News update for Wed 5 March 2025
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 (inc updates on Cyclone Alfred) - and through 6 News here
BREAKING NEWS:
Australia's economy ends 21-month per capita recession as GDP grows faster than population - The ABC
Follow The Guardian’s commentary on Trump’s address to Congress
Australians lose more money to gambling in a year than government spends on aged care, report finds - The Guardian
The $31.5bn lost each year likened to a ‘hidden, unspoken black hole’ that cost-of-living policies have not addressed.
Australians are losing more money to gambling each year than the federal government spends on aged care and almost as much as it spends on the national disability insurance scheme, a new report has found.
The report by Equity Economics found that despite the cost-of-living crisis, the amount of money being lost to gambling has significantly increased. Expenditure on gambling has also risen faster than the cost of education, housing and inflation.
Also read > NSW government drops plan to remove 9,500 poker machines, saying ‘it would make no difference’ - The Guardian
Monkey see, monkey don’t? - Democracy Sausage Podcast with Mark Kenny
Political scientist Shaun Ratcliff joins Democracy Sausage to discuss election polls, influential demographics, and whether foreign politics are at the forefront of voter's minds. How will Donald Trump's hostile meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy affect diplomatic ties between Australia and the United States? What are the key issues influencing Australian voters in the upcoming federal election? And what factors are driving Peter Dutton’s political gains? On this episode of Democracy Sausage, Dr Shaun Ratcliff joins Professor Mark Kenny and Dr Marija Taflaga to discuss our current political landscape on both a domestic and world stage.
Listen to The Democracy Sausage Podcast
Also >
Europe must stand firm against the unchecked power of U.S. digital giants - Paul Budde for Independent Australia
The return of the spectacle and idiot kings of politics - New Politics
Trump v Zelenskyy and the 10-minute tirade that changed the world - Full Story Podcast
The Four Outcomes For Ukraine - The Rest Is Politics Podcast
'Unfettered power': Former ambassador on rethinking the US-Australia alliance - 7am Podcast
The dangerous folly of Australia’s come-what-may sycophancy towards Trump is on full display - The Guardian
Decisions, decisions: how to shelter from the Trump shitstorm - David Hardaker for The Politics
Peter Dutton’s attack on WFH will hit women hardest - Women’s Agenda
Within hours of Australia’s shockingly large total remuneration gender pay gap being revealed, Opposition leader Peter Dutton defended a plan to push thousands of employees to return to the office full time.
And he did so while claiming that such a move “doesn’t discriminate against people on the basis of gender”; despite the evidence telling us the exact opposite.
Dutton also had the audacity to suggest there are “plenty of job-sharing arrangements” for women who could not get back to the office five days a week– an arrangement that would ultimately mean moving to part-time work and taking a salary cut. It also involves finding an appropriate person to job share with, and a role that makes sense for such an arrangement.
Read more from Angela Priestley for Women’s Agenda
Also >
Are women still earning less than men? - The Daily Aus Podcast
Coalition's work-from-home ban labelled 'lazy', bad for working women - SBS News
Albanese is as misinformed on the US alliance as live-fire drills - Pearls and Irritations
The petulant demand of tribute to the Trump empire and his transactional ethos surely now challenges the agreed balance sheet between Australia and America.
Comments last week by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on vital defence issues made clear how confused — and indeed downright misinformed — our highest political and defence force leaders are.
Albanese, asked whether ANZUS was “rock solid”, simply said “yes”. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton did not publicly object to this assessment of the treaty.
In fact, the prime minister’s statement is not only unprecedented, it is also wrong.
Read more in Pearls and Irritations
Professor Jenny Hocking: Media negatively frames Labor’s achievements – The Echo
We have become accustomed, not too happily, to a form of political journalism in which opinion and news have increasingly merged, blunting the essential distinction between political commentary and detached objectivity.
With journalists now routinely writing both news and opinion this distinction has become impossibly blurred, undermining the impartiality and accuracy on which political journalism depends.
Nowhere is this decline more apparent than in the response to two very different, yet equally significant, events in our election-tuned political landscape this week.
Read more from Professor Jenny Hocking for The Echo
Today’s cartoon by Megan Herbert
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here (inc updates on Cyclone Alfred) - 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.
