Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Martin Farrer

Morning Mail: rightwing blitz in Dunkley, third man sought in Sydney mystery, stocks soar on AI boom

One of Advance’s anti-Labor ads on a truck in Dunkley
One of Advance’s anti-Labor ads on a truck in Dunkley in the lead-up to the byelection. Photograph: Labor

Morning, everyone. The success of the rightwing activist group Advance in helping defeat the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum has galvanised its “unprecedented” campaign against Labor in the upcoming Dunkley byelection. We have a special investigation, along with the latest on the disappearance of the former TV presenter Jesse Baird and his boyfriend Luke Davies, world stock markets have hit a record high on the back of an AI boom, and does Israel’s Eurovision entry contain a reference to the 7 October Hamas attack?

Australia

Luke Davies
Luke Davies, who is missing alongside his partner Jesse Baird Photograph: supplied by NSW police
  • Sydney disappearance | Police are seeking a third person as they investigate the suspicious disappearance of the former Network Ten presenter Jesse Baird and his partner, Luke Davies, pictured, from Sydney’s eastern suburbs after bloody items were found in a skip bin.

  • Advance attack | The rightwing group Advance is outspending the Liberal party in its attempts to ensure that Labor does not retain the Victorian federal seat of Dunkley in next Saturday’s byelection, using attack ads blaming Anthony Albanese for the cost-of-living crisis and playing on fears about immigration. The prime minister said the group wanted to “frighten” people and “spread a whole lot of misinformation”.

  • Reef fears | Scientists are reporting that corals are bleaching white and dying from rising ocean temperatures across a more than a 1,000km stretch of the Great Barrier Reef.

  • Class divide | Five elite private schools spent about the same amount of money on new facilities in 2021 as governments gave to more than half of Australia’s public schools for building works, research has found.

  • Fire warning | An out-of-control bushfire in western Victoria will “get worse before it gets better”, a fire chief says, as thousands of people in 28 communities are being urged to evacuate their homes.

World

A video cameraman films an electronic board displays the closing numbers of Nikkei index in Tokyo yesterday
An electronic board displays the closing numbers of Nikkei index in Tokyo yesterday. Photograph: Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty Images

Full Story

Protesters rally against renewable energy at Parliament House in Canberra
Protesters rally against renewable energy at Parliament House in Canberra. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Newsroom edition: the political resistance to clean energy

Gabrielle Jackson talks to Guardian Australia’s climate and environment editor, Adam Morton, and national news editor, Patrick Keneally, about why the public’s support for clean energy is being met by political resistance.

In-depth

A woman in a hospital bed after jaw surgery
A patient, who does not want to be identified, claims the temporomandibular joint replacement she underwent in 2018 at the hands of George Dimitroulis resulted in worse pain and less function than she previously had in her jaw Photograph: Supplied by patient

Our medical editor, Melissa Davey, brings us the story today of a Melbourne surgeon being sued for negligence by a woman who alleges he did not fully advise her of the risks before an operation on her jaw which she claims left her with life-changing injuries. She alleges that her condition wasn’t serious enough to warrant the operation and that the maxillofacial surgeon Dr George Dimitroulis failed to disclose his commercial interest in the company that manufactures the prostheses he inserted into her jaw. In his defence filed to the court, Dimitroulis denied wrongdoing and said the woman had been adequately advised of the risks and likely results of the procedure.

Not the news

Australia after their defeat to Fiji during their 2023 Rugby World Cup match in France
Australia after their defeat to Fiji during their 2023 Rugby World Cup match in France. Photograph: Catherine Ivill/Getty Images

The launch of the new Super Rugby Pacific season seemed to come and go with little fanfare last week but that’s hardly surprising for a sport that for “two long decades, has rotted from its head office to its heartland”. Angus Fontaine looks at how the once-mighty code has descended into such a sorry mess with “heavy debt, struggling participation rates, anaemic broadcast numbers, bleak crowd figures” and, of course, a disastrous men’s World Cup performance.

The world of sport

Tarryn Thomas of North Melbourne during a match against Richmond at the MCG
Tarryn Thomas of North Melbourne during a match against Richmond at the MCG. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP
  • AFL | Tarryn Thomas has been cut by North Melbourne after he was handed an 18-match suspension for several conduct breaches including threatening a woman by direct message.

  • Formula One | Christian Horner wants his future as Red Bull’s team principal to be resolved as soon as possible as the investigation into allegations of inappropriate behaviour continues.

  • Football | There’s a busy program of Europa League and Europa Conference matches this morning, including a heavyweight clash between Roma and Feyenoord.

Media roundup

Homes are under threat as out-of-control bushfires head towards the town of Beaufort in western Victoria, the Age reports. A Gold Coast builder has gone bust leaving 38 half-built homes and subcontractors out of pocket, the Bulletin says. A Taylor Swift fan who lives on a remote cattle station tells NT News she has braved a cyclone, floods and a 300km chopper ride to make the star’s concert in Sydney.

What’s happening today

  • Canberra | The house economics committee will hold a hearing into insurers’ responses to 2022 flood claims.

  • Media | The Senate inquiry into the prominence and anti-siphoning bill will hear from the heads of free-to-air, pay TV and streaming services.

Sign up

If you would like to receive this Morning Mail update to your email inbox every weekday, sign up here. And finish your day with a three-minute snapshot of the day’s main news. Sign up for our Afternoon Update newsletter here.

Prefer notifications? If you’re reading this in our app, just click here and tap “Get notifications” on the next screen for an instant alert when we publish every morning.

Brain teaser

And finally, here are the Guardian’s crosswords to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.