Julia Gillard says progress on gender equality is ‘really glacial’

Former Australian prime minister issues warning that young men’s thinking on the issue is going backward

Former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard has said global progress on gender equality is “really glacial and slow” as she warned that it is going backwards among young people.

Gillard cited recent polling by King’s College London’s Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, which showed that 51% of respondents believe that men are doing too much to support gender equality, while 46% think that men are now discriminated against.

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The winners and losers of Australia’s proposed electoral redistribution explained

Labor has lost a key seat in Victoria but could replace it by picking up a newly created electorate in Western Australia

The Australian Electoral Commission has announced proposed new boundaries for federal electorates in Victoria and Western Australia to be used at the next election.

A number of seats have been changed dramatically, with one seat abolished – the electorate of Higgins in Victoria – and a new one created.

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Gina Rinehart retains top spot on rich list as 200 wealthiest Australians see fortunes grow by 11%

Technology figures including Afterpay founders rise up AFR rich list rankings, reflecting ‘changing nature’ of Australian economy

Australia’s rich have continued to grow their fortunes, with the tech and property sectors creating more of our top earners, according to this year’s Australian Financial Review’s rich list.

Gina Rinehart has kept her top spot for the fifth year in a row on the annual list, which reveals the total wealth of the 200 richest people in Australia increased 11% to $624.9bn, even as the country struggled with high inflation and a cost-of-living crisis.

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Decline of the pre-work coffee: why more Australians are skipping their weekday cafe breakfasts

Employees are working from home or packing their own lunches when they go to the office – but they’re still spending on weekend brunches

More Australians are skipping their pre-work takeaway coffee and breakfast roll so they can splurge on a meal on the weekend, as the rise of hybrid work and high living costs upend spending habits.

Transactions data from digital payments platform Square shows the number of purchases at food and drink businesses between 7am and 11am on weekdays has dropped to below pre-pandemic levels, led by falls in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

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Trial results for new lung cancer drug are ‘off the charts’, say doctors

More than half of patients with advanced forms of disease who took lorlatinib were still alive after five years with no progression

Doctors are hailing “off the chart” trial results that show a new drug stopped lung cancer advancing for longer than any other treatment in medical history.

Lung cancer is the world’s leading cause of cancer death, accounting for about 1.8m deaths every year. Survival rates in those with advanced forms of the disease, where tumours have spread, are particularly poor.

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WA police formally apologise to family of Aboriginal woman who died in custody in 2014

Ms Dhu died two days after being locked up at police station after arrest for unpaid fines of $3,622

Western Australia’s police chief has formally apologised to the family and community of a 22-year-old Aboriginal woman who died in custody a decade ago.

Yamatji woman Ms Dhu, whose first name has not been used for cultural reasons, died two days after being locked up at South Hedland police station on 4 August 2014.

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‘Largest ever’ NSW coalmine plan will put pressure on state’s net zero target, watchdog says

EPA says proposal to keep Hunter Valley Operations mines going to 2050 would release almost 30m tonnes of CO2

The New South Wales environment watchdog says a plan to extend the life of a Hunter Valley coal-mining complex to 2050 is the “largest coal-mining proposal ever put forward” in the state.

Plans by Yancoal and Glencore to keep its joint-venture Hunter Valley Operations (HVO) mines in the Upper Hunter region going would see almost 30m tonnes of CO2 released, the EPA said in Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

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Gina Rinehart gifted painting of herself to National Portrait Gallery, Senate estimates told

Visitors have been flocking to the National Gallery of Australia amid the controversy over Vincent Namatjira’s painting of Rinehart, director tells hearing

The mining magnate Gina Rinehart gifted a painting of herself to Australia’s National Portrait Gallery, but there appear to be strings attached.

A Senate estimates hearing on Friday heard that the gallery’s board was processing a deed of gift made by Australia’s richest woman – an approved portrait of herself.

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Troy Thompson refuses to resign as Townsville mayor over false military service claims

Townsville’s 10 councillors join Queensland premier in calling for mayor to stand down after revelations he exaggerated his military history

Troy Thompson is under growing pressure to resign as mayor of Townsville after revelations he exaggerated his military service, with all 10 of the city’s councillors joining the Queensland premier in urging him to stand aside.

But the former One Nation candidate has dismissed the calls, writing in a Facebook post on Friday that he had “no intention to step aside as some of the naysayers would like”.

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Bruce Lehrmann appeals against federal court judgment in defamation trial that found he raped Brittany Higgins

Justice Michael Lee found former Liberal staffer was not defamed by Lisa Wilkinson and Ten during a broadcast interview with Higgins in February 2021

Bruce Lehrmann has lodged a notice of appeal against the federal court judgment in his defamation claim against Network Ten and presenter Lisa Wilkinson which found that on the balance of probabilities he raped Brittany Higgins on a minister’s couch in Parliament House in 2019.

Lehrmann has always denied the allegation and pleaded not guilty at the criminal trial of the matter, which was aborted due to juror misconduct and Higgins’ mental health was cited as the reason for no retrial.

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Ballarat to be ‘saturated’ with ads in bid to stop violence against women after spate of deaths

Victorian premier Jacinta Allan announces Australia’s first ‘saturation model’ after family violence prevention package unveiled

Ballarat will be “saturated” in messaging to change the attitudes that drive violence against women in the wake of three killings.

Victoria’s premier, Jacinta Allan, announced Australia’s first “saturation model” to prevent the increasing scourge of domestic violence on Friday. It would include a widespread advertising campaign and the use of “influencers”, and was pitched as a four-year model to be tested in the regional city before being scaled up across the state.

