Good morning. An advertising cash splash by Clive Palmer’s United Australia party has increased eyeballs on its YouTube videos. More than a million Australian children have gone hungry in the past year. The Icac inquiry into Gladys Berejiklian continues today, and celebrity cook Poh Ling Yeow tells us which utensil she loves so much she would have it inked on her skin.
United Australia party has spent close to $1.2m on YouTube ads in less than two months and racked up millions of views of its videos criticising lockdowns and the government’s pandemic response. The increase in YouTube advertising – 22 times that of the next-largest amount by an Australian political party – began after the former Liberal MP Craig Kelly became the party’s parliamentary leader on 23 August. Seven of the last 18 videos uploaded to the UAP page have more than 1m views, with one featuring Kelly gaining 8.4m. A video from two months before that has just 4,800 views.
More than 1 million children went hungry in Australia in the past year and one in six adults experienced severe food insecurity, according to Foodbank’s annual Hunger Report. Some parents said their children went a whole day without eating, at least once a week. The report suggests more people are going hungry since the Covid welfare supplement and jobkeeper payments were withdrawn. Brianna Casey, the chief executive of Foodbank Australia, said income levels and the cost of living were a big part of the problem and one in three struggling to meet their food needs were “new to this situation”.
Former NSW top staffers questioned why then-treasurer Gladys Berejiklian wanted to spend $5.5m funding a clay target shooting range in the “safe seat” of Wagga Wagga, which the former MP Daryl Maguire had spent several years lobbying for, according to documents tendered to the Independent Commission Against Corruption. The anti-corruption watchdog has heard submissions that public servants within the office of sport had concerns about the project and did not understand why it had gone from being a “low priority” which hadn’t “stacked up” financially to requiring an “urgent” submission to the powerful expenditure review committee headed by Berejiklian within weeks in late 2016.
Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit to block the release of documents related to the US Capitol attack, challenging Joe Biden’s initial decision to waive executive privilege. In a federal lawsuit, the former president said the House committee investigating the incident’s request was “almost limitless in scope” and sought many records that were not connected to the siege. He called it a “vexatious, illegal fishing expedition” that was “untethered from any legitimate legislative purpose”.
Australia
More than 14,000 species of invertebrate lost habitat during Australia’s 2019-20 bushfires but scientists believe the true number of the often-overlooked animals is probably far higher.
The housing and mental health crises are converging in regional Australia as rental vacancy rates in some regions fall below 1%, increasing rental stress for low-income earners and those in unstable housing situations.
Australia’s essential services could be forced to report when they’re under cyber-attack and allow officials to “step in” to help fend off hackers. The Morrison government hopes to push through new laws before Christmas but will split the critical infrastructure bill, delaying some elements that businesses have complained would impose “red tape”.
The National Farmers’ Federation has urged the National party to support a net zero emissions reduction target, saying a failure to do so could “punish farmers” as the rest of the world decarbonises.
The NSW economy could be facing a “vicious cycle of spending and debt” with taxpayers having to spend potentially billions more on interest payments to bondholders, according to new report.
The world
A former Nazi concentration camp secretary has gone on trial for alleged complicity in the murder of more than 11,000 people, three weeks after she attempted to flee.
New research shows 99.9% of scientists agree that humans are altering the climate, prompting calls for Facebook, Twitter and the media to curb misinformation and inequitable reporting.
The suspect in the killing of UK MP David Amess was referred to the country’s counter-terrorism program, designed to turn people away from the risk of supporting violence, as a teenager in 2014.
Recommended reads
It was a shock defeat many Australians have never recovered from when Poh Ling Yeow narrowly missed out on winning the first season of MasterChef Australia. But in the years since, Yeow has become one of the country’s favourite names in food. In all her culinary explorations, she has come to rate one kitchen implement above the rest: the whisk. She tells us why she considers that tool so essential, as well as the story of two other important belongings.
Australian screen queens Marta Dusseldorp and Essie Davis were devastated when Covid upended the arts scene but found a silver lining by returning to their theatrical roots. After the pandemic hit, the pair began chatting and soon their “Covid baby” was born – The Maids. “We really wanted to work together so I started looking for plays where I could really work with Essie as opposed to going off when she came on – there are a lot of those for women – and I just fell back on The Maids,” Dusseldorp said.
When Andie Fox’s teenager daughter refused to go on a family holiday, it posed a new test of motherhood – letting go. “I have always been comfortable with the idea that my children will eventually move away from me but I had assumed it would happen slowly and somewhat later ... The rejection of us as parents by teenagers hurts, in part, because while we are becoming ever more delighted by the increasing sophistication of their humour and the boldness of their thinking, they are simultaneously becoming less enamoured with ours. But the pain is also undeniably existential.”
Listen
When the Taliban took Kabul in August the international sporting community became particularly worried about one group of athletes – the women’s national football team. In today’s Full Story, audio producer Ellen Leabeater speaks to the global activists, lawyers, politicians and footballers who banded together to evacuate the women and bring them to Australia.
The escape of the Afghanistan women’s football team
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
Australian basketball player Ben Simmons has been suspended by the Philadelphia 76ers for one game due to conduct detrimental to the team.
Unvaccinated tennis players and other athletes are unlikely to get visas to enter Australia, Victoria’s premier, Daniel Andrews, has said, putting Novak Djokovic’s Australian Open title defence in doubt as he refuses to reveal his vaccination status.
Media roundup
Labor leaders, including Daniel Andrews and Bill Shorten, attended fundraisers that prompted the firefighters’ union boss to hold concerns the cash raised was used for branch stacking, reports the Age. NSW MPswill have to wait until next year to vote on voluntary assisted dying after the bill was sent to an upper house inquiry, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
Coming up
The search for missing Western Australian girl Cleo Smith enters its fifth day.
A report into Australia’s post-pandemic restructure needs is due.
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