Your afternoon Briefing

Good afternoon, readers. Thursday brings us politics, an offensive elephant, a Woolworths warning and the discovery of a mass grave off the West Australian coast.

Good afternoon, readers. Thursday brings us politics, an offensive elephant, a Woolworths warning and the discovery of a mass grave off the West Australian coast.

Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten (right) and Labor candidate for the federal seat of Bennelong, Kristina Keneally (left), meet with locals at Eastwood shopping centre in Sydney, Thursday, November 23, 2017. (AAP Image/Brendan Esposito) NO ARCHIVING

Labor resurrects Mediscare

The battle for Bennelong is ramping up as Labor reignites its Mediscare campaign with Kristina Keneally promising to reopen a Medicare office in Sydney’s Eastwood. In other by-election news, Liberal candidate John Alexander’s campaign was temporarily derailed after a video emerged of him making racist and rape jokes in the 1990s.

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20/11/2017. John Howard and Kim Beazley, former opponents in two elections, now in common cause on the board of the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation to bring the western canon of learning back to universities. Photographed during event at ntercontinental Hotel. Britta Campion / The Australian

Beware ‘socialist’ bank inquiry, John Howard warns

Former PM John Howard has slammed a banking royal commission as “rank socialism” in an interview due to be aired on Sky News this evening.

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An international team of archaeologists has discovered a mass grave consisting of five full skeletons in the Abrolhos Islands off WA, the result of the shipwreck of the Batavia in 1629. Supplied

Bones give up Batavia secret

The bones of victims from a massacre four centuries old have emerged from a mass grave on the Abrolhos Islands, off the West Australian coast.

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Pokhran, India - September 28, 2015: Old Ganesha painting in Fort Pokaran Rajasthan India. This 14th century citadel also known as Balagarh€ in the Thar Desert is the premier fort of The Chief of Mighty Champawats. With its beautiful red color it once stood in the silk and other goods route to Persia and beyond

Religiously ‘offensive’ ad banned

Australia’s advertising watchdog has banned an ad featuring an “offensive” depiction of the Hindu elephantine deity Ganesha.

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23/11/17 Woolworths chairman Gordon Cairns during their AGM in Melbourne. Aaron Francis/The Australian

Woolworths warns brands on Amazon

Woolworths chairman Gordon Cairns has issued a thinly veiled threat, saying manufacturers could cut their own throats if they sign up with Amazon.

And for cricket fans, our Ashes 2017 live blog has all the action from the last moments of the first day.