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.

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - JANUARY 01: Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull speaks at a news conference at North Bondi Surf Life Saving Club after announcing an increase in funding for Surf Life Saving Australia on January 1, 2018 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Mark Evans/Getty Images)

PM slams Dan on gangs

Malcolm Turnbull has lashed the Victorian Premier for allowing gang-violence and lawlessness to escalate and backed a bold plan to introduce stricter bail conditions and impose minimum 10-year jail terms for violent reoffenders. In a strident intervention, the Prime Minister said yesterday he was “very concerned at growing gang violence and lawlessness in Victoria’’ and accused Daniel Andrews of lacking “the political leadership and the determination’’ to tackle the issue.

-

Auction at 202 Old Canterbury Rd, Summer Hill, Sydney, Australia, 02 December 2017.

Housing market shows cracks

Sydney and Darwin were the weakest housing markets across the capital cities last month, with prices in the harbour city finishing the year just 3.1 per cent higher. The market in the east coast capitals is showing cracks, with clamps on interest-only loans hitting Sydney’s investor-driven market particularly hard. Home values in Sydney fell 0.9 per cent last month as the pace of falls over recent months accelerated, according to the CoreLogic December home value index.

-

01/01/2017: Majok Tulba with his wife Mary and their four children, (left to right) Marial, 8, Aleec,9, ,Maker, 4,and Tulba,5, at home in western Sydney. Pic by James Croucher

Thug life? Try South Sudanese life.

Majok Tulba is a former child refugee from South Sudan, turned Australian poet and writer. He has one, poignant message for the young men of South Sudanese origin who have been rampaging through the streets of Melbourne: give up your Australian life. Go to South Sudan, for just one week. Listen to the gunfire. Feel the hunger in your belly. Sweat through your malaria. Duck and weave in fear.

‘‘Never, never, never would they do the wrong thing again.’’

Majok Tulba

-

Nick Kyrgios and Bruce Springsteen. Picture; supplied.

Kyrgios: Born to run?

As Nick Kyrgios begins his season at the Brisbane International he should look to Bruce Springsteen for a vital lesson, writes Will Swanton.

-

The Richmond Pliosaur dinosaur fossil at Lark Quarry, one part of the Dinosaur Trail near Winton in Queensland. Tourists can follow the Dinosaur Trail across three shires. Pic Toryn Chapman.

On a plain

Popular legend has it that ghosts exist because they have unfinished business with the living. For Rick Morton, the issue is reversed in that he has unfinished business with the dead and is doomed to darken the stony plains of Queensland’s far west looking for the dinosaur he should have found when he was six.

-

Child abuse istock pic online

The long read (Best of 2017): The unbelievers

They were jailed for monstrous crimes against their daughter. Yet this elite coach and his wife say they are innocent. Richard Guillatt examines a chilling true life horror story of a couple jailed for sadistic child abuse based on their youngest daughter’s ‘recovered’ memories.

-

Comment of the day

“Safe Streets. Now there’s a policy worth backing.”

Stephen, in response to ‘Turnbull lashes Andrews over gangs’.