Good morning. Climate policies are front and centre today, with the Greens set to launch its policy, which will push for a new levy on coal exports, and renewed climate brawling continues in the Coalition.
Private schools have received an extra $10bn in “special deals” since 2018, while public schools were underfunded by at least $6.5bn every year, according to a report. The study by education economist Adam Rorris details the legacy of special treatment of private schools including $4.6bn of transitional funding after the Gonski 2.0 reforms and $750m of jobkeeper wage subsidies. Transition arrangements will see non-government schools continue to receive more than 80% of the resourcing standard until 2028. These include Haileybury in Victoria, which will get a total of $25m above that level from 2022 to 2028; Trinity grammar school in NSW with an extra $16.8m; Monte Sant’ Angelo in NSW with $15.3m; and Brisbane grammar school with $13.9m. The AEU federal president, Correna Haythorpe, said the Morrison government had “shamelessly established and consolidated a deep inequity in Australian education, to the detriment of the overwhelming majority of students who attend public schools”.
The former attorney general Christian Porter rejected a plea for mercy from six Indonesians who said they were wrongly jailed as children using unreliable evidence, telling them they had no chance of success despite their lawyers pointing to a landmark ruling years earlier finding a miscarriage of justice in a similar case. Federal police policy dictated that, as children, they should have been sent home. Instead, the police relied on a flawed technique using wrist X-rays to prove their adulthood. Five of the six boys pleaded guilty after being charged as adults, meaning the evidence about their ages wasn’t tested in court. The boys were convicted and jailed in maximum security facilities, before being released and returned home to Indonesia in 2011.
Vladimir Putin has warned any countries attempting to interfere in Ukraine would be met with a “lightning-fast” response from Moscow. In an address to lawmakers in St Petersburg, the Russian president said troops would use “all the tools for this – ones that no one can brag about”. Russia has warned other EU customers may be cut off from Russian natural gas supplies if they refuse to pay in roubles. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov’s comments came after Russia halted gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, a move that European leaders denounced as “blackmail”, which the Kremlin later denied.
Australia
Only 1.6% of private rental properties in Australia are affordable for minimum wage earners and all but zero for those on benefits, Anglicare’s annual snapshot has found. The snapshot calls for a 50% rise in rent assistance payments, more social housing and changes to the tax system.
The Coalition last year required big polluters to pay an estimated $15m for carbon credits, using a policy that Scott Morrison now falsely describes as “Labor’s sneaky carbon tax”.
Labor has raised grave concerns about the home affairs minister’s use of “privileged access to intelligence reporting”, after Karen Andrews publicly alluded to a potential attempt by China at interference in the federal election.
Homeowners in the outer suburbs of major cities are facing a “huge cliff” in coming years as their fixed-rate loans expire and they are hit with higher interest rates, analysts say. Inflation jumped in March, sparking expectations of a cash rate rise before the election.
About 420 Victorian public school teachers have been stood down for failing to meet Covid vaccination requirements. Just over half had failed to get a booster shot before the March deadline.
How does your area compare for housing stress, socioeconomic disadvantage and income? In the first of a series about Australian electorates, we look at inequality and wealth.
The world
Emmanuel Macron has narrowly dodged being hit by a bag of tomatoes during a surprise visit to a working-class area north of Paris, as he promised a new style of “listening to people” after his re-election as president.
Prince Andrew has been stripped of his honorary freedom of the city after a unanimously decision by York city councillors, who also called on Andrew to relinquish his Duke of York title.
Up to 40% of the world’s land is now classed as degraded, putting the world’s ability to feed a growing population at risk, UN data has shown.
Elon Musk has engaged with tweets criticising Twitter employees despite promising not to “disparage” the company or its representatives while he completes the deal to acquire the social media platform.
Recommended reads
Susie Dee’s first work at Melbourne’s La Mama theatre was as a student in the 1970s, acting in a piece called Mangoes and Grapes. Those were the only words in the script, and the play was staged in the car park. But it was a role in a 1986 production, Lilly and May, that would shape Australian theatre for decades to come when she met young playwright Patricia Cornelius. Today, Dee and Cornelius are nearly synonymous as a theatre-making duo whose productions highlight Australia’s working class, giving voice to characters rarely highlighted on Australian stages.
The internet may have killed Josh Glanc’s dirty magazine business when he was 13, but it also gave us Keyboard Cat, a song about soup and preserved Don Rickles for eternity. “I have mixed feelings about the internet. On the one hand, I can see that it is probably the greatest technological advance of our time, but on the other, it ruined my publishing business. Of course, in addition to nudes, there is no better place to find funny content. So, begrudgingly, here are my 10 favourite funny vids on the web,” he says.
“The latest inflation figures showing a 5.1% increase in prices over the past 12 months mean three things: the budget figures are already wrong, an interest rate rise next week is very likely, and last, workers have seen their real wages absolutely smashed,” writes Greg Jericho. “It is not unusual for budget figures to be wrong, but to be wrong after just one month takes some doing.”
Listen
In 2009, during the highly charged political climate around border protection, Indonesian children were wrongly jailed in Australia as adult people smugglers. This week the Western Australia court of appeal overturned their convictions and found “a substantial miscarriage of justice has occurred”. In today’s Full Story, reporter Christopher Knaus breaks down the now-discredited medical technique used by the Australian federal police to prosecute these children, and why it’s taken 12 years to have their appeal heard.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
Ben Stokes will be named England Test captain today. Given a paucity of credible alternatives in the Test side, Stokes was always the outright favourite to take over after an exhausted Root called time on his five-year tenure in the wake of England’s winless winter in Australia and the Caribbean.
Media roundup
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation will push its supporters to preference Labor over several of Scott Morrison’s most vulnerable candidates after the Liberals decided to recommend its voters give their preferences to the Jacqui Lambie Network ahead of One Nation in the Tasmanian Senate race, reports the Australian. A Sydney underworld figure, Mahmoud “Brownie” Ahmad, has been shot dead overnight, reports the Daily Telegraph.
Coming up
The foreign minister, Marise Payne, will deliver a policy address.
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