Your morning Briefing
Welcome to your morning roundup of what’s making news and the must-reads for today.
Hello readers. Here is your two-minute digest of what’s making news today.
Joyce under fire
National MPs are turning on Barnaby Joyce, warning that his leadership is in jeopardy amid concerns the party will lose conservative voters following revelations the Deputy Prime Minister is having a baby with his former staffer Vikki Campion. Some MPs say they are receiving “white-hot anger” from constituents over the affair and the subsequent treatment of Ms Campion, who was moved out of Mr Joyce’s office into highly paid positions in the offices of Resources Minister Matt Canavan and party whip Damian Drum. Dennis Shanahan offers a warning to public figures — if there is something in your private life which would interest the public, someone will publish it. Richo suggests that Vikki Campion getting a new job means Malcolm Turnbull has to face tough questions. Keep abreast of all the day’s developments from parliament in our live rolling blog, PoliticsNow.
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Student ‘came to kill’ claim
A Bangladeshi student accused of stabbing a Melbourne father less than 10 days after arriving in Australia allegedly told a neighbour after the attack that she had “purposefully come here to kill”. Momena Shoma, 24, was charged on Saturday with one count of engaging in a terrorist act after allegedly stabbing Roger Singaravelu in the neck while he was asleep next to his five-year-old daughter in his Mill Park home in Melbourne’s northeast on Friday afternoon. He was in a stable condition yesterday following surgery at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Australian Federal Police Acting Deputy Commissioner Ian McCartney said on Saturday police would allege the woman had become self-radicalised and was inspired by Islamic State.
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Russian plane crash
More than 70 people were killed after a Russian passenger plane crashed near Moscow, shortly after take off from one of the city’s airports. Temperatures were around minus 5C with periodic snowfall when the short-haul AN-148 operated by Saratov Airlines took off for the city of Orsk in Orenburg region, about 1500km southeast of the capital, carrying 65 passengers and six crew. President Vladimir Putin offered condolences to those who had lost relatives and ordered a special investigative commission to be set up.
“According to preliminary information, nobody survived.”
The Kremlin
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Big Four silent on rates
ANZ, National Australia Bank and Westpac joined Commonwealth Bank in failing to tell term deposit customers seeking a safe haven at the peak of the global financial crisis what interest rate they would get after their investment rolled over. Documents dating from between 2007 to 2009, obtained from the corporate regulator under Freedom of Information laws, show the big four banks did not disclose rollover rates in letters sent to customers whose term deposits were about to mature, exposing them to the risk they would receive a substantially lower rate from advertised offers.
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Peel’s twist
It’s only when things go badly wrong in snow sports that you realise just how dangerous they are, writes Nicole Jeffery. Virtually every athlete competing this week at Bokwang, the freestyle skiing and snowboarding venue for the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, has survived a seriously scary, probably career-threatening, possibly life-changing crash on their way to the Games. Former world aerial skiing champion Laura Peel’s big crash came about nine months before the last Games in Sochi, almost five years ago, and she is still feeling the after-effects as she prepares to make her play for an Olympic medal this week. In a training camp at Ruka in Finland, Peel misjudged a twisting somersault and had not completed the trick when she met the landing hill.
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Kudelka’s view
China’s great wall of silence
China deliberately concealed information about the coronavirus, and now it is fighting an inquiry. So what is Beijing hiding?
Your noon Briefing
Your 2-minute digest of the day’s top stories.