Yahoo News Morning mail: $748m for cybersecurity, Victorian spike explained and Trioli's Q+A rebuke
Good morning, this is Emilie Gramenz bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Tuesday 30 June.
Top stories
Scott Morrison will unveil $748m in new cybersecurity initiatives. The prime minister will commit to spending $470m to expand Australia’s cybersecurity workforce, creating more than 500 new jobs within the Australian Signals Directorate. Morrison, ahead of a significant defence speech anticipated this week, will flag additional investments over the coming months, taking the total spend north of $1bn. Today’s commitment follows Morrison pointing on 19 June to a cyber-attack on a wide range of political and private-sector organisations in Australia carried out by a “sophisticated state-based cyber-actor”.
What’s causing Victoria’s coronavirus spike and is anyone to blame? For almost two weeks, the state has seen a double-digit rise in cases every day. We asked health experts whether what we’re seeing in Melbourne is a “second wave”, and why it’s happening where it is. Victoria’s chief medical officer has said residents may be asked to wear face masks, contradicting earlier warnings that wearing personal protective equipment was unnecessary and potentially harmful. The coronavirus pandemic has killed half a million people in just over six months. The head of the World Health Organisation is warning the pandemic is “not even close to being over”.
Two new reports show the Covid-19 recession is causing insecurity for both younger and older Australians. One paper prepared by the Brotherhood of St Laurence and the Nous Group shows nearly a third of people who have lost work or had hours cut as a result of the pandemic are aged 51 to 65. In a separate study, the Australian National University found the proportion of Australians not able to meet their regular housing costs jumped from 6.9% in April to 15.1% in May, with young people the hardest hit.
Australia
The Covid-19 pandemic has increased the risk that multiple power retailers, or one very large player, could default because of an increase in costs and non-payments. The Australian Energy Market Commission has released its 2020 snapshot of competition in Australia’s energy sector.
Failing to increase the superannuation rate would hurt people who have drawn down on their retirement savings during the coronavirus, according to industry fund leader Greg Combet. Combet says those who made withdrawals under coronavirus crisis rules face a double whammy if a planned increase in employer contributions from 9.5% to 12% is cancelled.
The federal government believes the jobseeker rate could be putting people off work. Australia’s coronavirus economic supports could be holding the economy back by providing a disincentive to work, according to Scott Morrison and Coalition backbenchers.
The Australian Capital Territory government has given in-principle support to enforcing truth in political advertising for its coming local election. The Greens have been pushing for the ACT to become only the second jurisdiction after South Australia to introduce such laws.
Virginia Trioli has rebuked the arts minister, Paul Fletcher, while filling in as host of the ABC’s Q+A program. Trioli not only ordered the minister to stop “chewing up time” and actually answer viewers’ questions, but also cut off his claims that the Coalition had not cut funding to the ABC with: “I have the figures here … We can’t waste any more time.”
The world
The US is to join with other major powers including China, India and the EU in formulating plans for a global green recovery from the coronavirus crisis. It’s the only major international summit on the climate emergency this year.
The Indian government has banned TikTok, the hugely popular social media app, as part of sweeping anti-China measures after a violent confrontation between Indian and Chinese troops. TikTok is one of more than 50 Chinese-made apps that have been banned by the Ministry of Information.
Plans by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to begin annexing parts of the occupied Palestinian territories from as early as Wednesday appear to be in disarray. The country’s alternate prime minister, Benny Gantz, suggested annexation would have to wait while the country dealt with its coronavirus crisis.
Forty years after a suburban rapist terrorised California in a series of assaults and killings, a 74-year-old former police officer said he would plead guilty to being the elusive Golden State Killer.
Recommended reads
Should you get/cancel/switch health insurance? Deal with it in one afternoon. Yes, Katie Cunningham has boiled down one of those administrative nightmares into a process that can be completed in just a couple of hours. If you turned 31 this year, you have until 1 July to avoid a fee loading on private health cover, but experts say there’s no need to panic-buy.
A chaotic world order and rising tensions with Beijing are pushing Scott Morrison to overcome fear of “negative globalism”, writes Jonathan Pearlman: “The Morrison government has finally realised that strengthening international institutions and embracing multilateralism is preferable to the alternative – which would involve relying on either Trump or Xi to steer the world out of the current economic and health crisis.”
Facebook’s hate speech crisis has been a long time in the making – and shows no sign of going away. On Friday, Unilever, one of the world’s largest advertisers, with a portfolio of products that ranges from Marmite to Vaseline, suddenly announced it was pulling all advertising from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter in the US. Within hours the tech giant was scrambling to provide a response. But Alex Hern says campaigners have found Facebook’s weak spot.
Listen
On Full Story: Covid-19 and the long history of ignoring women in medical research. Around the world men and women are responding differently to Covid-19, yet few countries are taking note of these differences. Gabrielle Jackson examines the resulting knowledge gap and the repercussions for how women and gender-diverse people are treated in our medical system.
Sport
Ben Stokes is preparing to step up as England captain for the first Test against West Indies next week. Joe Root is expected to miss the series opener in Southampton which starts on 8 July, with his wife, Carrie, due to give birth this week.
The surge in Covid-19 cases in Victoria and strict new quarantine regulations issued by the Queensland government has further disrupted the recently restarted AFL season. Queensland will require any Queensland team, or team based in the state, to quarantine for 14 days if they play against a team from Melbourne.
Media roundup
The Australian reports Chinese tech giant Huawei is pushing for greater access to universities and security agencies under the government’s 2020 cybersecurity strategy. In the Sydney Morning Herald: the south pole has been warming at triple the global average, as natural variability joins with climate change to produce an abrupt shift in temperature trends. Melbourne community TV station Channel 31 has been saved from the axe and will continue to broadcast for at least another 12 months, reports the Herald Sun.
Coming up
Queensland will make an announcement about the future of its borders after a cabinet meeting yesterday.
Seven News reporter Amelia Brace will testify to a US House committee after being assaulted by police during a Black Lives Matter rally near the White House.
And if you’ve read this far …
A 66m-year-old murder mystery has finally been solved: researchers say an enormous asteroid struck the killer blow for the dinosaurs. The Cretaceous/Paleogene extinction event resulted in about 75% of plants and animals – including non-avian dinosaurs – being wiped out. But the driving cause of the catastrophe has been a topic of hot debate.
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