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Origin Energy offered to sell Eraring power station to NSW government for $544m

Exclusive: Documents reveal offer was made three years before Origin and government reached deal to keep Australia’s biggest coal-fired power station open

Origin Energy offered to sell its Eraring power station to the New South Wales government for more than half a billion dollars before announcing it would close the plant in August 2025, a document now made public reveals.

The energy company, which last week announced a pact with the government to keep the nation’s biggest coal-fired power station open for at least another two years, had offered to sell back the privatised facility for $544m during negotiations in 2021.

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Google and Apple keeping Reddit and X in app stores despite pornography due to revenue, eSafety boss says

Commissioner says companies have ‘huge disincentive’ to abide by their own policies on adult content amid discussions of age assurance technology

Australia’s online safety regulator has accused Apple and Google of financial motives in deciding not to remove Reddit and Elon Musk’s X from their app stores for hosting pornography in violation of their own policies.

Research cited in the eSafety commissioner’s online roadmap for age verification technology for adult sites last year reported that 41% of teens aged between 16 and 18 reported seeing pornography on X – more than the 37% who viewed pornography on dedicated adult sites.

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Coalition’s ex-detainee curfew amendments made regime unlawful, high court toldin high court

Exclusive: Lawyers for YBFZ argue default ankle bracelets and curfews are punitive and breach the separation of executive and judiciary

Coalition amendments beefing up the Albanese government’s regime of electronic monitoring and curfews for people released from immigration detention have been cited in the high court as a key reason to strike the laws down.

Lawyers for YBFZ, a stateless man from Eritrea challenging the laws, have argued the curfews are unconstitutional, in part, because the default is that they are imposed on all non-citizens unless the minister is satisfied the condition is not necessary to protect the community.

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Hit the road: will 24 new multimillion-dollar electric buses be left sitting in a Brisbane shed?

Brisbane city council ordered 60 of the electric vehicles, but a cut back in scheduled services means just over half may be needed

Two dozen state-of-the art, multimillion-dollar electric buses could be left sitting idle in a shed when the Brisbane Metro service starts operations this year, because it will operate less frequently than initially planned.

The system was originally designed to operate every three minutes, but it’s now planned to run every five minutes, which would require fewer vehicles.

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Nine acknowledges ‘trauma’ and need to ‘do more’ after allegations of sexual harassment and toxic culture

Mike Sneesby a signatory to all-staff email detailing response to allegations of predatory behaviour and bullying in newsrooms

Nine Entertainment has acknowledged “the trauma” caused by alleged acts of bullying, misuse of power and sexual harassment in its newsrooms and conceded to staff it needs to “do more” to make it a safe place to work.

In an all-staff email sent late on Thursday, Nine outlined its response to widespread reporting of predatory behaviour, bullying and sexual harassment by senior executives across the company.

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ABC boss rejects suggestion it ‘cowered to a News Corp pile-on’ over Laura Tingle comments

David Anderson says News Corp is ‘obsessed’ with the ABC after Tingle faces backlash over ‘racist country’ comments

The ABC managing director, David Anderson, has told Senate estimates he believes the attack on the political journalist Laura Tingle this week was a “News Corp pile-on” but denies the broadcaster’s response was “cowering”.

Justin Stevens, the public broadcaster’s news director, said on Wednesday that Tingle’s remarks at the Sydney writers’ festival did not meet the ABC’s editorial standards and that she had been counselled.

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Hundreds of Australian public servants call on government to ‘cease all military exports to Israel’

More than 300 employees of federal, state and local governments sign letter warning against Australia’s ‘complicity’ in war crimes

Hundreds of public servants from across Australia and across state and federal agencies have signed an open letter calling for the federal government to “immediately cease all military exports to Israel”.

The letter, signed by more than 300 people, notes a warning from UN experts in February that the transport of weapons or ammunition to Israel to be used in Gaza is likely to violate international humanitarian law.

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Australia politics live: government has discretion over acting on ICC arrest warrants, officials say

Meanwhile, government to rewrite visa cancellation rules after independent tribunal gave non-citizens with serious criminal convictions their visas back. Follow the day’s news live

Andrew Giles was asked why he wasn’t told about what was happening with his directive in the tribunals – why there weren’t meetings to receive updates.

He said there were meetings with his department which were taking place “pretty regularly”.

What has been unacceptable is the fact that these AAT decisions to set aside cancellations that were made under section 99 that were made by this government by my department – we were not advised, I was not told that these cancellations had been overturned by the tribunal.

That’s the issue that I’m deeply concerned about. And that’s what I’m focusing on fixing now.

There are around 30 that I’ve called up as a matter of absolute urgency and they are dealt with through the day and night.

I’m gonna get to the bottom of this – a protocol that I put in place was not adhered to, that is entirely unsatisfactory. As I said, I’m now focused on dealing with the urgent issue which is the cancellation consideration, I put in place a new protocol and I want to get to the bottom of what happened and why.

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Archibald prize 2024: Baker Boy portrait wins packing room prize

Yolŋu rapper says it was ‘an honour’ to be painted by Matt Adnate, who wins category judged by Art Gallery of New South Wales staff

A portrait of Indigenous rapper Baker Boy by Matt Adnate has won the $3,000 packing room prize in the annual Archibald prize.

The judges hailed the Victorian artist’s portrait for its accuracy and ability to capture “its kind and kindred spirits and a strong Indigenous voice through music”.

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