Afternoon Update: Labor’s gas plan labelled ‘morally bankrupt’; China accuses Australia of ‘spying’; and Trump’s son’s new role

Welcome, readers, to the Afternoon Update.

The Albanese government’s new gas plan has been released – and has been met with criticism.

The strategy argues fossil fuel is an important part of the transition to net zero emissions and that Australia will need new sources of it to meet demand “to 2050 and beyond”.

The independent senator David Pocock called the government’s new strategy “morally bankrupt, negligent and just plain stupid”, while the Labor MP Josh Burns said “not a cent of public money” should be spent on new gas projects that don’t assist with the transition to a low-emissions economy. Teal MPs also criticised the strategy Monique Ryan saying: “We need to develop our solar and wind energy and expand storage and transmission capacity – not do deals with the multinationals for more gas exports.”

Meanwhile, the peak body representing the gas industry welcomed the strategy, saying it would provide “clear direction on national energy policy that supports the central role of gas in the economy and Australia’s energy transformation”.

Top news

• China accuses Australia of ‘spying’ after navy flare-up | China’s defence ministry spokesperson, Sr Col Zhang Xiaogang, said HMAS Hobart sent the helicopter up three times to conduct “close-in reconnaissance and disturb the normal training activities of the Chinese side”. Anthony Albanese has not directly responded to the spying claims, but has said there was “no question” that defence was operating in international waters and airspace.

• GP deregistered for year after homophobic and anti-vaccination posts | A Melbourne doctor who posted homophobic and anti-vaccination content to social media, and described hospitals as “death chambers,” has had his medical registration cancelled until February. The Victorian civil and administrative tribunal (Vcat) found the posts from general practitioner Dr Michael Ellis had “the potential to influence the choices made by members of the public as to their healthcare” and “denigrated or demeaned groups within society”.

• Google Cloud accidentally deletes UniSuper’s online account | More than half a million UniSuper fund members went a week with no access to their superannuation accounts after a “one-of-a-kind” Google Cloud “misconfiguration” led to the financial services provider’s private cloud account being deleted, Google and UniSuper have revealed.

• New details emerge of ethnic cleansing in Darfur | Gruesome new testimony details one of the worst atrocities of the year-long Sudanese civil war – the large-scale massacre of civilians as they desperately tried to flee an ethnic rampage in Darfur last summer. Witnesses describe children, still alive, being “piled up and shot” by Rapid Support Forces (RSF) as they attempted to escape the regional capital of Geneina in June last year during a bout of ethnic violence in which thousands of civilians were killed.

• Police shoot and kill Black US airman in Florida home | Deputies responding to a disturbance call at a Florida apartment complex burst into the wrong unit and fatally shot a Black US air force airman who was home alone when they saw he was armed with a gun, an attorney for the man’s family said Wednesday. Snr Airman Roger Fortson, 23, who was based at the special operations wing at Hurlburt Field, was in his off-base apartment in Fort Walton Beach when the shooting happened on Friday.

• Barron Trump chosen as Florida delegate to Republican convention | The 18-year-old son of Donald Trump will serve as one of 41 at-large delegates from Florida to July’s national gathering, where the GOP is set to officially nominate his father as its presidential candidate for the November US election.

• Macklemore performs pro-Palestine song for first time | The US rapper Macklemore has performed his new track Hind’s Hall, expressing solidarity with Palestine and condemning Israel’s military campaign, in front of a sellout crowd in New Zealand’s capital, Wellington.

• Robert F Kennedy Jr says health issue caused by dead worm in his brain | The third-party candidate for US president said a health problem he experienced in 2010 “was caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died”. Around the same time, he was also found to have mercury poisoning, which can cause neurological problems, probably due to eating a lot of fish.

• Heartbreak as injury rules Australia’s top gymnast out of Olympics | Australia’s Olympic team has been robbed of its one of its most prominent athletes after top gymnast Georgia Godwin suffered an Achilles injury in training, ruling her out of the Paris Games. The loss of the 2022 Commonwealth Games all around gold medal winner is a disastrous development for the gymnastics team, which was compounded by an injury to Australia’s top-ranked men’s trampolinist Blake Rutherford.

In pictures

‘I’ve got nowhere else to go’: as winter draws in, dozens are sleeping rough in Ballarat

People living on the shores of Ballarat’s Lake Burrumbeet say they have to choose between rent or food and petrol – and they have chosen the latter. Journalist Dellaram Vreeland tells their story.

What they said …

***

“What a joke” – Chris Minns.

The NSW premier has taken aim at a decision by a Cumberland council in Sydney to ban books on same-sex parenting, adding that the councillor who put forward the ban, Steve Christou, “should trust his own citizens enough to walk into a library and read whatever the hell they want”.

In numbers

Australia’s peak body for doctors, the Australian Medical Association, says current arrangements discourage GPs from offering in-clinic services after 6pm on weeknights and on weekends.

According to a 2022 report from the Australian College for Emergency Medicine, 39% of all presentations to emergency departments occurred between 6pm to 7.59am. The AMA has estimated the cost of greater incentives for GPs to stay open for extended hours would total $339.7m over the next three years.

Before bed read

Growing up gay in Australia was tough. This week’s Sydney council book ban shows how far we have to go

“We like to think this isn’t a homophobic country. But as a theatre adaptation of my memoir about being gay in the 1990s tours, I can see an undercurrent of fear and hate,” writes Shannon Molloy.

Daily word game

Today’s starter word is: LINS. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.

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