Choosing an electoral system for a new democracy - The Tally Room
Ben is joined by John Carey to discuss how you design an electoral system for a new democracy - what factors are most important to producing a healthy and sustainable democracy, and how might those requirements change over time?
Listen to Ben Raue for The Tally Room Podcast
Also >
What happens if no party achieves a parliamentary majority? - Pearls and Irritations
Prospects for the 2025 Senate Election - Kevin Bonham
Australia’s mutual obligation system is broken. Can apologies and reviews save it from suspension? - The Guardian
Senate estimates heard last week IT failures meant over $1.2m had to be repaid to some jobseekers and officials did not have ‘full confidence’ in the legality of the system.
The Albanese government is facing calls to suspend the use of a system designed to punish jobseekers who do not meet mutual obligation requirements after officials told a Senate estimates hearing that it cannot have “confidence” that the system is functioning lawfully.
The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations issued an apology in Senate estimates last week over failures of the system and said it had to repay more than $1.2m to 1,280 jobseekers due to an IT system error.
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has been taken to court over 11 threatened species. Here’s why - The Conversation
What do the Australian lungfish, ghost bat, sandhill dunnart and southern and central greater gliders have in common? They’re all threatened species that need a formal “recovery plan” – but do not have one.
Today, environmental group the Wilderness Society launched a case in the Federal Court against Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, arguing she and successive environment ministers have failed to meet their legal obligations to create threatened species recovery plans.
Coalition’s claim on Australia’s electricity bills isn’t the full picture - Crikey
Are Australians paying some of the world’s most expensive electricity bills? Sort of… but comparisons can be misleading.
With electricity prices shaping up to be a hot-button issue at the upcoming federal election, the Coalition has claimed we’re paying some of the world’s most expensive electricity bills, but experts say global comparisons are complicated.
Both Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and energy spokesperson Ted O’Brien have made the claim while taking aim at Labor’s future energy plans. When asked for evidence, Dutton’s office pointed to a comparison of prices — what some people in South Australia pay against Canadians in Ontario and Americans in Tennessee, both of which have nuclear as part of their energy mix.
Read more in Crikey (paywall)
Michael Pascoe: Safety grants. Dutton promising Morrison-era electoral bribery - Michael West Media
Opposition leader Peter Dutton is promising a return to Morrison-era electoral bribery with his “safety grants”, fuelling integrity concerns which drove the Teals movement.
Once you get a taste for addictive drugs, they are hard to give up. So it is with politicians and “pork barrelling”, the common euphemism for blatant, large-scale corruption.
And make no mistake, the many billions of dollars dished out in electorate bribes during the Coalition’s last innings did amount to corruption on a far greater scale than the usual “they all do it” promise of a bridge across the creek.
Read more from Michael Pascoe for Michael West Media
Also read > As a former senator, I know Australians are tired of pork-barrelling like Dutton’s special grants - Crikey (paywall)
Inspired by a local group of people in Sydney's north who were looking for t-shirts to wear on their regular walks, Democracy Walks champions, supports and actively engages in our democracy.
CLICK here to see Democracy Walks’ t-shirt designs - and join the democracy walkers today!
See a list of the 35 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…
Egypt proposes $53bn Gaza rebuild as alternative to Trump plan - The Guardian
Dutton’s hostility to Labor’s mobile plan out of step with state colleagues - Crikey (paywall)
Social media firms criticise ‘irrational’ exemption of YouTube from Australia’s under-16s ban - The Guardian
What's unusual about Cyclone Alfred, and is climate change affecting how it moves towards the coast? - ABC News
The real truth on productivity: The bosses aren’t trying hard enough - Pearls and Irritations
The US and UK have decimated their aid spending. Australia has a unique opportunity to help fill the vacuum - The Conversation
TFT's views on the Belle Gibson story - TINFOIL TALES Podcast
‘Huge economic price’: Women less likely to stay employed and complete education after domestic violence - Women’s Agenda
Elon Musk is burning his billions — even the Tesla chair is running for the hills - Crikey (paywall)
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here (inc updates on Cyclone Alfred) - 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 5th of March. See you tomorrow!
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here (inc updates on Cyclone Alfred) - 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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