Your morning Briefing: Coalition faces wipeout with 40th straight loss
Welcome to your 2-minute briefing on the day’s top stories and must-reads.
Hello readers. Here is your 2-minute digest of what’s making news today.
ScoMo rules, rout looms
Scott Morrison has emerged as the favoured prime minister over Bill Shorten and a more popular leader than Malcolm Turnbull after just two weeks in the job but he leads a decimated Coalition that faces an election wipeout with the potential loss of up to 30 seats. Our exclusive Newspoll shows that Mr Morrison appears to have been quickly embraced by voters with a majority believing he is already presenting as a more decisive leader than Mr Turnbull. Keep up with all the latest from parliament as the PM prepares for his first question time, in our live blog, PoliticsNow.
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Star’s nanny waved through by Labor
Former Labor immigration ministers Chris Bowen and Tony Burke allowed Italian soccer star Alessandro Del Piero’s nanny into the country on a tourist visa, and fast-tracked the case of a Lebanese national whose entry into Australia was supported by a Labor donor. Revelations about the two immigration cases involving Bill Shorten’s senior enforcers come as parliament resumes today, with Labor to attack Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton over his intervention to grant two au pairs tourist visas.
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No members, no problem
The wealth of Australia’s unions has surged with record increases in revenue and assets without needing income from membership dues to survive, despite more than two decades of a serious decline in representing the workforce. A policy brief for Liberal Party think tank the Menzies Research Centre by research director John Slater has found the link between a union’s membership and its financial performance is “weak, at best” because unions operate as corporate business models while remaining exempt from paying tax.
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Mother of all meltdowns
Serena Williams has been fined $24,000 (US$17,000) by the US Tennis Association in the wake of her outburst during her controversial US Open final loss to Japan’s Naomi Osaka. What could have been Williams’ “Lazarus rising” moment instead will go down as the biggest meltdown in grand-slam finals history and a stain on her stellar career. Will Swanton suggests she has blown a bid to rehabilitate her angry image, perhaps forever.
And don’t miss our live US Open blog as Novak Djokovic and Juan Martin del Potro slug it out in the men’s final.
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Kudelka’s view