Your noon Briefing

Welcome to your noon roundup of how the day has played out so far and what to watch for.

Hello readers. Here is your noon digest of what’s making news and a long read for lunchtime.

Daily Telegraph - Pictured: Jason Clare speaks while Bill Shorten watches on - Leader of the Australian Labor Party Bill Shorten today visited the Launch Pad Smart Business Centre at Western Sydney University accompanied by Ed Husic (Federal Member for Chifley) and Emma Husar (Labor Candidate for Lindsay) to make an announcement regarding Labor's plan with the NBN / National Broadband Network. University is located at 14 Great Western Highway, Werrington NSW Australia

Adani retreat

Labor appears to be walking back from its threat to oppose the Adani coal mine in Central Queensland, with resources spokesman Jason Clare saying the party is “not in the business of ripping up contracts”. Mr Clare’s comments follow consistent indications from Opposition Leader Bill Shorten that the party was preparing to oppose the mine.

“There’s some plans that need to be developed around water which Malcolm Turnbull will need to tick off in the next few months, but let me repeat this point: ultimately the ball’s in Adani’s court.”

Jason Clare

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Minister for Finance Senator Mathias Cormann in the Senate chamber at Parliament House in Canberra, Thursday, February 15, 2018. (AAP Image/Mick Tsikas) NO ARCHIVING

‘Move on’

The Turnbull government needs to move on from the saga surrounding Barnaby Joyce, who “clearly” doesn’t plan on going anywhere, cabinet minister Mathias Cormann says. “We must move on. The country wants us to move on, we must move on, we need to focus on the things we were elected to do,” the soon-to-be acting prime minister said this morning. Mr Joyce is on personal leave this week amid ongoing questions about his future after his extramarital affair with a former staffer was revealed while Malcolm Turnbull and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop are overseas, leaving Senator Cormann as Acting Prime Minister. Richo, meantime, suggests the PM’s outrage over the affair is confected.

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Former prime minister Tony Abbott addresses the Sydney Institute on Tuesday, February 20, 2018. (AAP Image/Brendan Esposito) NO ARCHIVING

‘Slow immigration’

Tony Abbott is really on to something when he calls for a significant reduction in the number of immigrants coming to this country, writes Judith Sloan. What I can’t understand is why a Coalition government hasn’t been on to this issue much sooner. Running a sensible and sustainable immigration program is as important as border control.

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Generic Telstra images from the Queensland suburb of Stafford, in Brisbane, Saturday, January 6, 2018. (AAP Image/Glenn Hunt) NO ARCHIVING

Telstra iMessage outage

Telstra customers across the country are currently unable to send or receive iMessages, with an outage affecting iPhone users across the East Coast. The telco, which in 2016 was plagued by a range of nationwide outages, said the issue is ongoing. “Some customers may be experiencing an issue with Apple iMessage and FaceTime.,” a spokesman said. “Customers continue to have the option to send SMS messages.”

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Members of the Nigerian women's bobsled team, from left, Akuoma Omeoga, Seun Adigun and Ngozi Onwumere, pose for a photograph during an interview with The Associated Press at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018. Despite being American born, Nigeria’s first-ever bobsled team says they’re representing the culture they were raised in. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Cooler runnings

Nigeria was winning the Olympic women’s bobsled race. Yes, really. The Nigerians were the second sled down the track in the opening heat of the women’s competition at the Pyeongchang Olympics, and over the first few turns of the course they actually were going along faster than the Korean sled that preceded them. So yes, they were winning. Of course, after that quick flirtation with the lead, their sled bounced off the roof and commenced the inevitable freefall to last place. Keep up with all the latest from Pyeongchang in our Winter Olympics live blog.

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Professor Clive Hamilton. His new book Silent Invasion on China's growing influence in Australia and the world is finally going to be published next month after being controversially dropped by Allen & Unwin. Picture Gary Ramage

The long read: Poking the dragon

The debate on the growing influence of the Chinese government within Australian institutions, which has grabbed the attention of policymakers around the world, is about to roar decibels louder, writes Rowan Callick. For Silent Invasion, Clive Hamilton’s controversial new 350-page book that was knocked back by several nervous publishers before finally being taken on by Hardie Grant, will raise a noisy row when it goes on sale on Monday. One of Australia’s best-known public intellectuals, Hamilton is not easily silenced. But taking on the immense new international ambitions of the world’s most powerful organisation, the Chinese Communist Party, marks a step in a distinctly different direction.

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Comment of the day

“We New England conservatives know that we have a winning proponent in our Barnaby and will continue to place him front and centre.”

Douglas, in response to ‘Barnaby Joyce and the crisis of conservatism in Australia’.