Good morning, this is Richard Parkin bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Wednesday 29 August.
Top stories
Only two of Australia’s states and territories have taken up a potentially life-saving custody notification service, to the disappointment of Indigenous affairs minister Nigel Scullion. Introduced in New South Wales in 2000, the phone service takes around 15,000 calls annually and is believed to have aided greatly in reducing deaths in custody.
On the second day of our Deaths Inside series, Calla Wahlquist reports that Western Australian and Northern Territory, in which the vast majority of deaths in custody from the last decade have occurred, have agreed to take up the scheme two years after it was offered, but the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service has called for all remaining states to follow suit. “With the flick of a pen, governments could easily save lives with this simple solution,” Natsils co-chair Cheryl Axleby said. “Yet this political handball continues to cost Aboriginal people’s lives.”
Scott Morrison’s perceived lack of commitment to climate change could see the Coalition struggle to retain the seat of Wentworth, a new poll has found, as the government faces a tricky byelection following the resignation of Malcolm Turnbull. Two-thirds of the people surveyed by ReachTel believed any national energy guarantee required an emissions reduction target, with 69% believing Morrison would do less than Turnbull to tackle climate change. The Coalition government currently has a one-seat majority in the House of Representatives. Meanwhile, Labor has targeted the Victorian seat of Deakin, held by Peter Dutton-backer Michael Sukkar, with the preselection of a prominent Indigenous advocate, Shireen Morris.
Outbreaks of far-right violence have swept Germany, with groups of extremists reportedly chasing foreigners through the former East German city of Chemnitz. The far-right Alternative für Deutschland party appears to have used the suspected murder of a German man by two men from Syria and Iraq to mobilise the riots, with as many as 3,000 extremists clashing with a smaller leftwing counter-protest. German chancellor Angela Merkel has condemned the gatherings, stating: “What we have seen is something which has no place in a constitutional democracy.”
Allegations of reprisals against a former Queensland police officer-turned-whistleblower have been ignored, with the Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission declining to investigate the matter. Rick Flori, who leaked footage of his colleagues bashing a Gold Coast father in 2012, has been found not guilty of misconduct, but is suing eight officers and the state for a sequence of harassment and intimidation he believes are linked to his actions. Civil libertarians have called for an independent body to examine the matter, with campaigner Terry O’Gorman accusing the CCC of being “toothless”.
France’s environment minister has quit during a live radio interview in a blow to Emmanuel Macron’s stated commitment to “make this planet great again”. Nicolas Hulot announced he was leaving the government over “an accumulation of disappointments” with measures to tackle climate change, defend biodiversity and address other environmental threats, stating: “I don’t want to create the illusion that we’re facing up to [our challenges],” said Hulot. “I can’t lie to myself any more.” In response, Macron has called for patience, saying that climate change is “a fight that isn’t won from one day to the next”.
Sport
American Ben King has claimed stage four of the Vuelta a España with a jump from a successful breakaway, on a day where Australian team Mitchelton-Scott leader Simon Yates cut overall leader Michal Kwiatkowski’s lead to just 10 seconds.
World No2 Caroline Wozniaki has advanced to the second round of the US Open amid scorching heat, defeating Australian veteran Sam Stosur, 6-3, 6-2. It completes a disappointing year for the hard and clay court specialist, whose third round exit at Roland Garros has been her best Grand Slam achievement in 2018.
Thinking time
As a Pentecostal Christian, how do we reconcile Australia’s new prime minister’s “personal faith in Jesus Christ” with his established political character? As a hardline immigration minister condemned for his “callous disregard” for detainees, and a social services minister accused of a welfare-shredding spree, writes Van Badham, the Hillsong Church’s “prosperity doctrine” doesn’t appear to have been extended to all. “Australians have every right to analyse just what informs our unexpected – and unelected – new leader’s gall.”
Revered for her untrammeled moral rectitude, remote dignity and immense personal authority, how has Aung San Suu Kyi fallen so far? With her silence following a UN report alleging acts of genocide by the military in Myanmar, the dramatic fall from grace of the nation’s prime minister has been in part due to the pedestal the west has placed her upon, writes Mary Dejevsky. “Aung San Suu Kyi has disappointed because, in the end, for whatever reason, she appears to have compromised. Her sense of mission, her principles and her stubborn streak took her so far, but no further. That is our shortcoming, as much as hers.”
If Amazon’s Twitter ambassadors are anything to go off, it’s no longer enough to just work hard, you also have to be cheerful, writes Arwa Mahdawi. “Amazon wants you to know it is not the exploitative employer it is often made out to be. It wants you to know you should not believe nasty reports that its workers are forced to pee in bottles because they are not allowed toilet breaks. It wants you to know it is much maligned. Indeed, the e-commerce behemoth is so eager to communicate all these points that it has taken the unusual step of paying staff to tweet nice statements about it.”
What’s he done now?
Donald Trump has railed against Google’s news service, claiming it’s “rigged” against him, giving prominence instead to “Left-Wing Media” such as CNN. The president has also crowed about the state of the stock market following the announcement of a new US-Mexico trade agreement.
Media roundup
The Sydney Morning Herald writes that billions of dollars have been wasted in drought relief, a top government official has claimed, with national subsidies offered to farmers being absorbed in higher freight and feed costs.
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, will secure a free trade agreement with Indonesia, the Financial Review reports, with a symbolic upgrading of the bilateral relationship designed to create greater investment ties.
And more than 700 Victorians under the age of 25 have died on the state’s roads over the past decade, reports the Herald Sun, with road trauma now the second-biggest killer behind disease and suicide.
Coming up
Food delivery riders will rally outside the prime minister’s office in Sydney, demanding improved workers rights.
Fiona Simson, president of the National Farmers’ Federation, addresses the National Press Club in Canberra today.
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