News update for Wed 7 May 2025

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

May 07, 2025

Welcome to your TrueNorth news update where every weekday afternoon we share curated articles from Australia’s independent news media sector.

Please share with friends, family, colleagues - as good journalism is always worth supporting.

Share TrueNorth News

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 - and through 6 News here

BREAKING NEWS: Adam Bandt projected to lose Melbourne seat leaving federal Greens without a leader - The Guardian

Leftwing values will defeat the right. That’s what Keir Starmer can learn from Australia - The Guardian

I have written enough political speeches to know that few of them say much. But in Sydney on Saturday night, the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, gave one that marked an extraordinary achievement. Labor’s victory, he told his audience, was not just any old election success. It was a triumph of “Australian values”, including economic ideals rooted in the need to build a society in which “no one is held back, and no one is left behind”. He ended by waiving his Medicare card in the air – the card that enables millions of Australians to access healthcare free at the point of use – pointing out that it was “neither Labor red, nor Liberal blue”. It was “green and gold”, the national colours of Australia.

There was a confidence to Albanese that felt a long way from Labour’s recent efforts in Britain.

Can't divide your way to unity - Democracy Sausage Podcast with Mark Kenny

Join the hosts of Democracy Sausage for a discussion about Labor’s victory and what it means. What can we expect from Albanese’s leadership approach the second time around? Can we expect Labor to continue to have the same level of unity? And how can the Liberals rebuild after their election defeat? On this episode of Democracy Sausage, Professor Mark Kenny and Dr Marija Taflaga discuss the outcome of the 2025 federal election.

Listen to the Democracy Sausage Podcast

Also >

The Election Is Over... So What Now? - Punters Politics Podcast
'All the wrong lessons' from Voice referendum 'backfired' on Coalition, analysts say - The ABC

Craig Emerson: The Liberal Party’s horrific result is of its own making, and the road back won’t be pretty - The New Daily

The Parliamentary Liberal Party has become a cult.

Most of its surviving members will tell you the contemporary Liberal philosophy is appealing to voters, it’s just that it hasn’t been communicated well.

Such is the zealotry within the Parliamentary Liberal Party’s hard right that it will brook no criticism of its philosophy.

It’s difficult to see how the Liberal Party will be reformed from within to better reflect the views of voters, since over two federal elections the Liberal right has sacrificed the moderates on the altar of righteousness.

What just happened to the Greens? - Pearls and Irritations

Unlike many members of the Labor Party, I do not harbour a burning hatred for the Greens. Their values are admirable and, in many cases, indistinguishable from my own.

But most importantly, Labor must never forget that the Greens exist in large part because Labor has dropped the ball on several progressive issues. Key among these are refugees and asylum-seekers (an issue notably absent from the 2025 election campaign). In 2001, when Labor under Kim Beazley more or less supported John Howard’s approach towards asylum-seekers, a large chunk of Labor supporters got up and left for the Greens. They never came back.

Yet, in the aftermath of the 2025 federal election, the Greens are at risk of a total wipeout in the lower house.

Thirteen things on Labor’s climate and energy must-do list to change the system - Renew Economy

The thumping victory for Labor in the weekend’s poll means that it is likely to be in power for at least another six years.

It has set renewable and climate targets that might be difficult to meet, but which really need to be even more ambitious if it is to respect the science, and seize the opportunities of a green energy economy. But, without the Teals or Greens pushing it in minority government, the momentum will have to come from within.

There is near universal acclaim in the energy industry on the work and effort of Labor’s climate and energy minister Chris Bowen, who has probably been the best in the role for more than a decade. Still, his future is not 100 per cent certain and his new sidekick, assistant minister Josh Wilson, is fighting for electoral survival in his seat of Fremantle.

An Ambulance Chaser’s Tale: case against Michael West Media dropped - Michael West Media

The Federal Court defamation case against Michael West Media has been dropped, but so has the regulator’s investigation into the lawyers’ conduct. Michael West reports on a fee-fest.

