Morning mail: Joyce decisions may be challenged Monday: Ministerial decisions may be questionable because Barnaby Joyce and Fiona Nash were ineligible, Labor says. Plus, Trump on the rampage Fiona Nash and Barnaby Joyce speaking to the media in Canberra in 2016. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP Mike Ticher Good morning, this is Mike Ticher, standing in for Eleanor Ainge Roy, bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Monday 30 October. Top stories Labor says more than 100 ministerial decisions made by Barnaby Joyce and Fiona Nash since October 2016 could be challenged due to their ineligibility to sit in parliament. The decisions include moving the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority to Armidale, elements of the regional national broadband network rollout and the mobile blackspot program. The attorney general, George Brandis, has said there are "no legal consequences at all" to the high court finding that the National party leader and deputy leader were ineligible, arguing that most decisions were actually made by the cabinet on the recommendation of ministers. But Labor has obtained legal advice that the former ministers may have contravened section 64 of the constitution by "purporting to hold office as a minister for more than three months" after the date they were sworn in. Donald Trump has unleashed a barrage of angry tweets about Hillary Clinton, as the rest of Washington waits for the first arrests in special prosecutor Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. CNN, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal have reported that Mueller's team has filed its first charges under seal, with one or more arrests expected as soon as Monday. But Trump was determined to focus attention on his former opponent, tweeting: "Never seen such Republican ANGER & UNITY as I have concerning the lack of investigation on Clinton." He again insisted any collusion between his campaign and Russia "doesn't exist" and implored unnamed authorities to "DO SOMETHING!". Refugees on Manus Island have expressed fears they will not be able to survive in Papua New Guinea as Australia plans to close the detention centre on Tuesday. "We feel as if the Australian government will simply dust its hands of us and dump us here forever," wrote Imran Mohammad, a Rohingya refugee. "We will become the headache of Papua New Guinea, where we know we are not wanted. We will not even be allowed to leave Manus, to travel to the mainland. It feels as if we will be pushed beyond our limit to survive here." Detainees, advocates and human rights organisations say resettling refugees and asylum seekers outside the centre would endanger people's lives and could create a humanitarian crisis. About 600 detainees are refusing to move and are holding daily protests. The deposed Catalan president Carles Puigdemont could be jailed within the next two months over his part in the regional parliament's unilateral declaration of independence, the Spanish government has said. The warning came on Sunday afternoon as hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Barcelona to call for Spanish unity, two days after some Catalan MPs voted for independence and the Spanish government assumed control of the region. Spain's prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has fired Puigdemont and his government and called new regional elections for 21 December. According to a poll for El Mundo, the election would be very close, with anti-independence parties winning 43.4% of the vote to pro-independence parties' 42.5 %. In the UK, the body of the Dr David Kelly, the government chemical weapons expert who killed himself in 2003 after being outed as the source of a BBC story, has been exhumed. The scientist's family reportedly had his remains cremated after asking for the grave to be dug up because they were upset it was being "desecrated" by conspiracy theorists who believe Kelly was murdered. Kelly had been exposed as the source of a report alleging that the UK government's dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, presented as central to the case for war, had been "sexed up". Sport England's cricketers have arrived in Perth for the start of the Ashes tour, insisting the possible absence of key all-rounder Ben Stokes would not necessarily be a fatal blow to their hopes. "We have a strong squad and have plenty of other all-rounders, and guys who can come in who are keen to prove a point and step up," captain Joe Root said. England's first warm-up game begins at the Waca on Saturday. Meanwhile the women's series is well and truly up for grabs after Australia's batting implosion in Coffs Harbour yesterday. Lewis Hamilton has the chance to secure his fourth world title by finishing fifth or better at the Mexican grand prix later today. But his place in the pantheon of great F1 drivers is assured regardless, writes Giles Richards. Thinking time Shoppers in Sydney. We need to get less satisfaction from buying new things, Richard Denniss argues. Photograph: Bloomberg via Getty Images Affluenza has changed the way we see the world. Short of money? Borrow some. Caught in the rain? Buy an umbrella. Thirsty? Buy a bottle of water and throw the bottle away. Our embrace of "convenience" and our acceptance of our inability to plan ahead is an entirely new way of thinking, writes Richard Denniss. But if we want to reduce the impact on the natural environment of all of the stuff we buy, we have to hang on to it for a lot longer. We have to get more satisfaction from the things we already own, from services and from leisure time, and less satisfaction from the process of buying new things. One of comedian Shaun Micallef's greatest influences was a children's book he bought for 70 cents. The star of the ABCs Mad as Hell and The Ex-PM acknowledges his debt to the Goon Show and other radio comedy from the 1940s and 50s, but says he got his most enduring lesson in comedy from The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm by Norman Hunter – "to never ever acknowledge the funniness of the characters and situation in the story you're telling. Play it straight." On Wednesday, lawyers from Twitter, Facebook and Google will head to Washington to try to explain to congressional intelligence committees exactly how they allowed groups of foreign actors to target American voters during the 2016 presidential campaign. But the interactions with the tech giants also have uncomfortable implications for mainstream media companies, writes Emily Bell. Most publishers would reject the idea that their partnerships with companies and advertisers were part of the same problem as the democratic threat from overseas authoritarians. But the tools and techniques of political messaging and manipulation are exactly the same as those used by commercial publishers to create new types of advertising revenue. What's he done now? Aside from demanding that someone else DO SOMETHING! about Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump has engaged in a Twitter war with the filmmaker Michael Moore that even he admitted was "not at all presidential". Trump said he felt compelled to point out that "the Sloppy Michael Moore Show on Broadway was a TOTAL BOMB and was forced to close. Sad!" Moore responded in kind and at length. Media roundup The Courier-Mail says Queensland is in the grip of a "US-style voter backlash", with One Nation targeting two Labor strongholds in the south-east of the state. The party's "matriarch" Pauline Hanson has accused Annastacia Palaszczuk of cowardice for calling the election while Hanson was out of the country. The Newspoll in the Australian has no encouraging news for the federal government, with its primary vote languishing at 35% and Labor still with a huge 54%-46% lead on two-party-preferred terms. And the Age reports that Victoria's planning minister, Richard Wynne, has overturned a recommendation from Heritage Victoria to preserve a fine example of postwar industrial architecture, the Alphington Boiler House – or "an eyesore" as the minister describes it. Coming up The Queensland election campaign is up and running, with premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and opposition leader Tim Nicholls making their first stops in a four-week blitz to win over voters. The jury is due to retire in the defamation case of West Indies cricketer Chris Gayle against Fairfax Media over allegations he exposed himself to a massage therapist, Leanne Russell. 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