Good morning, this is Richard Parkin bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 31 October.
Top stories
How much water does $80m worth of water entitlements get you? Not a drop, the commonwealth environment water holder has confirmed during Senate estimates. A lack of significant rainfall in south-west Queensland has seen no overflow into the river system in question that held an entitlement value of 71,456 megalitres. The government purchased the water without a tender through direct negotiations with the company, Eastern Australia Agriculture, but the commonwealth environmental water holder confirmed it was “very supportive” of the purchase which still stood to benefit threatened wetlands, the Narran Lakes.
Labor frontbencher Clare O’Neil has urged the party not to shift either left or right, calling for election postmortems to lead to an examination of new faultlines such as economic winners and losers from the digital economy, intergenerational equity and an urban-rural divide. O’Neil has also called for a rejection of populist or strongman models of leadership, and has slammed Labor’s economic policy since the 1980s as being based on a model that’s broken.
Chile’s embattled president Sebastián Piñera has been forced to cancel two major international summits after weeks of violent protests that have left at least 20 people dead continue to grip the South American nation. Xi Jinping and Donald Trump were expected to attend November’s Apec summit, with the COP25 UN climate conference also scheduled to take place, but “difficult circumstances” have prompted Piñera to abandon hosting the meets. 3,535 people have been arrested since 17 October following ongoing street protests, while 1,132 people have been taken to hospital – 38 of them with gunshot injuries.
Australia
An overhaul of the childcare systems has seen a dramatic drop in the number of grandparents claiming childcare benefits, raising concerns over the available options for thousands of vulnerable children. A 37% decline in the number of children claimed for is believed to have been prompted by a tightening of eligibility requirements.
The number of women on the boards of Australia’s top companies are tumbling, with just 32% of available seats going to female candidates since December last year. Seven top 200 companies still have no women at all on the board.
The Liberal senator James McGrath and the former Liberal candidate Jacinta Price have fronted an Institute of Public Affairs advertisement attacking any proposal for an Indigenous voice to parliament, claiming it will divide Australians by race.
A Melbourne newspaper ordered to compensate a traumatised journalist more than $180,000 has appealed the payout. The former reporter at the Age was awarded damages for post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depression.
The Australian Signals Directorate has disclosed legal breaches including cases of failing to get ministerial authorisation before producing intelligence on Australians and intercepting communications without a warrant.
The world
China has closed 32 futuristic glass bridges in the scenic Hebei province – including the 488m Hongyagu bridge – after at least two deaths and a series of accidents involving glass slides and flying debris.
More than a million people remain without power in California as wildfires fuelled by winds of up to 120km/h continue to buffer the US state, with 130,000 people remaining under evacuation orders.
A 310-year-old violin left behind on a London train has been stolen, police report, with the owner of the £250,000 masterpiece understandably distraught.
Electric cars could travel 320km off as little as 10 minutes charge, thanks to new battery technology, according to new research out of the US from Nobel-prize winning scientists.
Recommended reads
Basically wild, seemingly untameable – a rebellious adolescent. So great was Miles Franklin-winning author Alexis Wright’s admiration and affection for the sulphur-crested cockatoo, Pirate, rescued through a Tullamarine airport relocation program, that he came to feature in her award-winning novel, Carpentaria. “The little king spent his days watching me with his beady black eyes while listening to either classical or country and western music,” writes Wright. “When we parted I felt as though I had lost my right arm. He still flies free, and loves a girl who cares for him. This is the way I always remember the boss in my heart.”
“Life is not just about what you do – it’s more about how you do it.” That’s the cherished advice grandmother Nai Nai gives her granddaughter Billi, in Lulu Wang’s recent autobiographic film, The Farewell. It’s a film about immigration and identity, and as Jo Tovey writes, it’s also a love story – about one of the most meaningful relationships some are lucky to experience: the bond between an adult child and a loving grandparent. “If you’re lucky, these relationships are rooted in unconditional love, acceptance and family ritual. With grandparents, there aren’t the complex intricacies of the relationship between a parent and ‘adult child’ … For some, grandparents might be bridges back to old countries, languages and cultures. For others, they can be a connection to a different time and way of life.”
There is still no inflation to speak of in a stagnant Australian economy, writes Greg Jericho. “That, even with the massive rises in tobacco prices, we still are seeing inflation below the 2% floor of the Reserve Bank’s target is a good pointer of just how much the economy is lacking any growth in demand. While the consumer price index rose 1.7%, up from 1.6% in the June quarter, the average of the Reserve Bank’s two core inflation measures was a record low 1.4%. People are not spending.”
Look
Now a world-renowned coral ecosystem, Ningaloo is famous for tourists flocking to swim with whale shark or humpbacks. But the once obscure community has had to band together to fight overdevelopment. As campaigner and author Tim Winton documents in this series of photos, it’s more than just a location – it’s a lifestyle: home to eccentrics, alternatives and entrepreneurs.
Sport
Australia has retained the Ashes, boasts five ODI World Cups and appears to have waded through the scandal of recent years – is it time now to conquer the Twenty20 format? Well, it’s something firmly on Justin Langer’s to-do list, writes Sam Perry.
From Tommy Bishop to Ellery Hanley, NRL fans have always loved a world-class Englishman, and with the news breaking of his sudden retirement the affection for Sam Burgess is apparent, writes Nick Tedeschi, despite his run-ins with the judiciary.
Media roundup
Mental illness is costing the economy $180bn, with one million Australians allowing health conditions from anxiety or depression to psychosis to go untreated, reports the Australian, with nearly three million more receiving help. More than $17m worth of property owned by Chinese nationals who police allege were laundering money through Australia has been seized by police, writes the Herald Sun, bringing the total to around $50m since Australian and Chinese police started collaborating on the issue. And since taking office five months ago, prime minister Scott Morrison has failed to visit the Northern Territory, rails the NT News, which led with a full page headline “not one second”.
Coming up
NSW’s environment department has forecast air quality in parts of Sydney today will be “poor” due to particles drifting from fires burning near Port Macquarie.
Protests are expected to continue at the Imarc mining conference in Melbourne.
And if you’ve read this far …
The latest international campaign from Tourism Australia has landed, with an awkward, crow-barred pun (‘philausophy’) already dividing audiences in the same way that it inelegantly divides the word “philosophy” itself. Tell us what you think are the best and worst tourism campaigns of recent years.
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