Good afternoon. A major bill is closer to being realised after Labor agreed to Greens’ demands not to use the proposed national reconstruction fund to finance new gas and coal projects or native logging.
“Coal and gas are the biggest cause of the climate crisis, so this is a big win for the climate and a big win for jobs and the economy,” the Greens leader, Adam Bandt, said.
Greens support means the bill is now closer to passing the Senate later this month. If passed, it will establish an off-budget $15bn investment fund that the industry minister, Ed Husic, says is “one of the largest peacetime investments in manufacturing this country has ever seen”.
Bandt thanked the government for its “constructive approach” in negotiating the deal, and setting a positive tone between the two parties still trying to break an impasse over Labor’s safeguard mechanism policy. If you want to read more on how those talks could advance, read today’s column from our climate and environment editor, Adam Morton.
Top news
PM promises ‘absolute sovereignty’ over submarines | Albanese made the remarks amid revelations that the UK had succeeded in its bid to sell Australia British-designed nuclear submarines. Australia will become the seventh country to have a nuclear-powered submarine fleet. That has drawn the ire of China, which has argued Australia’s possession of the nuclear reactors is a breach of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty.
Oscar goodie bags contain Queensland “scrub” | Oscar nominees are set to receive one square metre of land in outback Australia in their gift bags this year, but environmental organisations have questioned the environmental mission of the company. “Pieces of Australia” is one of a number of brands to pay $4,000 to secure a spot in the hamper which is unaffiliated with the Academy, but sent by the company Distinctive Assets to the acting and directing nominees. But those gifted the land won’t be able to use the “symbolic souvenir”.
Home values down 7.9% nationally | … which is the largest slide over a 12-month period on record. Leading the way was Sydney – down 13.4%, then Hobart 11.8% Melbourne 9.6%, Brisbane 6.8% and Canberra 6.7%. Bucking the trend were Adelaide (up 5.1%), Darwin (up 2.9%) and Perth (up 2.4%).
Labor, Greens back four-day work week | Senators from the two parties joined forces in recommending a four-day work week trial at full pay and more than double paid parental leave to 52 weeks.
Free transport day for Sydney | To make up for yesterday’s peak-hour meltdown of the Sydney train network, the New South Wales premier, Dominic Perrottet, has ordered a fare-free day be instituted.
Perilous migrant path from China to the US | There’s a growing number of would-be Chinese migrants trying to reach the US via a dangerous jungle between Colombia and Panama. Numbers surged last year amid tough Covid lockdowns. “I don’t know much about the US, but at least it’d be better than living in China … We’re like animals. We migrate to a warmer place, instead of staying in a cold place. We don’t want to be frozen to death,” one asylum seeker said.
Tucker Carlson ‘passionately hates’ Trump | Or so a text message on 4 January 2021, two days before the Capitol Hill insurrection, said. “I hate him passionately … What he’s good at is destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong,” the Fox News host wrote.
Georgia protests | Thousands are continuing to protest against a proposed law that would create a “foreign agents” register for organisations receiving more than 20% of their funding overseas. The law is similar to a 2012 law in Russia, and has raised concerns it could jeopardise Georgia’s chances of joining the EU.
Greece protests | Tens of thousands have staged protest rallies and workers staged a 24-hour general strike as anger over last week’s train disaster intensified. “This is more than a train collision and a tragic railway accident. You get the sense that the country has derailed,” said Nasos Iliopoulos, a spokesperson for Greece’s main leftwing opposition party, Syriza.
Full Story
The battle over Labor’s key climate policy
Negotiations over Labor’s major climate policy are in deadlock. With the government’s tight deadline to pass its bill to cut greenhouse gas emissions looming, what’s holding up this deal? And what’s at stake if the parties fail to reach a compromise? Listen to this 20-min episode.
What they said …
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“Some of the Closing the Gap targets are going backwards … The one that really concerns me that has, where the statistics have gone backwards slightly, is the healthy birth weight of babies … It is not good enough and I know everyone in this House agrees with that.” - Linda Burney
Healthy birth weight is one of several Closing the Gap targets going backwards, the Indigenous affairs minister told parliament today.
In numbers
An NT government report also found levels of property break-ins were down by nearly 46% and youth offences were down by 36% since the restrictions were brought.
Before bed read
Twitter has broken down six times this year - most recently on Monday. Experts point to the sacking of thousands of workers, leaving too few engineers to catch and fix problems when they arise.
Since Musk completed his US$44bn takeover of Twitter in October last year, the workforce has been reduced from 7,500 employees to about 2,000.
“The result is that eventually problems occur which are sufficiently serious to be noticed by large portions of Twitter’s user base,” said Steven Murdoch, a professor of security engineering at University College London.
Daily word game
Today’s starter word is: PTO. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.
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