Good morning. The Reserve Bank of Australia board will meet today and is expected to raise interest rates by 0.5 percentage points, which, if it goes ahead, would be a further squeeze on households already dealing with soaring energy prices and grocery bills. Chief economist at the Commonwealth Bank, Gareth Aird, said the case for a larger increase was weak with some analysts saying inflation is already slowing. “The [June quarter] inflation data did not surprise to the upside. And whilst the annual rate increased, the quarterly pulse of inflation did not accelerate,” Aird said.
The gold medals continue to roll in for Australian athletes at the Commonwealth Games. It’s been a busy day in the pool. Emma McKeon won her 12th Commonwealth gold and 17th medal overall in the 50m butterfly, making her the Games’ most successful swimmer ever. Gold medals were also won by Matthew Levy in the men’s 50m, Kyle Chalmers in the men’s 100m freestyle, and Kaylee McKeown breaking a Games record to win women’s 200m backstroke.
The veteran Liberal MP Warren Entsch says he is open-minded about Labor’s bill to enshrine a 43% emissions reduction target if he can be convinced there is a concrete plan to achieve the cut without driving up power prices. Entsch said he was seeking advice on the bill and might lend support if the number wasn’t a “brain fart” and the target did not become an “impost on the community”. Debate on Labor’s climate targets legislation is expected to begin on Wednesday.
US House speaker Nancy Pelosi will visit Taiwan despite increasingly hostile threats from China and efforts from the Biden administration to warn her off the stop on her Asia tour, according to Taiwanese news channel TVBS and CNN. China on Monday said that its military would “not sit idly by” if the visit happened, and a visit to Taiwan would “lead to egregious political impact”.
Australia
Australia’s high gas prices could be here to stay if threats don’t turn into action, writes Peter Hannam in analysis of the gas crisis facing the country. “For now, the government and the competition watchdog are banking on growling rather than taking more forceful action to ensure the three giant LNG exporters that hold sway over 90% of the region’s gas do the right thing.”
The Australian Space Agency is investigating space debris found in farmland in southern NSW after being notified by an astrophysicist who believes it to be from a SpaceX mission.
The proposed draft change to the constitution to recognise Indigenous Australians with a voice to parliament has been released. But what will Australians be asked at a referendum, and what do we still need to know about a voice? Here’s what the government is proposing.
Independent MP Monique Ryan rebuked Coalition MPs for not wearing masks in the House of Representatives during question time. The former paediatric neurologist was speaking about the risk of long Covid when opposition MPs, most of whom were not wearing masks, interjected. She paused, pointed at the opposition benches to say “put your masks on”.
The world
Beyoncé has confirmed that she will remove an offensive term for disabled people from the lyrics of her new album after it was called “ableist” and “offensive”. Australian writer and disability advocate Hannah Diviney called Lizzo out, with her tweet going viral. Writing in Guardian Australia on Monday, Diviney lamented the use of the term in a number of songs.
A ship carrying Ukrainian grain has left the port of Odesa for the first time since the start of the Russian invasion under an internationally brokered deal to unblock Ukraine’s agricultural exports and ease a growing global food crisis. The ship, carrying 26,000 tonnes of corn, finally set sail on Monday morning following weeks of negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, led by Turkey and the United Nations.
Leaders of African countries are likely to use the next UN climate summit to push for massive new investment in fossil fuels in Africa, according to documents.
Recommended reads
Alice Pung’s young adult novel Laurinda opens with a simple epigraph: “Life is nothing but high school.” This quote, from the US writer Kurt Vonnegut, distills a confronting truth: the things that happen to us as teenagers can, and often do, follow us through our lives. Melbourne Theatre Company’s adaptation of Laurinda, co-written by comedian Diana Nguyen and Petra Kalive, magnifies this phenomenon by splitting Pung’s much-loved book between past and present. Pung, Nguyen and Kalive reflect on the beloved story of a girl navigating high school – Mean Girls meets Fight Club, with an Asian Australian twist.
The chart-topping Instagram rival app, BeReal, demands a sudden and unfiltered photo at an unpredictable time each day. Michael Sun is not sold. “The aim is to offer an antidote to the manicured worlds of other platforms and all their algorithmic anxiety. But when the invite rolls in, I think, “be real?” Like anyone else who did drama in high school, I am barely even being real in real life: exaggeration is my baseline; hyperbole is my bread and butter.”
Listen
In today’s Full Story, reporter Joe Hinchliffe and Jane Lee unpack questions about race and cultural bias in the deaths of three children under hospital supervision, and haematologist Associate Prof Nada Hamad explains how racism impacts healthcare in Australia.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
Australia is leading a group of cycling nations pushing for better safety measures to prevent a repeat of the horror crash at the Commonwealth Games on Sunday. The AusCycling performance director, Jesse Korf, said he was speaking to a number of his counterparts about presenting a “united front” to the governing body.
Media roundup
The federal government’s Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership has laid out a blueprint for fixing the teacher shortage by recruiting university-educated workers and pay rises of up to 40% for the best teachers, the Australian reports. Indigenous Country Liberal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has told the ABC she will “probably not” be working to support a referendum on an Indigenous voice to parliament, saying there were more pressing issues facing Indigenous communities.
Coming up
The House of Representatives and the Senate are both sitting, with question time at 2pm.
A judgment is expected in the Clive Palmer defamation case against the Western Australian premier Mark McGowan.
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