Your noon Briefing: Milne quits as ABC chairman

Welcome to your noon digest of what’s been making news and what to watch for.

Hello readers. Here is your noon roundup of today’s top stories and a long read for lunchtime.

Justin Milne leaves a Rozelle address .pic John Grainger

Milne quits

Justin Milne has resigned as ABC chairman, after days of controversy over political interference precipitated by the board’s sacking of Michelle Guthrie on Monday.

The ABC board met this morning without Mr Milne and asked him to resign. The board will meet at noon to elect an acting chairman. Former Seven West Media executive Peter Lewis, who has been on the board for four years, is a leading contender.

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First Officer Boeing 737-800 Haidee Wong poses on the tarmac at Brisbane Airport. QANTAS is hosting the first of a series of training days for women, kicking off in Brisbane as it seeks to address a looming pilot shortage.Photo: Claudia Baxter

Win for Wellcamp

A $35 million “sweetener” in the form of brand new facilities, has helped convince Qantas to locate its first pilot training academy at Wellcamp Airport in Toowoomba from mid next year.

Group CEO Alan Joyce announced the decision today from a shortlist of nine regional centres, including Tamworth, Dubbo, Wagga Wagga, Bendigo, Launceston, Alice Springs, Mackay and Busselton.

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18/09/2017: Lady Mary Fairfax's property 'Fairwater' in Point Piper.Pic by James Croucher

Fairfax home’s mystery buyer

Atlassian founder Scott Farquhar bought next door last year. Who is the mystery buyer of harbourside jewel Fairwater?

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Remy Hii in Crazy Rich Asians

Nothing crazy about rich Asians

The movie sensation of the year, romcom Crazy Rich Asians, does not stand out because the folk who so vividly populate it are crazy or rich, writes Rowan Callick. It’s rivetingly special because they’re Asians, within the broad meaning of that construct — all the main characters are ethnically Chinese.

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DATONG COUNTY, CHINA - JANUARY 31: (CHINA OUT) A farmer leads a cart walking past cooling towers of the coal-fired Datong County Thermal Power Plant on January 31, 2007 in Datong County of Qinghai Province, China. China has failed to make any headway with its efforts to protect the environment over the last three years as compared with other nations. A new government report ranks the country 100th on a list of 118 developing and developed countries in terms of "ecological modernization", the same ranking it held in 2004, according to the Modernization Report 2007 released by the Chinese Academy of Science. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)

China’s coal secret

China is building hundreds of new coal-fired power plants with a capacity equal to five times Australia’s entire electricity market despite assurances from central government that construction had been stopped. A report by environment group CoalSwarm used satellite images to prove construction was well underway on plants with a total capacity of 259 GW.

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This September 25, 2018, booking photo obtained from the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Eagleville, Pennsylvania, shows comedian Bill Cosby after his sentencing. - Cosby was handcuffed and taken into custody on September 25 to begin a minimum three-year prison sentence for sexually assaulting a woman at his Philadelphia mansion 14 years ago. The 81-year-old, once beloved by millions as "America's Dad," is the first celebrity convicted and sentenced for a sex crime since the downfall of Harvey Weinstein ushered in the #MeToo movement and America's reckoning with sexual harassment. (Photo by HO / Montgomery County Correctional Facility / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO / Montgomery County Correctional Facility" - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS

The long read: Comeuppance for Cosby

The serial predatory behaviour of TV comic actor Bill Cosby sealed his fate but the #MeToo movement will claim his scalp, writes Cameron Stewart.

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Comment of the day

“It would be a grave mistake to view Shorten as another Hewson, a brilliant economic technocrat with no political dogfighting ability, the exact opposite of Shorten.”

James, in response to ‘Morrison fancies Keating role, seeing Shorten as Hewson’.