Your morning Briefing: Unions test Labor with airline fight

Your 2-minute digest of today’s top stories and must-reads.

Hello readers. The Transport Workers Union is picking a fight with Labor and airlines are the battleground, and ‘creepy’ digital stalking by the tech titans is in the ACCC’s crosshairs.

Transport Workers Union (TWU) National Secretary Tony Sheldon speaks to the media in Sydney, Wednesday, January 17, 2018. (AAP Image/David Moir) NO ARCHIVING

Union tests Labor

The Transport Workers Union is pushing federal Labor to extend industry-wide bargaining beyond low-paid industries to airlines, setting up a potential showdown with Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce, who has warned that the policy will send workplace relations back to the 1970s. The push by the influential union increases pressure on Bill Shorten before the ALP national conference this weekend, with senior party figures seeking to confine conference support of industry-wide bargaining to sectors such as cleaning and childcare.

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US climate scientist Judith Curry

Sea level rise ‘unlikely’

A catastrophic rise in sea levels is unlikely this century, with ­recent experience falling within the range of natural variability over the past several thousand years, according to a report on peer-­reviewed studies by US climate scientist Judith Curry. Dr Curry says predictions of a 21st-century sea level rise of more than 60cm are increasingly difficult to justify, even if the predicted amount of global warming is correct.

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French policemen of the CRS company patrol in Strasbourg, eastern France, on November 23, 2018, on the opening day of the city's Christmas market, the largest and one of the oldest Christmas markets in France. (Photo by SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP)

Strasbourg shooting

Several people have been wounded in a shooting near a Christmas market in the French city of Strasbourg. The French Interior Ministry has called the incident a “serious security event” and asked the public to remain indoors. “Shooting in Strasbourg’s city centre. Thanks to all for staying at home until the situation has been clarified,” deputy mayor Alain Fontanel said in a tweet.

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Rod Clement Margin Call cartoon for 12-12-2018Version: Business Cartoon (1280x720 - Aspect ratio preserved, Canvas added)COPYRIGHT: The Australian's artists each have different copyright agreements in place regarding re-use of their work in other publications.Please seek advice from the artists themselves or the Managing Editor of The Australian regarding re-use.

Ain’t no party like a Gupta party

Once again British billionaire Sanjeev Gupta is the talk of Sydney’s eastern suburbs. Last year, Gupta and wife Nicola set tongues wagging when they moved into Ian Joye’s Bellevue Hill trophy home Barford, one of the most expensive rentals in the country. This time around, it’s the party the couple are throwing to celebrate their 10-year wedding anniversary that has the tongues wagging, Margin Call reveals.

“Two questions are consuming the mums and dads of sons at Scots — the private school at which the Guptas’ oldest son ­attends. Did you get an invite? And: are you going?”

Margin Call

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11/12/2018: Adelaide Bracey has been targeted by advertisers every time she googles travel trips, clothes, or restaurants. She finds the advertising creepy. Photographed in Darlinghurst on Tuesday afternoon. Hollie Adams/The Australian

Stalked by Kath & Kim

A few weeks ago, Adelaide Bracey searched Google for the Aus­tralian sitcom Kath & Kim. Days later, her Instagram feed was inexplicably featuring ads for Kath & Kim T-shirts.

And then there was the time the 23-year-old spoke to a friend about saunas. “I didn’t Google it — and then it comes up as an ad on my Facebook. It’s ­really creepy,” Ms Bracey said. “What if I Google something that I don’t want other people to necessarily know about?”

It’s a question also raised by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, which has proposed changes to the Privacy Act to control how Google and Facebook track and trade user internet history to allow ­advertisers to chase people around social media.

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Kudelka’s view

Jon Kudelka Letters page cartoon for 12-12-2018Version: Letters Cartoon (1280x720 - Aspect ratio preserved, Canvas added)COPYRIGHT: The Australian's artists each have different copyright agreements in place regarding re-use of their work in other publications.Please seek advice from the artists themselves or the Managing Editor of The Australian regarding re-use.