert marketing’ for McDonald’s, KFC and Domino’s, study finds - The Guardian
Fast food chains are successfully influencing news outlets to produce “covert marketing” for their brands, a new study has found.
The study, led by the University of Sydney’s School of Public Health, analysed all press releases from McDonald’s, KFC and Domino’s Pizza in Australia between July 2021 and June 2022.
Of 86 articles across 31 Australian news outlets that the researchers identified were generated because of the fast food brands’ press releases, they found 80 slanted favourably to the brands.
From junk science to “swindle factories”, Barnaby Joyce hates wind farms down to his boots - Renew Economy
Barnaby Joyce’s indefatigable anti-renewables crusade took a sartorial twist last week, when he turned up to federal parliament wearing cowboy boots, in protest of the fact that his usual brand of choice – RM Williams – is now owned by iron ore billionaire and green energy evangelist Andrew Forrest.
Joyce told 2GB Radio that while he has nothing against Forrest, personally, he’s not happy about Twiggy’s company Squadron Energy building wind farms – or “swindle factories,” as he now likes to call them – in regional New South Wales.
“He’s putting swindle factories or so-called wind farms all over our area,” the federal member for New England told 2GB’s Ben Fordham last week.
A second term for Labor? The delicate balance between governance and political values - New Politics
The Labor government’s strategy for securing a second term in office is slowly unfolding amidst a complicated political and economic landscape. As the current parliamentary term continues, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s announcement to the Labor Caucus about “crafting” their next-term offer has sparked discussions on timing and priorities, suggesting a pre-emptive move towards election readiness. While no election is imminent—more than likely to be held after the Queensland election in October this year and further complicated by seat redistributions yet to be announced by the Australian Electoral Commission—the announcement suggests that Labor is preparing its electoral strategy and policy outlines for its second term, if it manages to get there.
Albanese's Animal Farm moment - On becoming what you hate - The Future of Everything
Anthony Albanese has always been adept at walking thin lines between competing points of view, as he showed in the minority government of Julia Gillard, and for which he rightly won credit. But now as prime minister himself, the person Laura Tingle once described as “the man who walks between raindrops”, is in the process of bringing down a storm upon his own head and he may well be about to get drenched.
Read more from Tim Dunlop for The Future of Everything
Australia’s war on its young people grows ever more relentless - Crikey
Do Australians hate young people? This week, pollsters Essential Research published the results of polling off the back of soon-to-be-Tory-roadkill Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s idea for compulsory military service for British 18-year-olds. Would Australians support such a proposal or an alternative of compulsory volunteer work?
According to Essential, just over half of respondents supported sticking all 18-year-olds in the army. Around 46% favoured forcing them to work for free. Unsurprisingly, younger voters were underwhelmed by the idea: 39% of under 35s supported military service versus half of 35-54 year olds and over 60% of seniors.
Read more from Bernard Keane for Crikey (paywall)
Also read > Younger Australians feel they are losing a rigged game. And who can blame them when the spending gap is getting even worse? - The Guardian
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Modi expected to lose parliamentary majority in Indian election - The Guardian
A shock election result in India humbles Narendra Modi - The Economist
The return of Nigel Farage: does it matter? - The Rest Is Politics Podcast
Eraring deal signals death of baseload power in Australia, and Dutton’s nuclear fantasy - Renew Economy
Bowel cancer is on rise in young people – and diet may play a huge role - The New Daily
The ill treatment of my friend’s 90-year-old mother shows how broken our aged care system is - The Guardian
Trump biographer: dictatorship a real risk if Americans put ‘master con-artist’ back in White House - Michael West Media
‘No tolerance’: Sharing deepfake pornography will be criminalised under new laws - Women’s Agenda
The ABC of Craven Capitulation - The Shot Podcast
Hypocrisy and deceit Down Under: Australia is a Zionist stronghold - Pearls and Irritations
Labor fights for the right to shred documents if it loses office - The Guardian
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here
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You’re up to date for Wednesday the 5th of June. See you tomorrow!
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here