Good morning, this is Richard Parkin bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 13 September.
Top stories
Liberal party preselectors will decide on Thursday evening who will be the probable next member for Wentworth. As Julia Banks last night lashed what she called the “appalling” behaviour she has witnessed in parliament such as bullying and intimidation, the Coalition once again faces scrutiny over its level of female representation in parliament. Increasing women’s representation in parliament is not just about the increasing the number of women preselected – Anne Davies and Nick Evershed have crunched the numbers and found a disproportionate number of female candidates are still being placed in unwinnable or marginal seats.
In the Coalition, there are only six women in safe seats with margins greater than 10% – or 17% of the government’s safe seats. Labor is a little better but the prizes of safe seats still fall mainly to men. There are 10 women in safe seats, which is 34% of those seats with a margin of 10% or more. You can also listen to our political editor, Katharine Murphy, discussing gender in politics with the sex discrimination commissioner, Kate Jenkins, in our weekly politics podcast.
Transport-related emissions have increased by 63% since 1990 as Australia lags behind other developed countries, according to a new report by the Climate Council. Responsible for nearly one-fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions in Australia, a lack of mandatory pollution standards, common in almost all other OECD countries, and a failure to incentivise the use of electric vehicles are major contributing factors. The report found that fuel emission standards, such as those have been in operation for at least a decade in the US, Japan or China, could prevent up to the equivalent of 65m tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030.
More than 1.4 million residents across North and South Carolina have been ordered to evacuate, with concerns for half a dozen nuclear power plants that stand in the projected path of Hurricane Florence, expected to make landfall on Thursday night. Authorities have raised concerns about drinking water supplies that could become contaminated by industrial site runoff, with the southern state of Georgia also declaring a state of emergency. Winds of up to 225km/h and a four-metre storm surge are expected, with pig farm manure pits and coal ash dumps the biggest risks for potential environmental contamination.
Rates of cancer worldwide are set to rise dramatically, with 18.1m new cases and nearly 10m deaths predicted this year. One in five men and one in six women will get cancer in their lifetimes, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the majority of cancers having root causes in lifestyle-related choices including smoking or alcohol. “Efficient prevention and early detection policies must be implemented urgently,” said the IARC director, Dr Christopher Wild, “to complement treatments in order to control this devastating disease across the world.”
Archaelogists in South Africa have confirmed what is believed to be the world’s earliest known drawing – dating from 73,000 years ago. Lines made by an ochre crayon on a rock, believed to be part of a larger criss-cross pattern, push back the oldest drawing recorded, previously believed at about 40,000 years. “This is first known drawing in human history,” said a researcher, Francesco d’Errico. “What does it mean? I don’t know. What I do know is that what can look very abstract to us could mean something to the people in the traditional society who produced it.”
Sport
The veteran Spaniard Alejandro Valverde has set up an engrossing final few stages of the Vuelta a España, cutting the race leader Simon Yates’ lead to just 25 seconds after stage 17 on a day that was won by the Canadian Michael Woods.
Australia’s cricket selectors have picked their squad for the upcoming series against Pakistan in UAE but Geoff Lemon asks why there’s no place for the talented Glenn Maxwell.
Thinking time
Those vulnerable to financial elder abuse are often let down by the legal system and people they should be able to trust most. Guardian Australia is launching a new series into elder abuse, an issue that is believed to affect one in 20 older Australians and can have frightening consequences, as several families attest. As parents live longer, children have to wait longer to benefit from any proceeds of the family estate, which can cause so-called inheritance impatience and lead to fraud. “It feels like this is a hidden epidemic, like domestic violence,” one campaigner says.
By no means a new topic, the issue of asylum in Australia has regained greater prominence with the publishing of a raft of new books detailing the refugee experience. Brigid Delaney looks at the Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani’s work No Friend But the Mountains, not just as a harrowing recording of Australia’s detention regime, but also as a measure of hope. “The government does all it can to stop individual stories from being told, as well as images and names from circulating. In that way the existence of these books – and their readers – is an act of resistance.”
After five years of rising house prices, the boom is over. It has left Australia in debt, and, while the Reserve Bank is mostly not worried, we will be more susceptible to collapsing house prices should the solid economic growth come to a halt, writes Greg Jericho. “Unless incomes begin to grow faster than debt, the ratio of debt to income will continue to grow, and that means when we do have our next economic downturn it will be at a time where households are in more debt than at any time in our history.”
What’s he done now?
Donald Trump has posted a video warning for residents of Virginia, North and South Carolina about Hurricane Florence, and once again claimed his administration did “a great job” in Puerto Rico, blaming “a totally incompetent Mayor of San Juan” instead.
Media roundup
Malcolm Turnbull has been lobbying Liberal MPs to refer Peter Dutton to the high court, claims the Sydney Morning Herald, with the former prime minister worth seeking clarity on “the uncertainty around Peter Dutton’s eligibility”. The Courier-Mail is running an extended feature on the “inside story of the Jones and Wagner feud” after the record $3.4m defamation payout judgment handed down against the veteran broadcaster Alan Jones and two radio stations. And the NSW family and community services minister, Pru Goward, has announced a recruitment drive for new foster carers based in Sydney’s west, reports the Daily Telegraph, offering a $75,000 tax-free cheque for those willing to quit their jobs and offer full-time care.
Coming up
Sir Frank Lowy will deliver the annual Lowy lecture himself when he will be considering Australia’s place in the world.
The banking royal commission will continue its interrogation of Commonwealth Bank’s CommInsure.
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