Good afternoon. The Liberal party’s ‘no’ on the Indigenous voice has enraged moderate Liberal members, and drawn accusations of betrayal from respected Indigenous leaders. Ken Wyatt has reportedly quit the party in response.
Noel Pearson, one of the nation’s most senior Indigenous leaders, delivered a stinging rebuke to opposition leader Peter Dutton, accusing him of “chucking Indigenous Australians and the future of the country under the bus so he can preserve his miserable political hide”.
Meanwhile, violence continued for a second day in Jerusalem with another Israeli police raid on al-Aqsa mosque.
A special note: we will not be sending either the Morning Mail or Afternoon Update on Good Friday or Easter Monday. Enjoy the long weekend, and see you on Tuesday!
Top news
Liberal fallout after ‘no’ decision | Liberal MP Bridget Archer has broken ranks with her party, saying she will campaign for a yes vote. She was backed by Australia’s only Liberal premier, Tasmania’s Jeremy Rockliff, who said he will campaign “vigorously” in support of the voice. There are also reports that Ken Wyatt, the former Indigenous affairs minister in the Morrison government, has quit the party as a result of the voice decision.
Inland rail ‘managed really badly’ | The Albanese government will prioritise delivering half of the Melbourne-Brisbane Inland Rail freight megaproject after an independent review found serious governance failures, delays and “astonishing” cost blowouts in the project, labelled “1,700km of Liberal National incompetence”. The government will commit to building a stretch of the line from outside Melbourne to Parkes in NSW by 2027. The project, if delivered, has the potential to take 200,000 trucks off roads.
Platypus spotted travelling on Brisbane train | Police are appealing for the return of a platypus believed to have been taken from the wild and transported on a Brisbane train. Two people were spotted boarding the train at Morayfield on Tuesday with a platypus wrapped in a towel. There are fears for the mammal’s survival.
NSW bans TikTok on government devices | The state will follow the federal government and Victoria in banning the Chinese social media app on government-issued devices. The premier, Chris Minns, also said he would stop using the app.
ChatGPT’s potential first world defamation lawsuit | … could happen in Australia. Brian Hood, the mayor of Hepburn shire, 120km north-west of Melbourne, became concerned about his reputation when members of the public told him ChatGPT had falsely named him as a guilty party in a foreign bribery scandal involving a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Australia in the early 2000s. Hood said he may sue OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, after the software company failed to respond to a letter from Hood’s lawyers requesting a correction.
Israeli raid on al-Aqsa mosque | Israeli police have raided Islam’s third holiest site for a second time, hours after the arrest and forced removal of more than 350 Palestinians in a police raid at the compound, and despite a US appeal to ease tensions. The Palestinian Red Crescent said 12 Palestinians were injured in the earlier clash, including from rubber-tipped bullets and beatings. Israeli police said two officers were injured.
US speaker urges Taiwan arms sales | The US House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, has called for urgent arms sales to Taiwan on a “very timely basis” following a meeting with the Taiwanese president, Tsai Ing-wen, in Los Angeles. That seemed to have stirred Beijing, with reports from Taipei of Chinese military activity shortly after the meeting about 370km off the main island’s coastline.
Mike Pence to testify to January 6 grand jury | The former vice-president will not appeal an order compelling him to testify in the US justice department investigation of Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. That clears the way for Pence to appear before a grand jury in Washington, after an order to testify was handed last week.
Air pollution’s dementia risk | Experts are calling for stricter air pollution targets around the world to tackle dementia. More than 57 million people worldwide are living with dementia, and accumulating evidence suggests air pollution may contribute to the risk of developing the disease.
Full Story
The case for the four-day work week
With the Easter break coming up, for many of us, this is a four-day work week. But what if every week was like this? Listen to this 20-minute episode.
What they said …
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“I couldn’t sleep last night. I was troubled by dreams and the spectre of the Dutton Liberal party’s Judas betrayal of our country.” – Noel Pearson
In numbers
The Greens have floated the idea as a cost-of-living relief measure and to reduce carbon emissions.
Before bed read
There is no equivalent to the heights of love, nor its crushing depths. It grinds you to whiteness, a famous poet once wrote. Annabelle Thorpe shares a morsel of the pain of going through a divorce in this revealing book excerpt.
“It was the sock drawer that broke me. Left half-open and completely emptied, somehow it signified the final, irreversible death knell of my marriage, a hard stop in a meandering nightmare that had been going on for months.”
Daily word game
Today’s starter word is: VAR. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.
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