ALL THE WAGE

ACTU Secretary Sally McManus has unveiled a six-point-plan to improve wages and reform industrial relations laws to allow sector-wide bargaining.

The Australian ($) reports that the ACTU’s “Change The Rules” campaign will specifically push to give workers the protected right to strike in support of sector-wide pay disputes, with McManus arguing that “enterprise-only bargaining is failing to deliver” meaningful results for workers.

Other plans include lifting the minimum wage, reversing penalty rate cuts, strengthening action against wage theft by employers, increasing the legal ­capacity to pursue rates of pay and condition claims at the Fair Work Commission, and establishing a specialist “pay equity panel” to achieve equal pay for women.

RAIL’S PACE

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will today pledge $5 billion to finally, at long last, build a rail link to Melbourne airport.

The Herald Sun ($) reports that plans for the rail link will form the largest piece of infrastructure investment in the May federal budget, and that the Prime Minister wrote to Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews last night to ask for a 50-50 federal funding split, supplemented by potential private funding, to build a project that could cost up to $15 billion.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has confirmed support for the project. The project could begin construction as early as 2020.

BBC PRESENTER FLOPS

Finally, and further cementing Australia’s dominance over water at the Commonwealth Games, a BBC journalist has slipped mid-interview into a pool and subsequently ruined his recording gear.

As The Guardian reports, sports presenter Mike Bushell’s attempt to interview a group of England swimming champions, including Sarah Vasey and Adam Peaty, ended in a big old flop over the almost-invisible second pool step, a group of delighted looking swimmers, and, unknown to Bushell at the time, his mic eventually going dead from water damage. The article currently tops the list of most viewed in Australia, because of course it does.

Add to this fact Australia has more than doubled England’s current gold medal tally, and it is an awfully smug time to be a sports fan Down Under.

THEY REALLY SAID THAT?

Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and ‘smart!’ You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!

Donald Trump

Just the leader of the free world publicly taunting his No. 1 diplomatic rival with missiles aimed at a key ally, and earning an instant response from Russia’s foreign ministry suggesting that, “smart missiles should fly towards terrorists, and not elected governments”.

But don’t worry, this is hardly the kind of thing that turns fraught relations into full blown war. Now, to take a gulp of this piping hot (soy) latte and open literally any history book…

READ ALL ABOUT IT

China puts Malcolm Turnbull’s government into the deep freeze ($)

Victoria Police to be equipped with semi-automatic rifles

Josh Frydenberg makes peace offering to ACT before D-day for energy deal

Greens MPs cautiously welcome push for members to elect federal leader

Julie Bishop joins world leaders in backing Syrian air strike ($)

Australian Medical Association lashes ALP for block on NDIS ($)

Prime Minister’s Department employee faces court amid allegations of indecent acts against minors

Next move is up, and it’ll shock, says RBA

Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg says his own data was shared with Cambridge

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Melbourne

  • Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio will address the National Energy Guarantee, Victoria’s renewable target, and other energy market concerns in a speech to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia.

  • At a BirdLife Melbourne community forum, Acting Head of Conservation Dr Jenny Lau and volunteer Sue Guinness will call for direct government action in improving national environment laws or risk the further extinction of unique Australian birds.

Canberra

  • Former Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer will donate his rifle, one of the first guns to be handed in for registration under the Port Arthur-inspired National Firearms Agreement 1996, to the Museum of Australian Democracy.

  • Two day Biennial Rural Health Symposium begins, with an address from Nationals Deputy and Federal Minister of Rural Health, Senator Bridget McKenzie.

  • Launch of “A matter of trust: Dayaks and Z Special Unit operatives in Borneo, 1945” at Australian War Memorial, an exhibition set to explore the unique relationships built between Z Special Unit operatives, who would later evolve into today’s Special Forces, and Borneo’s Indigenous Dayak people, who served together during the latter stages of World War II.

Perth

  • Opposition Leader Leader Bill Shorten will continue his week in Perth with a trip to Armadale alongside WA Premier Mark McGowan.

Adelaide

  • River Murray irrigator, the Renmark Irrigation Trust, will be honoured as the first irrigation scheme in the world to be certified for quality water management by Global Alliance for Water Stewardship.

Sydney

  • Four rescue dogs will graduate as service animals for war veterans from the Defence Community Dogs (DCD) program, a Corrective Services NSW initiative.

  • First creditors meeting for Red Lea Chicken since the company was placed in voluntary administration.

Wellington

  • New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and two of her ministers will make an announcement concerning the future of oil and gas exploration.

  • New Zealand Climate Change Minister James Shaw will announce the  country’s latest greenhouse gas inventory figures.

THE COMMENTARIAT

We must fix the foundation of our energy policy to get out of the current mess — Frank Jotzo, Salim Mazouz, Dylan McConnell and Hugh Saddler (The Guardian): “On Wednesday energy minister Josh Frydenberg called for ‘sensible, workable, affordable market-based solutions’, warning that the alternative is ‘policy paralysis’. Let’s hope that the National Energy Guarantee (Neg) policy blueprint that will be put to the Coag energy council next week is up to it. The Energy Security Board (ESB) – the body responsible for developing the Neg – released a consultation paper in February which canvassed a number of Neg design options that certainly did not measure up.”

Mueller’s off the leash, Trump should be put on one — The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board (via The Australian $): “The FBI raid on lawyer Michael Cohen this week raises the political and legal stakes in the vast prosecutorial investigation into Donald Trump. The probe into allegations of Trump campaign collusion with Russia has careened into a dive into the dumpster of a payoff to a porn actress to keep quiet about an alleged affair with Trump. This is the way of special prosecutors, and Washington seems headed towards a fight-to-the-end between the President and his enemies.”

CRIKEY QUICKIE: THE BEST OF YESTERDAY

Just what does it take to end a US presidency?Charlie Lewis

“The handling of the documents by the ABC — including the failure of the broadcaster to involve its senior investigative journalists and instead leaving the handling entirely to [Michael] McKinnon and junior press gallery journalist Ashlynne McGhee — has dismayed and angered many ABC staff who believe a rich journalistic resource was handed back to the government untapped, in response to government pressure.”

The most revealing quotes from Zuckerberg’s Congress testimonyMeg Watson

“Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was hauled in front of the principalCongress overnight for the first of two hearings regarding the company’s protection of users’ data. Though the inquisition has been kicked off by the data harvesting of Cambridge Analytica and its associated connections to the US 2016 presidential election, the hearing covered a number of topics related to the company at large.”

Old Tassie is at war with the new in a fight for this cycle trailGuy Rundle

“There are three mountain bikes leaning against the terrace of the Corner Café — speciality brownies with beetroot, local grown — in the main street of Scottsdale, in north-east Tassie, rolling dairyland. At my table, Glenn Moore, a tall man with an expression permanently between bemusement and bewilderment, looks out across the country beyond the town.”

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