Good morning, this is Richard Parkin bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 23 July.
Top stories
Josh Frydenberg will today unveil Australia’s largest budget deficit since the second world war, which analysts suggest could be in excess of $200bn. According to data from Treasury, fiscal interventions are believed to have preserved about 700,000 jobs during the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite this, Australian companies receiving jobkeeper have still laid off nearly three-quarters of a million staff, with casual staff and temporary visa holders bearing the brunt of the job losses. Some 1.1 million casuals and 1 million temporary visa holders were excluded from the government’s job support package, providing “a strong incentive in jobkeeper to dismiss non-eligible workers”, according to one leading workplace analyst. Unions in Victoria have called for the introduction of universal paid pandemic leave after the premier, Daniel Andrews, admitted many precarious workers’ decision to go to work while potentially infectious was “a commentary on insecure work”.
Australians dying of coronavirus lost more potential years from their lives than the next leading killers – heart disease, dementia and stroke – a sobering report has detailed, confirming that it’s not just elderly or chronically ill people who succumb to the disease. While the median age for other causes of deaths is well into the 80s, victims of Covid-19 saw on average 17 years cut from their life expectancy for men, and 14 for women. Australia’s largest single-day increase in confirmed new infections mirrors global trends, with the US death toll now surpassing 1,000 in 24 hours, prompting Donald Trump to admit that the pandemic would “get worse before it gets better”. More than 15 million people have now contracted the disease globally.
Australia’s homes are some of the most energy inefficient in the developed world but coronavirus stimulus presents an opportunity to fix the problem. “In summer, we have a higher death toll from people living in heat who can’t afford air conditioning than we do out of bushfires,” says Tony O’Connell, who used to be sceptical about green homes but is now one of a growing number of builders who specialises in them. In the first in a series of features talking to people on the frontline of Australia’s potential green recovery, we look at how retrofitting draughty old homes could create jobs, cut emissions and improve people’s lives. Learn more about how to fix energy-inefficient homes in this simple explainer video.
Australia
The Queensland LNP party is facing allegations of sexism after the revelation of “extreme” vetting methods for prospective candidates, which several women have labelled “grossly inappropriate” and “akin to a star chamber”, including being asked to list all former sexual partners.
Destructive and unsustainable fishing is driving shark populations into global decline, with a major study finding that sharks are “functionally extinct” at nearly 20% of the world’s coral reefs.
Trainee doctors who were told an exam they must pass to be eligible for specialist training would be deferred until 2021 due to Covid-19 are distressed after the Royal Australasian College of Physicians said on Monday the exam will in fact be held in about three months’ time. Some say it’s “unfathomable” to only have three months to prepare for the exam amid a heavy pandemic workload.
The world
Federal agents have retreated to their Portland base as protesters continue to reclaim streets in the west coast US state of Oregon. Officers from several agencies were sent by Donald Trump to the city in the wake of Black Lives Matters protests, but after more than 50 nights of protests the numbers of people on the streets are swelling.
Researchers in the US have trained AI systems to detect politically orchestrated social media campaigns, identifying foreign interference attempts from China, Russia and Venezuela within the US at above 85% accuracy.
Hundreds of Chinese vessels from so-called “dark fleets” have been found to be illegally fishing in North Korean waters, a major fishing journal report has found. It’s estimated up to 900 ships caught more than 160,000 metric tonnes of squid, with a commercial value of more than $440m between 2017 and 2018.
A popular restaurant in Manchester has received more than 1,000 job applications for a receptionist role in just one day, with owners saying: “It’s very sad to see how many people are in need of employment.”
Recommended reads
In the context of surviving the ice age and British invasion and lagging badly on most socioeconomic statistical analyses, Aboriginal Australians have found the coronavirus both easier and harder to deal with. As the Miles Franklin-winning author Melissa Lucashenko explains: “Biological warfare doesn’t feel new to us; it just feels like the logical extension of overpolicing Aboriginal suburbs, or defunding our Blak services.”
Women make up 49% of all taxpayers but they account for just 27% of those in the top tax bracket. Whether rich, or poor – the great equaliser across the spectrum remains that women continue to earn less than men, writes Greg Jericho. “Women make up more than half of the bottom 40% of income earners and are massively underrepresented in the top three deciles.” And it’s a trend that’s pretty consistent across occupations.
Sadly, some of the funniest things on the internet are not safe for the workplace. And while Greg Larsen loves comedy involving bodily fluids, to keep things PG, he’s scoured the safer recesses of the web to find his 10 funniest things I have ever seen (on the internet). From Donald Trump drinking water to the peerless Philomena Cunk – enjoy.
Listen
As Victorians face $200 spot fines for not wearing a mask outside the home, on this episode of Full Story Guardian Australia environment reporter Graham Readfearn traces how health responses have evolved around the globe.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
This Friday was to have marked the start of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Smarting from poor performance in Rio, millions of dollars have been spent on Aussie athletes striving for redemption. But as Kieran Pender writes, the coronavirus hasn’t been a disaster for all sports.
The teen sensation Mason Greenwood has rescued a point for Manchester United, with his 17th goal of the season earning the Red Devils a 1-1 scoreline against relegation-battling West Ham. United face Leicester City in a final-game showdown for a Champions League spot.
Media roundup
All of Sydney could be declared a coronavirus hotspot by Queensland as early as Thursday, reports the Courier-Mail, which writes that police are already preparing for major border closure operations. Australian warships in the South China Sea have been confronted by the Chinese navy near the Spratly Islands, the ABC says. And the WA Liberals could be eyeing electoral obliteration, according to the West Australian, with fresh surveys suggesting a swing of more than 10% towards the McGowan Labor government.
Coming up
Josh Frydenberg and Mathias Cormann will deliver their federal budgetary update ahead of the delayed October budget.
The NSW judge who heard the trial of Leonard Warwick is to deliver verdicts on his charges related to the family court bombings and murders of the 1980s.
And if you’ve read this far …
What were your memories of being four? While most of us were discovering imaginative play, or even learning letters and numbers, the UK prodigy Nadim Shamma-Sourgen will recall the age fondly: as the year he landed his first book deal. Yep. Weep for your wasted childhoods – as literary critics rush to praise his poems that “are simple, inspirational and have a wisdom all of their own”.
Sign up
If you would like to receive the Guardian Australia morning mail to your email inbox every weekday, sign up here.
