Your noon Briefing: ALP’s tax plan hurts workers, says Frydenberg

Your 2-minute digest of the day’s top stories and a long read for lunchtime.

Hello readers. Josh Frydenberg says Labor’s tax plan hurts workers, and Will Swanton writes that the sound of Serena’s silence is deafening.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture Kym Smith

Labor pains

More than 60 per cent of taxpayers who made capital gains had taxable incomes of $80,000 or less, previously unpublished tax office data has revealed, as Josh Frydenberg stepped up his campaign to highlight the extent of those affected by Labor’s bevy of proposed tax increases.

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Hugh Jackman as Gary Hart in The Front Runner

Hart troubles

The heady mix of sex, politics and the media is centrestage in the new movie The Front Runner, which tells the story of the rise and fall of US senator Gary Hart as an explosive scandal torpedoed his campaign for president in 1988. The movie, starring Hugh Jack­man as the charismatic but prickly Hart, captures the pivot point when the barrier between reporting what was public and private started breaking down and voters began to closely examine politicians’ personal lives for clues as to how they might act in power.

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Serena Williams and US Open

Not sorry

Lame from Serena Williams. She’s unwilling to acknowledge the error of her volatile ways in the US Open final against Naomi Osaka. Her self-absorbed and petulant behaviour has stripped gloss from the biggest moment in Osaka’s life but there’s been no apology. Not a word of remorse in the four months since she threw the mother of all tantrums at Flushing Meadows. It’s a cop-out. Keep up with all the latest in our live Australian Open blog.

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(FILES) In this file photo taken on May 23, 2018 adult film star Stormy Daniels poses and signs autographs at Chi Chi Larue's adult entertainment store in West Hollywood, California. - Adult film star Stormy Daniels said September 12, 2018 she will publish an autobiography detailing her alleged affair with President Donald Trump in October, shortly before key US midterm elections. Daniels, who says she had an affair with Trump in 2006, around the time that the reality television star's wife Melania had given birth to their son Barron, said she would dedicate the tell-all -- entitled "Full Disclosure" -- to her young daughter. (Photo by Robyn Beck / AFP)

The long read: Presidential foe, feminist hero

In the US capital, where the obsession with Trump is endless, the arrival of the woman who claims to have had sex with the President has been a hot ticket for months. Audiences come to see not a stripper but, rather, their political hero — a living, breathing symbol of the anti-Trump resistance, writes Cameron Stewart.

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Comment of the day

“Time once was when building inspectors worked for government ententies, now they are engaged and paid for by the builder. If that doesn’t present as a blatant conflict of interest, I’ll fly to the moon!”

Colin, in response to ‘Engineers question strength of Opal Tower support beams’.