Good morning. It’s Monday 26 April: a lockdown decision is due out of Perth, there’s new pressure on companies to act on climate, and conflict with China may still be on the table. (Plus, the Oscars are on later this morning.)
Western Australian premier Mark McGowan will decide this morning, local time, whether or not to extend a three-day snap lockdown for the Perth and Peele region after no new Covid cases were locally acquired yesterday – though he has said “people should get used to the prospect that there will be some further measures that continue”. He blamed the federal government for allowing too many Australians to travel overseas to attend “weddings” and “athletics meets” during the pandemic – pushing back after defence minister Peter Dutton earlier said McGowan’s government had made a “mistake” in using the hotel where the latest Covid-19 leak originated. While the man who contracted Covid in quarantine then boarded a flight to Melbourne (after five days in the community in Perth), Victoria has so far not recorded any new cases following testing of flight passengers.
Big superannuation funds have threatened to vote against company directors who do not make sure their businesses are committed to action on global heating that includes hitting net zero by 2050. This follows a week in which regulators and ratings agencies stepped up the pressure on corporate Australia to properly consider climate risks, and US president Joe Biden increased pressure on the Australian government to commit to emissions cuts sooner. “Things are moving very quickly and so even if you are doing a good job now, that might not seem such a good job in a year,” a top executive said, stressing that companies with strong climate policies cannot not rest on their laurels. “The world’s going to move without us.”
Australia
Australian defence minister Peter Dutton has said a conflict involving China over Taiwan cannot be discounted, but yesterday insisted the government’s focus remains on having “good relations” with Beijing.
The man behind a proposed Italian-style beach club on Bondi beach says he is pushing forward with the controversial plan despite vigorous opposition from locals and politicians.
With Australia preparing to end its 20-year mission in Afghanistan, another chapter in the nation’s history is coming to a close, prime minister Scott Morrison said on Anzac Day. Thousands turned out to services and marches to mark the 106th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli, after last year’s events were disrupted by Covid.
The world
A Indonesian submarine missing since Wednesday has been found, broken into at least three parts, deep in the Bali Sea, army and navy officials said, as the president sent condolences to relatives of the 53 crew.
Human Rights Watch has told south-east Asian leaders not to “pat themselves on the back” for getting Myanmar’s military rulers to agree to end deadly violence, saying a consensus reached by Asean lacks specifics and makes no mention of freeing political prisoners.
Iran’s foreign minister has criticised the dominance of the assassinated Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Qassem Suleimani in a leaked recording, admitting his own influence over Iranian foreign policy was sometimes zero.
Some of the UK’s biggest renewable energy developers are using panels made by Chinese solar companies accused of exploiting forced labour camps in Xinjiang province, a Guardian investigation has found.
And beloved fashion designer Alber Elbaz, a red carpet favourite of Beyoncé, Michelle Obama, Kim Kardashian and Sarah Jessica Parker, has died from Covid-19 at age 59.
Recommended reads
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“It’s rare to be able to tell the truth – here’s what’s wrong with the mental health system.” Over two decades as a GP in the Hunter region of NSW, Adrian Plaskitt has witnessed the decline of mental health services. “It doesn’t matter how often you ask R U OK or offer counselling – if someone’s sense of humanity is being suppressed, they have poor nutrition, they are frightened for their safety and their future is bleak, then they will develop a mental illness,” he writes. “We all break eventually given enough stress … So what would be the solutions?”
After years spent researching new age practices, Amal Awad realised nothing about the movement was really that new. “Oracle decks and spirit drawings look enlightened and exotic, mystical, otherworldly and expansive because they borrow freely from non-Anglo cultures. The shiniest elements get modernised, shrink-wrapped and sold to the masses in convenient bite-sized chunks … But most people aren’t buying in because they want to burn cash or cause offence.”
“Like everyone I like to complain about queues. But more and more, I have realised I secretly love them, and everything they represent,” writes Gary Nunn. From newspaper columns devoted to the art form in Japan, to watching people’s behaviour under pressure, to plain old wanting-to-know-what-everyone-else-is-waiting-for: there’s something about the power of the line.
Listen
Oliver Laughland, the Guardian’s US southern bureau chief, covered the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin, who was found guilty of the murder of George Floyd. It was a landmark moment in US criminal justice history, and the next day, an investigation was announced into whether Floyd’s murder was part of a pattern of discriminatory and illegal behaviour by the Minneapolis police department. On today’s episode of Full Story, Oliver looks at what the verdict means for America.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
Macarthur FC’s equaliser against Melbourne City on Saturday illustrated perfectly this madcap and endlessly entertaining A-League season, says Jonathan Howcroft. “The celebration was instinctive, Ruhs tearing off at speed with his white shirt billowing behind, then launching into a gratifyingly old-school leaping air-punch. A fitting finale to a breakneck 15 seconds of action that captured the essence of the present and hope for the future. The season distilled.”
“Melbourne fans getting carried away with their team’s stunning start to the season would do well to take a leaf out of the Ted Lasso book of expectation management,” writes Scott Heinrich: “It is the hope that kills you. But try as they might to resist the allure of sport’s great seductress, hope attaches itself to an unbeaten record like a fly clings to dung.”
Media roundup
There has been a “steep rise” in whistleblower complaints at Sydney Water, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. The ABC reports that the deaths of three Targa Tasmania competitors will be investigated by motorsport’s governing body, as rally organisers vow to accept any recommendations. Shell’s Australian arm saw a $US4.9bn ($6.3bn) annual loss as the pandemic sapped demand and hit prices, the Australian reveals. The federal government is set to extend Covid-safe telehealth services until the end of 2021, following a boom in demand, reports the ABC.
Coming up
The Oscars! Here’s what to look for, where you can watch the films – and a list of the best awkward moments.
Sydney writers’ festival returns after last year’s event was cancelled due to the pandemic.
Leaders will debate ahead of the 1 May Tasmanian election.
And if you’ve read this far …
Fifteen people have emerged from a cave in south-west France after 40 days underground in an experiment to see how the absence of clocks, daylight and external communications would affect their sense of time. With no daily obligations and no children around, the challenge was “to profit from the present moment without ever thinking about what will happen in one hour, in two hours”, in one participant’s words. That participant also said he ran 10,000-metre circles in the cave to stay fit, and that he sometimes had “visceral urges” to leave.
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