Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 10 May. Top stories High earners will benefit much more from the Coalition's tax changes, according to analysis by a leading thinktank. Someone on $200,000 a year earns five times more than someone on $40,000 but their future tax break will be more than 16 times higher, the Australia Institute claims. As the two major parties lock horns on the tax plans before what promise to be five crucial byelections across four states next month, the research shows that the changes will radically alter Australia's progressive income tax system. "It is clear that the actual result of this tax cut is to hand billions of dollars to high-income Australians and make Australia's tax system more regressive," said an AI economist, Matt Grudnoff. Some crossbenchers, including the South Australian senator Tim Storer and the Victorian Derryn Hinch, have rejected Scott Morrison's demand that the tax package be considered quickly. Storer has also expressed concerns about flattening the income tax scales, saying the proposal is regressive and may be unaffordable. The EU is scrambling to arrange a crisis meeting with Iran after Donald Trump pulled out of the nuclear agreement, as the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, said Europe had a "very limited opportunity" to save the deal. The EU has vowed to take steps to protect firms from any US sanctions after Trump warned that he would seek to hit European businesses that continued to trade with Tehran. Tehran had complained in recent weeks that the EU had gone too far to appease Trump but it appears Europe is uniting to protect the deal, even if it means putting its member states on an economic collision course with the US. The Greens will announce today that they will reintroduce a bill to increase Newstart by $75 a week this year, as the party attempts to wedge Labor and capitalise on a growing push for change. It comes after the former prime minister John Howard made an unexpected intervention on the issue on Wednesday,saying the 24-year freeze had "probably gone on too long". The Greens senator Rachel Siewert said: "It is time we stopped leaving struggling Australians behind and for Newstart to be increased to a level where jobseekers can live with some dignity … to leave Australians trying to find a job languishing well below the poverty is a national shame." Researchers hope that chronic hepatitis B could be eradicated from the Northern Territory within five years. They believe that the combination of a phone app that offers key information in local Aboriginal languages and community care has created a "one-stop liver shop" that means the killer virus could be wiped out. Sarah Bukulatjpi, from Miwatj Health in Galiwin'ku, said delivering information to people's fingertips had made a huge difference. "Now they really understand. Sometimes it's difficult, telling them this story, that they've got this disease. Sometimes they feel shame." North Korea has released three US citizens in a move that continues the apparent thawing of its relations with the US before a planned meeting between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump. The release marks a major diplomatic victory for the Trump administration, and was secured during a visit to North Korea by Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state. Trump announced the releases on Twitter and has promised he will reveal a site for the summit within three days, but confirmed it would not be held at the demilitarised zone along the border between the two Koreas. Sport Israel Folau is in the news again, this time posting a link on social media to an anti-gay sermon. He may have escaped sanction the first time around but this time Rugby Australia must act, say Ryan Storr, a lecturer in sport development at Western Sydney University. Our resident cartoonist David Squires reviews the dramatic conclusion to the 2017-18 A-League season, including the Jets' VAR-inflicted loss and other outlandish plotlines, with a cameo appearance by Andres Iniesta. |
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