Your morning briefing
Good morning readers and welcome to our round-up of what’s making news and the must-reads today.
Good morning, here are the five stories you need to face the day, and it will only take you two minutes.
Top stories
Annastacia Palaszczuk declared her strong support for ramping up renewable energy yesterday when ambushed by anti-Adani protesters, moments after calling an early Queensland election amid a tide of popular support for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in regional battleground seats. The first-term minority Labor Premier has gambled on a poll to be held on November 25, capitalising on the political uncertainty swamping the federal Coalition government but knowing her government’s fortunes will swing on how preference votes are directed from the Greens and One Nation.
Hanson has branded Palaszczuk a coward for calling the election while she is out of action for a week on a delegation to India.
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Malcolm Turnbull has taken a thumping from voters amid the shock loss of two cabinet ministers and a political storm over union raids, with the government trailing Labor by 46 to 54 per cent as it fights a by-election to hold its majority. Voters have marked down the Prime Minister when asked if they are satisfied with his performance, while also cutting the Coalition’s primary vote from 36 to 35 per cent, one of its lowest results for the year.
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Barnaby Joyce has revealed he considered quitting politics this year, in an emotional interview in which he slapped down his Liberal Party colleagues for sniping at the Nationals over the citizenship debacle. Mr Joyce told The Australian of the strain that built up on himself and his family ahead of the High Court decision last week that has now cost the Nationals leader and his deputy, Fiona Nash, their jobs and destabilised the Turnbull government.
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It was an exquisitely Melbourne affair. A who’s who of business and the arts admiring Dior fashion, sipping Moet from golden goblets and nibbling canapes by Peter Rowland, the king of high tea.They had gathered at the National Gallery of Victoria for a private viewing of a travelling Dior exhibition. Behind these glittering scenes, staff who used to work for Rowland and Australian taxpayers were being served a sandwich of a very different kind. About 16 former staff are owed $364,000 in unpaid entitlements and the tax office $1.25 million in unpaid taxes from the past two financial years.
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In business
The pressure on Westpac to admit to rate-rigging allegations brought against it by the corporate regulator is expected to intensify dramatically this morning when rival banks ANZ and NAB deliver signed settlements to the Federal Court. Negotiations between Westpac and the Australian Securities & Investments Commission over the weekend appear to have been fruitless, with the bank last night maintaining it was ready to defend the case in court.
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In sport
Has Australia seen a better horse than Winx? It’s a debate that will rage this spring and perhaps many to come, with the six-year-old superhorse giving no sign of tiring after 22 straight wins and three Cox Plate triumphs. Yet, for part-owner Peter Tighe, some of the other great names of Australian racing are already written into the Winx story. Gai Waterhouse, Lee Freedman, Lloyd Williams, the late Bart Cummings; Winx’s trainer Chris Waller has taken advice from all of them over the years about how best to prepare this rarest of equine talents. Just as Winx devours a racetrack with her quickfire stride, Waller had an “insatiable appetite’’ to perfect his management of her, Tighe said.
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Key analysis
It’s Pauline Hanson’s pick if the ALP comes up short in Queensland’s upcoming election, writes Campbell Newman.
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Comment of the day
“Julie will have her tape measure out and checking out the PM suite while Malcolm is reflecting on the doomed charge of the Light Brigade.”
Swee on yet another disastrous Newspoll result for Malcolm Turnbull.
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Media Monday
Not all sources deserve shielding, suggests Mark Day.
Police seek help to crack missing mum mystery
In its first public response since the launch of a new investigative podcast, NSW Police says a strike force investigation into the suspected murder of Bronwyn Winfield is open and ongoing.
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