Thursday, July 20, 2017

Morning mail: inequality is hurting politics, Shorten warns

Morning Mail

Morning mail: inequality is hurting politics, Shorten warns

Friday: Labor leader says economic divide fosters 'powerlessness that drives people away from the political mainstream'. Plus: OJ Simpson gets parole

Bill Shorten with Wayne Swan (right) at Watkins Steel in Brisbane earlier this year. Swan has been one of the Labor voices warning Labor against offering 'trickle-down lite' at the next election.
Bill Shorten with Wayne Swan (right) at Watkins Steel in Brisbane earlier this year. Swan has been one of the Labor voices warning Labor against offering 'trickle-down lite' at the next election. Photograph: Glenn Hunt/AAP

Eleanor Ainge Roy


Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Friday 21 July.

Top stories

Bill Shorten will today deliver a speech warning that inequality is fracturing Australian politics. The Labor leader will tell an economic conference in Melbourne the system as it stands is "accelerating inequality, rather than addressing it, entrenching unfairness, rather than alleviating it". He will say inequality has consequences beyond the economic and the social – it is also creating a fault line in politics by fostering a "sense of powerlessness that drives people away from the political mainstream, and down the low road of blaming minorities, and promising to turn back the clock".

Katharine Murphy, our political editor, reports that Shorten has been under internal pressure for months to make Labor's economic and tax policy offering more muscular, with the former treasurer, Wayne Swan, a persistent public voice in arguing Labor has to avoid being "trickle down-lite", or offering voters "a sickening Davos third-way approach" at the next federal election. Some of the internal argument within Labor over the past 12 months has played out around whether the party should adopt a "Buffett rule" where wealthy people would be forced to pay a minimum rate of tax. While that policy is popular with the left and some unions, that concept has been rejected by Shorten, and, repeatedly, by the shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen.

Meanwhile Malcolm Turnbull told the same conference on Thursday that he was ready to have a fight with the Senate to introduce more company tax cuts. He was more cautious about the prospect of further personal income tax cuts. But he said the government's move to lift the $80,000 threshold to $87,000 had been "a valuable middle-income tax cut" and that his refusal to extend the deficit levy, "gives you an indication that we feel already our personal tax rates are high and our top marginal rate is high by global standards".

OJ Simpson, the former NFL star famously acquitted of murder, has been granted parole. He is expected to walk free in October after being jailed nine years for a botched robbery attempt. Four commissioners voted unanimously to grant Simpson parole after serving the minimum portion of a 33-year sentence. Simpson was convicted of robbery, kidnapping and assault charges in October 2008 after a bizarre incident in which he, along with armed men, attempted to retrieve sports memorabilia he said belonged to him from a Las Vegas hotel room. In 1995 Simpson was tried and acquitted in the murder of of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman. It is still referred to as "The Trial of the Century".

British people living in the European Union could lose the right to live in another EU member state after Brexit. The threat of potential restrictions on UK citizens after Brexit emerged at end of intense technical talks in Brussels this week . Around 1.2 million British nationals living in the EU would be affected, meaning a British national currently living in Germany would be unable to move to France, Austria or any other EU member state after Brexit. Senior EU officials said they were ready to look at the issue, but the UK had to make a reciprocal offer to protect the 3.5 million EU nationals living in the UK. A UK source close to the negotiations said there was agreement on 50% of the issues on citizens' rights.

In a case of life imitating comedy, Amanda Meade's Weekly Beast media column reveals how ABC staff were encouraged by management to sit in a ring and share toys. The audio studios division held a feedback session with staff in which attendees were asked to sit in a ring and select a plastic toy from the centre of the group that most represents how they feel and speak "through" it. "Sounds like a direct lift from ABC TV comedy Utopia – or the BBC's The Thick of It," Meade writes.

Sport

India have beaten Australia by 36 runs to win the Women's World Cup semi-final. Harmanpreet Kaur played one of the world's great innings: her 171 not out from 115 balls was destructive, breathtaking, and full of class. Her effort catapulted India to 281-4 in a reduced innings of 42 overs. Alex Blackwell top-scored for Australia with 90 and Elyse Villani hit a quickfire 75 but their efforts were in vain. India will now face England in the final at Lord's this coming Sunday.

Australian rugby celebrated Kurtley Beale's Indigenous heritage this week, but Bret Harris wonders whether the ARU has done enough to embrace Indigenous Australia, and what it could mean for the Wallabies if they do.

Thinking time

From the Katsushika Hokusai's at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne.
From the Katsushika Hokusai's at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. Photograph: NGV International

One hundred and fifty artworks from Katsushika Hokusai are in Australia for the first time, for a major exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. At the centre are two prints of his most iconic work, The Great Wave, together for the first time since their creation over 180 years ago. To whet your appetite, we have a selection of the work – from his wood block series, 36 views of Mt Fuji, to his portraits of waterfalls, vistas and ghosts.

The ABC's brand new medical drama Pulse debuted last night. Much has been said about the diversity of its cast, and the pedigree of its crew – but does it live up to the hype? Our reviewer Luke Buckmaster says … meh.

'This doesn't get to be over for me': the rape case that put consent on trial. It took Richard Ackland more than two months to get hold of the full judgment in the Luke Lazarus case, the distressing and polarising trial that saw the son of the owner of Sydney's Soho bar first convicted, and then acquitted, of the rape of an 18-year-old girl in an alleyway in 2013. Ackland's analysis reveals a case where alcohol, innocence and the law collided.

What's he done now?

In a candid interview with the New York Times that has sent shockwaves around Washington, Donald Trump attacked Jeff Sessions, one of his most loyal allies, by declaring he would not have appointed him as attorney general had he known Sessions would recuse himself from the FBI's Russia investigation.

"Jeff Sessions takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself. I then have – which, frankly, I think is very unfair to the president. How do you take a job and then recuse yourself?" Trump said.

Trump also fired off warnings to special counsel Robert Mueller and suggested there is no agency or government official he does not ultimately control.

Media roundup

The Courier Mail front page accuses the Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk of "Big Little Lies", saying she refuses to reveal which ministers have been using their private emails for ministerial work in a move casting doubt on her accountability pledge. The Sydney Morning Herald's page one says the planned light rail line along Parramatta Road linking Sydney's central business district to Burwood has been scrapped. The Australian claims the Greens are on the verge of collapse "in most states", and are on track to lose three of their nine Senate seats. And the ABC reports that increasing numbers of single Australian women are choosing "DIY pregnancy methods" rather than using traditional IVF clinics or sperm banks. "Lesbians and single women have been using self or home insemination to conceive since at least the 1970s, although it seems to have become more popular in the past decade," Deborah Dempsey from Swinburne University of Technology said.

Coming up

It's a top-of-the-table clash in the AFL as leaders Adelaide Crows take on second place Geelong at the Adelaide Oval.

The Perth jury in the trial of a man accused of the killing of 14-year-old Indigenous boy Elijah Doughty are considering their verdict.

Support the Guardian

It might take a minute to catch up on the news, but good journalism takes time and money. If you already support Guardian Australia, your generosity is invaluable. If not, and you value what we do, please become a Supporter today. Thanks.

Guardian News & Media Limited - a member of Guardian Media Group PLC. Registered Office: Kings Place, 90 York Way, London, N1 9GU. Registered in England No. 908396

No comments:

Post a Comment