Good morning. Tensions with Russia continue to increase as Vladimir Putin has spoken out about the crisis with Ukraine for the first time this year. In Australia, the reopening of international borders has seen demand for passports soar. And scientists are working out if human urine could be “liquid gold” for parks.
Fossil fuel companies gave nearly $1m in political donations to the three major parties last financial year, according to analysis from campaign group 350.org. The lion’s share of the $959,115 donated by eight oil and gas companies or their lobby groups went to the Liberal party, followed by Labor and then the Nationals. Shani Tager, the senior campaign manager at 350, called for political donations from the oil and gas sector to be banned over the risk it may influence policymaking in a way that stops action on climate change. The Australian Electoral Commission has also released its transparency register for the 2020-21 financial year. Anthony Pratt’s Pratt Holdings was the biggest political donor in the last year.
Scott Morrison has been blindsided by a claim that leaked texts between a party colleague and Gladys Berejiklian included her calling the prime minister a “horrible person” who was untrustworthy. Morrison on Tuesday was confronted at the National Press Club by the Network Ten political editor, Peter van Onselen, who claimed he had been leaked text messages between “a current Liberal cabinet minister” and Berejiklian. The former NSW premier said she had “no recollection of such messages”.
Vladimir Putin has accused the US of ignoring Russia’s security proposals in his first public comments on the growing crisis over Ukraine since December. Putin told journalists he was unsatisfied with the US response to Russian demands that Nato remove troops and infrastructure from eastern Europe and pledge never to accept Ukraine into the alliance. A phone call between Boris Johnson and Putin that Johnson was forced to cancel on Monday has been rescheduled for Wednesday. Johnson has dismissed claims that the UK and US are exaggerating the threat posed by Russia, saying there is “a clear and present danger”.
Queensland authorities told disability homes to manage Covid cases alone when they asked for help, it has been revealed in emails obtained by Guardian Australia. The authorities abandoned their own contingency plans to protect vulnerable disability housing residents in the event of a Covid outbreak, instead telling accommodation providers to manage positive cases themselves and just “do what you reasonably can”.
Australia
It is now clear that you can catch Covid more than once but also that an infection boosts your protection from reinfection. So what actually happens after you get the virus? We asked the experts.
Australians are waiting 60% longer than usual for their passports as demand soars after the reopening of international borders. The government has issued more than 275,000 passports since 1 November, almost triple the number compared with a year ago.
A new trial is examining if human urine could be “liquid gold” for horticulturists and used as a cheap and sustainable source of fertiliser in Australia’s city parks. Researchers say tackling the picnicking public’s instinctive “yuck factor” towards “urine diversion toilets” will be part of their work.
NSW is promising to build more than 1,000 charging stations for electric vehicles under a four-year plan that would create the country’s most extensive EV network.
The world
Downing Street has U-turned on its refusal to confirm whether it would reveal if Boris Johnson had been fined for breaching Covid rules, acknowledging there would be “significant public interest” in the issue. But it still remains unclear if No 10 will comment on whether any staff were fined for lockdown-breaking parties.
A whistleblower has alleged that an executive at NSO Group offered a US-based mobile security company “bags of cash” for access to a global signalling network used to track individuals through their mobile phones, according to a complaint to the US Department of Justice.
Donald Trump directed Rudy Giuliani to ask the Department of Homeland Security if it could seize voting machines in three key states, the New York Times reported, but DHS officials told Giuliani it did not have the authority to do so.
Recommended reads
The fights are explosive, the relationships can be toxic but Married at First Sight has the country hooked. So, how did such a divisive show take over? MAFS hasn’t always been messy. Season five was the point when MAFS changed from being a show that “genuinely explored the psychological growth and love between two people” into “the absolute unrepentant garbage fire that we know and love-hate it as today”, as the writer Clementine Ford describes it.
To create his new show for the Melbourne international comedy festival, Damian Callinan raided his parents’ diaries. As well as being great material, his mum’s diaries are unsurprisingly a cherished sentimental object for Callinan. He tells us why he’d rush to save those pages in a fire, as well as the story of two other important personal belongings.
Autism comprises an exponentially wide range of presentations but the discourse surrounding it doesn’t, writes Al Campbell: “Few people at the hard-end of the disability spectrum will become authors. Similarly, non-verbal, profoundly autistic people like [my son] Rupert cannot be actors; plainly, this is not a realistic expectation. So when a narrative simply cannot be told by an #ActuallyAutistic person, what then? We don’t tell it, at all? That doesn’t seem right to me.”
Listen
After 44 years of waiting, an Australian has won at the Australian Open after 25-year-old Ash Barty secured the singles title. But Barty wasn’t the only Australian getting attention. Thanasi Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrgios and their enthusiastic fans divided the tennis community. Today’s Full Story features Guardian Australia’s deputy sports editor, Emma Kemp, speaking about what it was like to be in the stadium watching history be made.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
Winter Olympians “need to be responsible” if they decide to speak out about controversial issues, warns the chair of the Beijing Winter Olympics Athletes’ Commission, Yang Yang, befre the Game’s opening on Friday. Human rights groups have warned there could be consequences for talking about events in Tibet, Hong Kong and Xinjiang. But Yang insisted that athletes would be free to talk in mixed zones and interviews.
Media roundup
Victorian police are investigating the theft of a human head from a casket at a mausoleum at the Footscray General Cemetery, reports the Herald Sun. Scott Morrison has set a goal to drive unemployment below 4%, its lowest level in almost 50 years, reports the Age.
Coming up
A Senate inquiry will examine Australia’s involvement in Afghanistan, and regional NSW and Victoria food workers are to strike for a new work agreement.
And if you’ve read this far …
Crows are being recruited to pick up discarded cigarette butts from the streets and squares of a Swedish city as part of a cost-cutting drive.
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