Your noon Briefing: Migrant plan too vague, says ALP

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

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

Cheerful Indian Family sitting on the cot smiling portrait with studio lights.

Migrant plan ‘too vague’

The government’s plan to move migrants to smaller states and regional areas is merely a “generalised discussion” and lacks detail, Labor frontbencher Jenny McAllister says. Minister for Cities, Urban Infrastructure and Population Alan Tudge will this afternoon flag key planks of the government’s soon-to-be-­released population policy, ­including fundamental structural changes to federal and state ­government management of population distribution and infrastructure planning.

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CREDIT: FIOS1Brittany M. Schulman, 23, Lauren Baruch, 24, Stephanie Belli, 23, and Amy R. Grabina, 23, died when Steve Romeo's pickup truck hit their limo with such force that it was almost split it in two.Also injured during the horror smash were Joelle M. Dimonte, 25, Melissa Angela Crai, 23, Alicia Arundel, 24 and Olga Lipets, 24, along with, the limo driver Carlos Pino, 58.Two of the women who survived the crash, including a bride to be who has not been identified, are in serious condition.

Chronicle of deaths foretold

A limousine that careered through a stop sign and crashed into a ditch in New York, killing the 18 people on board and two pedestrians, had recently failed a safety inspection and should not have been on the road. The driver, who was among those to die, did not have a licence to carry passengers, all of whom were travelling to a birthday party. One of those on board had sent a message 20 minutes before the crash, complaining that the stretch limousine, a 17-year-old Ford Excursion, was in a “terrible condition”.

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Alan Jones speaks to the media at the memorial of Harry M Miller at the Capitol Theatre in Sydney, Friday, August 3, 2018. (AAP Image/Joel Carrett) NO ARCHIVING

Jones apologises

Alan Jones has apologised on air for his fierce attack on Opera House boss Louise Herron, in which he called for her to be sacked. Jones was accused of bullying after his interview with Ms Herron last week in which he attacked her over her objection to promoting the Everest horse race on the sails of the Opera House.

“I used some words in these programs about the Everest and the Opera House, and Louise (Herron), which in hindsight, I now most regret.”

Alan Jones

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7/12/17: L to R..Francis Tamer, Warren Wang, Renee Gorman, VP of Sydney University's Conservative Club and Katarina Perkovic at Sydney University. They are concerned about blatant moves by the university leadership to shut down conservative events/voices. John Feder/The Australian

The long read: What you can’t say on campus

Funding ought to be linked to a university’s free speech guarantee, writes Jeremy Sammut, who delves into the effect the culture wars are having on the exchange of ideas on campus.

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Comment of the day

“The Aussie Battlers our there have no money for a climate change scam or any other sort of scam. Many of them are flat out paying their bills and caring for their families.

As other writers have written we have seen and heard all this before — we didn’t trust the so called experts then and we don’t trust them now.”

Maic, in response to ‘If climate disaster is nigh, at least we’ll be spared IPCC reports’.