Our latest trial is over. The defamation case against us has been dropped. Yet the investigation into the conduct of the lawyers by the ACT Law Society has also been dropped. They had been investigating following complaints by us about conflicts of interest and unethical conduct by a Canberra law firm.

Our lawyers from XD Law have described the result early settlement (confidential) as “stunning”.

Kos and Nick Unpack Election 2025 - Curtin’s Cast Podcast

The 2025 Australian federal election has been won - in a big and history-making way by Anthony Albanese's Labor Party - and lost in a humiliating manner for the Liberal-National Coalition led by Peter Dutton, who lost his own seat on May 3. On episode 11, Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras unpack virtually every element of the campaign that was - what Labor did well, why the Libs tanked, the disastrous Greens' performance, the One Nation/Trumpet of Patriots flop, state-based results and key seats, how gender, age and ethnicity played out, as well as the key issues which swung the campaign.

Listen to Curtin’s Cast Podcast

Also > The Liberals are fundamentally mismatched with modern Australia - Kos Samaras for The AFR

Right winner, wrong margin - Inside Story

The pollsters tipped the win but not its size. So why did they toe the same line?

The numbers from the 2025 election are not yet final — as I write this, the AEC has counted just over 75 per cent of votes — but we do know that the pollsters’ figures all fell on the right side of the line: they each had Labor ahead, and Labor went on to win. After the debacle of 2019, when they all fell on the wrong side of the line, that’s a mighty relief not only to the pollsters but also to Labor.

On closer inspection, however, three things considerably less reassuring also stand out.

Wait til Australia’s right finds some actual talent. Then there’ll be no stopping them - Crikey

Was it Australia’s fundamental decency that rejected the right? Or was it simply that they didn’t put up a good enough candidate?

Call it what it was: a collapse of the right. Labor may well claim the recent election is an endorsement of its track record and future plans, but the more significant point is arguably that the public comprehensively rejected its right-wing opponents.

The Liberal Party won its lowest primary vote and its lowest number of House of Representatives seats since its formation in the 1940s. It has been more or less expelled from the capital cities and out of Tasmania entirely, and the Coalition as a whole is now dominated by its Queensland wing.

There’s another reason why the right has failed again in Australia: it continues to put up candidates that are fundamentally and unequivocally terrible.

Also read > The last of Palmer: A quarter-billion dollars of political dilettantism - Bernard Keane for Crikey (paywall)

Voters ignored the Murdoch media this election – but who is the new media leaving behind? - Women’s Agenda

From people choosing to simply not engage with Murdoch media to former politicians running anti-Murdoch campaigns, the shift away from News Corp has been simmering for some time and it seems like this election was when it boiled.

The 2025 Australian federal election marked a significant shift in political communication and saw the rise of non-traditional media platforms such as podcasts, social media, and independent outlets. This evolution aimed to engage younger demographics, who now constitute 47 per cent of the electorate.

It is so incredibly refreshing to see journalists and influencers talk about politics with any biases they do have laid out on the table in front of us while also discussing more than just the side they agree with.

However, one thing that the Murdoch media empire and the new age of social media news outlets share is whiteness.

The dark cloud of Murdoch has no silver lining - The Politics

News Corp, Sky after dark, Fox News ... they spew lies and propaganda around the globe, and the evil empire's tentacles keep wrapping around the fearful and the ignorant.

As Saturday’s bloodbath washes through the Liberal corridors of no power, the electoral train wreck has turned attention to other overly cocky players: the Murdoch media.

From the moment the poll was called, Rupert Murdoch’s news culture warriors turned up the heat on Labor, exhorting the brilliance of Peter Dutton’s failed nuclear fantasy and his war on migrants, “woke” schools, people who work from home and Welcomes to Country — while tearing down anyone who dared suggest he and his party were not fit for office.

Also > Bursting the Bubble - Truth, Lies and Media Podcast

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!