Good morning. There will be a raft of reaction today after the federal budget was handed down late on Tuesday. You can build your own coverage here. A public memorial service for Shane Warne will be held tonight at the MCG after the cricket legend’s sudden death earlier this month – here’s how to get tickets or watch from home.
Josh Frydenberg is pegging his government’s re-election chances on a budget cash splash fuelled by a “remarkable” economic rebound, with $8.6bn promised for Australian households and billions of dollars of new spending for the regions, defence and infrastructure. Tuesday’s budget includes an extra tax cut for 10 million low and middle income workers aimed at softening the blow of rising inflation. The budget papers also show climate spending is expected to fall from $2bn next financial year to $1.3bn in the three years that follow. “If we move from Frydenberg’s rhetoric to content, we discover this budget isn’t a serious plan for the future crafted by serious people in serious times. This is a plan for the next few months,” writes Katharine Murphy. Here are six graphs that reveal the sugar-hit election strategy.
Russia said it would significantly cut back its military activity in northern Ukraine after “meaningful” progress at peace talks in Istanbul. Russia’s deputy defence minister, Alexander Fomin, said Moscow would “radically reduce military activity in the direction of Kyiv and Chernihiv”. However, western officials said they were “very wary” about Russian diplomatic promises and fear that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, could be seeking to take advantage of the situation. Negotiations between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations had not yet reached the point where it was possible to talk about a ceasefire, although there is a feeling that at the very least the war is entering a new phase. Meanwhile, a senior UN official has said they have seen videos purporting to show the abuse of prisoners of war on both sides in Ukraine.
Scott Morrison has been labelled an “autocrat [and] a bully who has no moral compass” by Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells in an extraordinary attack last night in parliament. The senator – who has recently been relegated to an unwinnable spot on the Liberal party’s NSW Senate ticket – used a late-night speech in the upper house to say that Morrison was “not fit to be prime minister” and claimed he had “destroyed the Liberal party” through recent interventions in NSW branch preselections.
Australia
Locals who were just getting back on their feet have again faced rising flood waters in Lismore, Mullumbimby and Tumbulgum.“Everyone panicked yesterday afternoon and we helped them move out, people weren’t taking any second chances” one resident said. “No one wanted to go back to square one.”
Brisbane religious school Citipointe Christian college restricted its school counsellors from providing any support to students on matters of sexuality or gender identity last month, amid uproar about new “discriminatory” enrolment contracts.
A bid to reform NSW’s out-of-home-care system is in peril after the suspension of MP Gareth Ward from parliament. The Family Is Culture bill would for the first time require magistrates to “presume” an inherent harm in removing Aboriginal children from their families, but supporters are now concerned they lack the numbers to pass the bill after Ward’s suspension.
Infrastructure experts have raised questions about pre-election rail promises from both Liberal and Labor, saying the announcements from the major parties lack detail.
The world
The panel investigating the US Capitol insurrection is reportedly looking at a “possible cover-up” of White House records focusing on Donald Trump’s phone logs, which bear an unexplained gap of seven hours over the period when the violence was unfolding.
Boris Johnson has not formally accepted that the law was broken despite police saying 20 fixed-penalty notices would be issued for breaches of Covid rules after allegations of lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street.
Prince Andrew has prompted controversy after playing a unexpectedly prominent role escorting the Queen into a memorial service for his father, Prince Philip, in the disgraced royal’s first public appearance since settling the sexual assault case filed against him by Virginia Giuffre.
Police in Canada have laid a new charge against a “devil priest” hiding in France amid allegations he sexually abused multiple Inuit children.
Recommended reads
As a teenager watching Iron Chef, Adam Liaw was spellbound. And now Netflix has announced the return of Iron Chef to our streaming screens later this year, much to Liaw’s excitement. “However ridiculous Iron Chef may have seemed, its influence on cooking programming has been genre-defining. It was perhaps the first instance of competitive cooking on television, rather than instructional and domestic shows … Chefs cooking dishes as entertainment was something completely new. These were dishes we were never meant to recreate. There were no instructions given or asked for. This was cooking purely as sport. Purely as art.”
You may have seen Claire Hooper co-hosting The Great Australian Bake Off or appearing on Channel Ten’s The Project. But Hooper’s first love was actually the stage, where she started out crafting live shows that blended standup and theatre. Over the next fortnight, Hopper is going back to her roots with a new show, titled Tea, which she will perform as part of the Melbourne international comedy festival. It is her fondness for theatre – and the accompanying costumes – that prompts her to name a sewing machine as her most helpful possession.
“Looking back on my first months of breastfeeding, I really had no idea how to breastfeed and what it meant to breastfeed, both physically and psychologically,” writes Lucille Wong. “I started breastfeeding three years ago when my first child was born. Until that point, my breasts were largely covered, cleavage controlled and nipples never shown. So I felt very exposed when every midwife in the maternity ward would come in and (wo)manhandle my breasts, jamming my nipple into my daughter’s tiny mouth.”
Listen
It’s the budget that is meant to set up the Coalition to win the upcoming federal election. But will a short-sighted budget without a vision for the future in such uncertain times be enough to keep Scott Morrison prime minister? Laura Murphy-Oates discusses the details of the budget with editor Lenore Taylor, political editor Katharine Murphy, political reporter Paul Karp, columnist Greg Jericho and economics correspondent Peter Hannam for today’s Full Story.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
The Socceroos are taking on Saudi Arabia for the 2022 World Cup qualifier – follow the live blog here.
Mick Fanning will return to professional surfing four years after announcing his retirement after being awarded a wildcard for the upcoming Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach event.
Media roundup
The ABC reports the Australian Border Force has reiterated it can and will cancel visas for those who provide false information, after China lodged a diplomatic protest over the treatment of a Chinese student at Sydney airport. Queensland MP Andrew Laming has been ordered to repay $10,000 in travel expenses, the Brisbane Times reports. Simple mistakes caused seven out of 10 road deaths in Victoria in 2017, and will be the focus of a new road safety campaign in the lead up to the Easter holidays, says the Herald Sun.
Coming up
The treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, will make a post-budget address.
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