Good morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Tuesday 18 September.
Top stories
The federal Liberal MP Ann Sudmalis has used parliamentary privilege to accuse a state MP of “bullying, betrayal and backstabbing”. Speaking in parliament last night she accused Gareth Ward of flexing “his vengeance on strong Liberal women”. Sudmalis, the member for the NSW marginal seat of Gilmore, south of Sydney, has confirmed that she will not context the next election. In a strongly worded speech she declared that Ward had engaged in plotting “and manipulation of both people and numbers” in a pattern of behaviour that included leaking, branch-stacking and rolling her federal electoral conference – actions that had ultimately made her local position “untenable”.
Her speech adds more fuel to the fire of criticism of the treatment of women inside the Liberal party. Last month Sudmalis’s Victorian colleague Julia Banks took aim at “appalling” behaviour in federal parliament, announcing she would not stand at the next election.
Senior defence officials and military figures are taking paid jobs with firms lobbying for arms manufacturers, sometimes within weeks of leaving their government posts. As part of the Transparency Project, Guardian Australia has identified eight former military officers or defence bureaucrats, most of whom were high-ranking, who have registered themselves as lobbyists for firms that represent military contractors. But many other defence lobbyists operate largely in secret, either because they work directly for military contractors, or because they simply refuse to put themselves on the lobbyist register, avoiding scrutiny for themselves and their clients without any real repercussion. Not a single lobbyist has been punished for breaching rules in the past five years – either federally, or in Victoria, Western Australia, Queensland or South Australia.
Hillary Clinton has published an attack on Donald Trump, accusing him of cruelty, negligence, corruption, dishonesty, racism and malevolence. In the afterword to the new paperback edition of her book What Happened, Clinton writes that “right now, our democracy is in crisis … There are no tanks in the streets. The administration’s malevolence may be constrained on some fronts – for now – by its incompetence. But our democratic institutions and traditions are under siege.” .
Steep reduction targets will not drive up power prices for Australian consumers, according to new research from the Australian Council of Social Service and the Brotherhood of St Laurence. While the government has abandoned the national energy guarantee because conservatives complain that emissions reduction policies drive up power prices, the research finds that critique is misguided, even for relatively ambitious targets. Power prices for households would fall by 2030 under all four scenarios modelled by Frontier Economics.
Operation owl-dog: a puppy named Zorro will help save one of Australia’s most elusive birds. A crowdfunding campaign to save the masked owl has hit its $60,000 target, which means the four-month-old border collie will be enlisted on his first mission: to track down the endangered bird in Tasmania. Dejan Stojanovic, from the Australian National University’s difficult bird research group, says it’s believed there are fewer than 1,000 of the nocturnal birds living in the state’s forests. Because their habitat is hard to access, the birds are difficult to track. The plan is to teach Zorro to sniff out owl pellets – which are regurgitated indigestible parts of prey that look like cat fur-balls – on the forest floor.
Sport
Eight years after being formed, Australia’s Mitchelton-Scott team has made cycling history. On Sunday, the pair became the first Australian team to win a Grand Tour, at one of the most prestigious races on the global cycling calendar, the Vuelta a España. They do not intend to rest on their laurels, though writes Kieran Pender. “Sport has no finish line.”
In the Premier League, Southhampton and Brighton & Hove Albion have drawn 2-2 at St Mary’s. Catch up on the live blog, then read the talking points for this weekend’s football.
Thinking time
Abandoning fishing lockouts from a Sydney marine park is a “gutless tragedy”, writes James Woodford, who says that the decision has appalled scientists and conservationists. “All the decision does is perpetuate the idea that regional Australians have to put up with the sharpest end of government conservation measures while a marine park in Sydney, and the anglers who use it, will be spared from having to make any sacrifices. It widens the divide between city and country – one of this government’s main problems.”
The Wentworth independent candidate Kerryn Phelps is feeling her way cautiously as she seeks to position herself in the once blue-ribbon Liberal seat, writes Anne Davies. But she faces a dilemma: does she present herself as the more caring, liberal alternative to the Liberals, yet someone who will not rock the boat to the extent it could bring down the government? Or does she pitch herself as the lightning rod for simmering voter anger over the unceremonious dumping of Malcolm Turnbull, a firebrand of independence who will bring the major parties to account, even if that means triggering an election? The Liberals say voting for Phelps is: “The single most destabilising thing a voter can do in Wentworth.”
The idea that Newstart should be kept low so young beach bums don’t stay on it is laughable, writes Greg Jericho. Contrary to the stereotype, the safety net is more likely to be going to middle-aged parents, and raising the payment is a must, he says. Those over 45 make up 38% of the working-age population and account for 43% of people on Newstart or the youth allowance. Even worse is that 49% of the long-term recipients of Newstart are aged over 45.
Media roundup
Fairfax mastheads are leading with the Liberal party’s “women crisis”. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a combination of poor polling and looming departures could leave just five female Liberals in the House of Representatives, the lowest level since the early 1990s. The Australian says the dig to find the body of Lyn Dawson – missing since 1982 and the subject of the landmark Teacher’s Pet podcast – has failed to find anything at her former home on Sydney’s northern beaches. Students with the lowest Atar scores are being offered places in teaching degrees, according to a confidential report obtained by the ABC. The report shows that in NSW and the ACT in 2015, students who scored in the bottom 50% of school leavers made up half of all those offered places in teaching degrees.
Coming up
The Senate inquiry into the government’s $444m grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation is holding hearings.
The NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association will highlight the urgent need for nurse-to-patient ratios in public hospitals at a rally outside Parliament House in Sydney.
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