Good morning, this is Richard Parkin bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 15 October.
Top stories
The former NSW Liberal party MP Daryl Maguire has admitted that he sought to “monetise” his parliamentary office and “use his status” as a politician for financial gain during an appearance before the state’s anti-corruption watchdog. Icac heard that Maguire had boasted of tens of thousands of dollars earned in “success fees” from a “cash for visas” scheme run from inside his parliamentary office.
Meanwhile, the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, continued to reject calls for her resignation over revelations she had been in a “close personal relationship” with Maguire and failed to act. She sought to frame her only mistake as a “personal one”, insisting “I haven’t done anything wrong”, and angrily batted back a third day of questioning on the matter, telling reporters her “tolerance for answering questions which frankly are offensive” was waning. Berejiklian also survived a no-confidence motion in the parliament’s upper house by a single vote after the chamber’s president, the Liberal party MP John Ajaka, used his casting vote in her favour.
BHP’s chairman has faced shareholder criticism for announcing the company’s intention to stay in gas and oil “for the medium term” despite also stressing its commitment to dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions within a decade. Ken McKenzie outlined the company’s plan to close coal-producing mines inside the next two years in a bid to align with Paris agreement targets on global heating, telling shareholders: “We accept the science around climate change.” The Canadian also described rival Rio Tinto’s decision to destroy 46,000-year-old rock shelters at Juukan Gorge as “a tragedy”, saying the loss of trust impacted “the industry as a whole”.
Welfare recipients have expressed a sense of “hopelessness” after the federal government announced it would make four trial schemes of its controversial cashless debit card program permanent. Some 12,000 recipients from around South Australia, Queensland and Western Australia will continue to see 80% of their welfare payments restricted on the card, designed to prevent users spending the money on alcohol or gambling. The trials were meant to expire in December but new legislation could also move an additional 25,000 predominantly Indigenous Australians on to the program.
Australia
An epidemiologist working in Victoria’s Aged Care Response Centre in August has described the circumstances akin to “walk[ing] into a war room”. As double-digit dally death tallies rocked staff, anxiety was palpable, Melissa Davey reports in this special feature.
Reports that the Virgin Australia CEO is stepping down has scuppered negotiations with the Transport Workers’ Union, amid fears that the new owner, Bain Capital, will fail to honour commitments to run a full-service airline.
The number of corals on the Great Barrier Reef has halved over the past 25 years, an Australian study has confirmed, with researchers warning that without a sharp reduction in greenhouse gas emissions the world’s largest reef will become unrecognisable.
A University of Sydney law professor has been thrown to the ground by police, then arrested and fined while observing a student protest as part of research into protest law.
The world
France has announced 9pm curfews in Paris and eight other major cities as nations across Europe continue to face record daily infections of the coronavirus. President Emmanuel Macron announced the dramatic month-long measures beginning Saturday, saying the escalation of the pandemic was “worrying”. In the past 24 hours 104 people have died in France, with 22,591 new cases confirmed around the country. Masks have become mandatory outdoors in Italy, which recorded its worst day of new infections, with the Netherlands entering a partial lockdown from 10pm Wednesday. Poland, Switzerland, Portugal and Croatia have all reported record infections, with Russia announcing that university students will be brought into schools to replace at-risk older teachers.
The US supreme court nominee Amy Coney Barrett has been praised for being “unashamedly pro-life” by the leading Republican Lindsey Graham, as the controversial Trump-appointee faced a third day of nomination hearings.
The Thai king’s visit to Bangkok has been marred by large pro-democracy protest rallies, with protest leaders calling for reforms to the monarchy and the resignation of the prime minister, Prayuth Chan-ocha, who came to power during a 2014 coup.
A hidden video by a Sicilian businessman has helped lead to the arrest of an alleged mafia standover man, with testimony from 13 fellow business leaders prompting 20 arrests in total. “For decades, my fellow Sicilian entrepreneurs and shopkeepers have suffered because of these [men]. But that’s enough now,” he told the Guardian.
Recommended reads
There are more than 500 wineries in the famous hills and surrounding areas of Adelaide. It’s the kind of prospect that both delights and terrifies wine lovers. But as Alexis-Buxton Collins explains, breaking this down into four eminently achievable day trips can easily take you from the Clare and Barossa valleys, to the Adelaide Hills and McLaren Vale in no time – and with plenty of surprising extras along the way.
“I never thought I’d live to see the horror of planetary collapse.” As a leading climate scientist, the ANU’s Dr Joëlle Gergis can read the warning signs better than most. “The relentless heat and drought experienced during our nation’s hottest and driest year on record saw the last of our native forests go up in smoke,” she writes in our series of essays responding to 2020. “We saw terrified animals fleeing with their fur on fire, their bodies turned to ash.” In the face of such devastation, professional detachment is no longer an option.
From bad flute-overs to the best Saturday Night Live sketch, the internet is the suppository of all comedy. This week it’s the comedian Josh Earl who digs out his 10 funniest things on the internet.
Australia has a pretty good track record when it comes to producing high-end science fiction flicks on a low-fi budget. But alas, 2067 – the opening-night picture of Adelaide’s film festival – a dystopian, steampunk-style portal into the future, is a guilty of bringing a knife to a gunfight, writes Luke Buckmaster.
Listen
Jimmy Barnes speaks with Andrew Stafford on Guardian Australia’s monthly Zoom book club about therapy, surviving open heart surgery and the curious calmness that comes from arranging flowers.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
The prototypical Australian footy coach used to be “a snarler not a hugger” but in Friday’s first AFL preliminary final, the showdown between Port Adelaide and Richmond features two thoroughly modern-day coaches cut from the same cloth, writes Scott Heinrich – nice guys who promote hard, uncompromising footy.
This time of year often occasions the obligatory Cameron Smith retirement hypotheses, and should the seemingly ageless Storm legend fall to Canberra in NRL’s preliminary final of Friday, there’s a feeling that only when the Melbourne hooker is gone will his at times subtle brilliance be fully appreciated, writes Emma Kemp.
Media roundup
More than 50% of homeowners who deferred mortgage payments during the first wave of the coronavirus are still not repaying them, the ABC claims, despite most payment freeze periods ending. And, a federal inquiry has concluded that there was “not a sufficient basis” for serious misuse of federal resource charges against the former defence minister Kevin Andrews and the assistant treasurer Michael Sukkar, despite not hearing from key staff, the Sydney Morning Herald writes. The Age reports that the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, faces growing pressure from the property industry, the state’s peak lawyers’ group, retailers, psychiatrists and doctors to lift the state’s lockdown as case numbers stabilise.
Coming up
New labour force figures for September will be released, with economists expecting the jobless rate to rise to 7.1%, after a surprise drop to 6.8% in August.
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